The problem with fountain pens and related items is they tend to... multiply,, as you end up buying more and more of them even though you don't really need all of them. And the pens aren't exactly... cheap, unless you intentionally limit yourself to buy the lowest end of the market, i.e. Chinese (and sometimes, Indian) pens. And these are so generic, you may decry the lack of "quality". But is it really that lacking? And let's also discuss two alternative sources of fountain pens that are a bit better, but with their own set of risks and rewards.
There is another source of pens... used vintage pens on sale at eBay, Mercari, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and so on. Fountain pens lasts almost forever with some proper maintenance, unless they suffer catastrophic damage like broken barrel. Usually nibs or nib units can be replaced, and internal bits can also be replaced with rebuilt or replacement parts. Eyedropper conversion may also be possible (where with addition of O-ring, the entire interior of barrel is converted into an ink reservoir. The sellers can easily look up what similar items sold for, so you are unlikely to pick up something for a small fraction of its worth, However, you can pick up something vintage for not a lot of money. For example, I ordered a Schaeffer fountain pen, probably 20+ years old, with an Italic M nib, for about $25. We'll see when it gets here. Mercari will often sweeten the pot by giving you $5 credit for your first order. eBay often have coupons for certain market segments. Keep an eye out for them.
Buying Chinese for "Commodity" type pens
Chinese pens offer tremendous value with virtually no brand at all. It's all about the price. I picked up this set of 7 pens for less than $6 on Temu, and it contains a whole set of pens and nibs, preassembled, with nib sizes as follows: 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0. And these aren't dip pens, but cartridge fillers with converter included. So what we have here is M, B, 1.0 stub, 1.5 stub, 2.0 stub, 2.5 rake, and 3.0 rake. While I doubt I'll get much of a chance to use the super-wides, I probably will ink up the 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 and try them.
Also, if you plan to share the hobby, you probably should buy some REALLY cheap Chinese fountain pens to give away. Recently Chinese markets are flooded with the retractable tip fountain pens with plastic barrels and if you buy 4, it's just $3.59 on Temu. And yes, it has ink. You would rather lose these than your $25 pen, or godforbid, $250 pen, right? I actually bought one of these before, in .38 nib, and it's actually VERY smooth writing pen.
I also picked up a glass dip pen for $1.99, just for funsies, and a desk pen holder for it also for $1.99. I have plenty of ink for the moment, that's mainly for show and funsies.
Ever thought about buying Indian?
If you want something with a bit more support, another source of pens that's slightly more premium with a good choice of nibs, but still very affordable, is Fountain Pen Revolution of Texas. They have a hook up with fountain pen factories in India so they can offer brand new fountain pens that don't look like generic Chinese pens, yet are affordable starting as low as $15, with some premium versions costing quite a bit more, of course. Their pens use either #5.5 or #6 nibs. And they can be fully disassembled for cleaning and some parts replaced if need be, esp. the nib and feed. I actually ordered 2 pens from them, with 2 extra nibs and feeds that's a bit different. The two Kanwrite pens are about $25-35 each with premium flex and omniflex nib. I've already received them and I need to ink them up and test them this weekend. Checking their catalog shows that they have some brand new but older model pens, such as the Darjeeling V1, that starts at $15.
In conclusion
Not all of us can afford to buy an Esterbrook Estee, a Pelikan M800, much less a Namiki Emperor. However, that should not stop you from enjoy the hobby. You can look for a sale, or you can simply shop the lower end of the market, and enjoy the different nibs and designs available on the lower end of the market.
NOTE: This is not an encyclopedia entry, so I can't list EVERY single nib available.
One of the more interesting aspects of fountain pen collecting is the wide nib variation available, and the existence of custom nibs, so you can truly customize the writing experience.
What is a Nib?
To put it plainly, the nib is how the ink, stored in your fountain pen's reservoir, gets down to the paper via the feed. It's the metal bit.
Most bits are exposed, but there are also integrated nibs (built into the barrel), recessed nibs, and even retractable nibs (Pilot's Vanishing Point is the most famous).
