Crap I Ordered From China; i.e. Bargain Hunting Stationery and Fountain Pen Stuff

 My Aliexpress order is finally here... Only took them 8 days. 

Anyway, adding another fountain pen and and 2 bottles of ink to my collection, which currently consists of:

* Crappy Lamy Safari CLONE from Temu (with included black cart ink, at least 5 if not 10) (about $1.00)

* Jinhou X850 from Temu, black, about $1.50

* Platinum Preppy in see-through blue from Amazon (about $6?)  currently MIA (whole pen case is missing, just need to find it)

* Hero A11 "Black Forest" (new)

* Lamy Safari in Black with Black trim (genuine from Lamy store) (new)

As for ink, I currently have: 

* Banmi Dragon

* Banmi Dolphin

* Generic black cartridge (for the Safari clone)

* Noodler's Blue (was