Some nibs are integrated into the feed, creating nib units, so you must replace them together. While other pens allow you to mix and match different nibs and feeds, as long as they fit together back into the barrel. The feed itself can be made of plastic or ebonite, which is a type of rubber.
Then we come to nib "sizes", "materials", and "tips" or "grinds".
Nib Sizes
The first fountain pens were hand-made, and only when industrial age came along that nibs are mass produced, and became standardized. However, each penmaker has their own designation for certain sizes, depending on the pen barrel size they offer. Bock nibs, for example, have a single digit number, like #6 nib, while JoWo nibs, have a 3 digit number.
A single penmaker can offer nibs in multiple sizes. Sailor, for example, offers 3 different nib sizes, one per product line, each of different material and tip design availability.
Generally speaking, the larger the nib, the more "flexible" it would be (see next section on material), and the more ink it can deliver, resulting in "wetter" and smoother writing experience. However, the material used will also matter.
Nib Materials
The nibs can be made of different materials. The earliest inks are corrosive, which means you can't use hard metals like steel. Instead, gold-laminated or gold-plated metals all the way up to gold alloys are used for their anti-corrosive properties, and that drives up costs. To increase hardness in the softer nibs, the tips of nibs are often made of iridium. But the high cost of iridium lead to it being replaced with cheaper metals since the 1950s. A common replacement is Rhodium. However, some pen makers still make iridium tipped pen nibs as a part of their premium line (with corresponding high prices).
NOTE: the color of the nib does NOT indicate the material of the nib. Nibs can plated with other metals to present as silver/steel, gold or even black. Some tips are two-toned.
The nib material affects the amount the nib tip flexes, which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your writing style. A rigid nib means your writing will exhibit the same width no matter which direction you write, while a flexible tip (or just "flex nib") means your writing will appear to be more ornate, more resemble older style dip pen output or calligraphic output, as because you can vary the line width by varying the pressure you exert on the tip, which then affects the amount of ink transferred to the paper. But exerting too much force on the can damage the tip.
NOTE: An "ideal" fountain pen should require ZERO effort to write... as you simply move the pen, the tip barely touching the paper, ink flow smoothly, and line was created effortlessly, no matter which way your pen stroke goes.
Nib Tip Designs
The nib tip design itself, the part that actually touches the paper, affects the final delivery of the ink, and thus have great effect on the final output. The "shape" of the contact patch (where tip touches the paper) affects the line being drawn, in both size and shape. And one can further change the contact patch by either changing the angle the pen is held, or use a non-round tip which will produce output that differ depending on the direction of motion. And this lead to a whole range of tip designs for different purposes.
If you want to see the output of these nib tips, go to GouletPens.s "Nib Nook" which contains sample output from most of the pens they've ever sold, all tips, and all nib materials, and put several pens side by side for comparison.
The tip designs are sometimes called nib grinds, as it is possible for "nibsmiths" to modify an existing tip into a custom grind (which we will discuss next section "Custom Nibs").
Generally speaking, the finer the tip, the less ink it delivers, and therefore the "drier" it will feel. Conversely, the wider the tip, the more ink it uses, and the smoother and wetter it feels.
Most tips you see and buy nowadays are round, and the most popular sizes of the round tips are named EF (extra fine), F (fine), M (medium), and B (bold or broad). But there is no standard definition of such. Generally speaking, a Japanese pen would have thinner lines than their their European counterparts, even if they have the same tip size label (F, for example), due to Japanese emphasis on smaller tighter and more complex characters, and generally Chinese pens lean the same way. Also keep in mind that the exact width of the line drawn will depend on the ink and paper combination as well.
Kaweco offers a "double broad", or "BB", which obviously, is even broader than broad, and relatively rare. Pilot has a "coarse" (C) nib which is roughly equivalent to double broad.
A somewhat less common tip design is called "stub", sometimes "italic". This tip is not round at the bottom, but it's actually flat, or more accurately, a rounded rectangle. This generally results it writing fat vertical lines, but thin horizontal lines, and may be available in multiple sizes, and sold as "calligraphic fountain pens", due to its ability to write a Gothic type script. They are often available in 1.0 or 1.1mm, 1.5mm, some may go as far as 1.9 / 2.0 mm. If you add a slant to the stub/italic tip, you turn the tip into an "oblique" tip. Lamy's "left-handed" (LH) nib is considered an oblique nib, making it one of the few "factory" oblique nib available.
An even less common nib is the "architect nib", also known as "Arab/Hebrew nib" due to it often used to write the cursive required in those languages. Very interestingly, Lamy calls their version the "cursive" nib, also nicknamed the "Hanzi" nib because it's labelled with the CJK character 漢 implying that it's better for Asian writing, I guess? FWIW, architect nibs are really named after the blocky print style architects often use. And even these come in variations, as some are curved, so it's more forgiving, while others are optimized for a single holding angle and going off it means the pen will no longer write properly.
Another rare nib is the "fude nib", as it looks like a nib with a upward bent tip at the very end, as if it's broken. But it's that way because it can vary the line width DEPENDING ON the angle it's held at. Hold it steeper, and it will produce a thinner line, while holding it flatter to the paper, and and you get broad strokes. It is meant to emulate a Japanese brush pen. There are Chinese "art pens" that are very cheap with this nib.
Lamy has a special "beginner nib" called the "A" nib that's VERY round and spherical, and very easy to write with on their beginner fountain pens, the Lamy ABC series, designed for children, but it's also available for their Nexx and Pelikano lines as well, all of which fits below the popular Safari line.
Recently, some new interesting nibs came out of China: the "heartbeat nib", and the "long knife" nib. In most nibs, the dividing line that separates the nib into two tines is a straight line. But the heartbeat nib added two "heartbeats" to that. Long knife nib, aka "long blade nib", is marketed by Hongdian / Kaigelu brand of pens (same group of penmakers as Asvine). It is not clear whether long knife and long blade are the same nib, or are they referring to two different nib families. One Reddit post claims "long blade" is a Chinese take on the architect nib (see above), while "long knife" is a Chinese take on the naginata-togi nib (zoom + architect) which is explained below under custom nibs.
For those who find EF is not thin enough, Platinum has an UEF nib (ultra-extra fine) that is even thinner.
Sailor pens of Japan is probably best known for having some exotic tips for their nibs. In addition to the "standard" EF, F, M, and B, they also have MF (medium fine), Z (Zoom), and MS (Music). Thanks to Brian Goulet of GouletPens.com, we know that Music is a special stub nib optimized for steep angles that gives wide variations in line width depending on pressure, and was for a while used to write music notation on music sheets, while Zoom is a tip that varies its line width depending on the angle held, similar to a fude tip, but more versatile and smoother.
Pilot actually has two more very rare tips called "posting" (P) and "waverly" (W), which are variations on their F (fine) tips. Posting nib has an upturned tip that if you apply slight pressure, you get a VERY thin line, and thus, is used on very thin paper to reduce feathering, while Waverly is a combination of "fude" and "oblique" tips, more suitable for lefties. However, they are only available on the Custom Heritage 912.
Sailor has an ultra-premium "naginata" line of 23K tips reserved for their top-of-the-line pens and not available separately. They come in the following variations: "naginata togi", "naginata emperor", "naginata fude de mannen", "naginata concord", "naginata cross point", naginata cross music, and naginata cross concord. The most famous and known of the naginata nibs are probably naginata-togi tips, which are sometimes abbreviated as NAG tips, but are also known as kodachi nibs. It is physically composed of multiple LAYER of tips. Kyuseido call their own version of this tip Sankakusen (triangle grind) as naginata togi has been trademarked by Sailor.
Custom Nibs
Most nibsmiths are subtractive artists. They can take a large nib, and grind away bits, creating a new tip that's smaller. But a few nibsmiths are also additive... and they can ADD bits to the tip to create new tip designs. Nagahara, who worked for Sailor, was the first, and many of the aforementioned naginata cross nibs are in fact, "stacked nibs" (multiple layers of nibs combined into a single nib).
One of the best contemporary stacked nib nibsmiths is Ralph of Regalia Writing Labs. And his experimental nibs are either insane or ingenious, probably both. He had a custom experimental triple-stack tip (made by welding 3 separate nibs together!), each of which is cut into 3 separate tines, so you see NINE tines in a 3x3 grid... which he called Ninth Symphony. And he has many experimental nibs that are even more elaborate.
There are other custom stacked nibs that can be used both right side up and upside down, or unique combination of angles that produce very interesting variations.
While these ultra-premium naginata-tipped pens from Sailor can cost you THOUSANDS of dollars each, a relatively simple architect grind can be done in less than an hour at a pen show, and typically cost less than $100, with the pen owner supplying the nib. Needless to say, this will completely void any warranty thereof.
White-label Nibs and Nib Units
Nib makers are a lot fewer nowadays, and may penmakers simply buy nibs from other makers. Some of the more famous nib makes are BOCK nibs from Peter Bock AG, JoWo, and Schmidt, all of whom are in Germany (and Lamy, of course) , but others that sell nibs and nib units to penmakers includes Kanwrite and Magna Carta of India.
Indeed, some of the more famous pens you buy may be using a "white-label" nib from these makers. Visconti used almost exclusively BOCK nibs. I read somewhere they try to bring it back in-house with the new gold nibs, but they have to ask Bock for help with quality control.
Japanese and Chinese penmakers tend to make their own nibs.
In Conclusion
That covers 99% of stuff you need to know about nibs, well, maybe except how to adjust them if they don't feed properly. I think GouletPens and Goldspot pens have videos on that, and if you're in New York, Fountain Pen Hospital can adjust them for you. Or wait for the annual pen show to come to a city near you. Usually multiple nibsmiths will be attending, so book some time and let them take a look if you want a pen working right.
If you have questions about fountain pen nibs, comment below and maybe I'll add them to the list.
Not quite sure how it happened, but I got food poisoning after getting out of the hospital on Tuesday. I suspect it's on Friday, when I was out walking about and picked up some snacks and dimsum, probably the snack, a mix of peanuts, edamame, and dried bait fish. My stomach started spasming couple hours later, threw up 2-3 times, ended up with NO food for 24 hours. Basically subsisted on candy and chocolate. What's worse somehow EVERY ache on my body came back, and since I can't keep any food down, no medicine would go down either. Tried taking Acetaminophen, came right back out an hour later. So it's double or triple the suffering. I count it as lesser blessing I didn't shat in my bed, but it was close.
On the other hand, the edema (fluid retention) in my calf is mostly gone. There's still some around my feet and ankles, but those would go down with time, I suspect.
It's now Sunday morning, and the symptoms from the food poisoning have mostly subsided. Got some oatmeal flavored with a bit of maple syrup. I think I'll do with half a cup for now.
Now some fountain pen talk.
One of the major criticisms for Chinese fountain pens is that they are very often... "homages" of western pens, or they are of very low quality with horrible tips. Part of it is they are often cheap as dirt compared to Western pens. You can often find full metal Chinese fountain pens for less than $5 on Chinese sites on Aliexpress, Temu, and so on. The cheapest fountain pens outside of China you'll find are disposable fountain pens like Pilot Varsity. Next step up you're looking at Platinum Preppy, at about $6-7, which is, of course, plastic. Basically, you're not going to find anything more "high-class" with metal body until you hit the $20-25 range, such as the Pilot Metropolitan, or Lamy AL-Star (which is very lightweight aluminum and costs $40-60 unless you shop around, and looks exactly like its cheaper cousin, the resin-based Lamy Safari, which is 30-40)
As I said, you can get a very nice full metal WEIGHTY Chinese fountain pen, directly from China, for a pittance. I bought the Hero A11 for under $5 off Temu, and it writes pretty darn well, if you ask me, even compared to the favorites like Lamy. It comes with its own piston filler, not sure if it's a converter or not, I didn't try to disassemble it yet. Just filled it with ink and started writing.
I got a couple more pens in my next shipment from Temu, so stay tuned. One's a Jinhou "porcelain art" special, then one with what looks like a fude nib, and finally a retractable nib pen, which was apparently all the rage in China. The Jinhou is about $8, and the other are about $2 each. We shall see if they are garbage or not next week.
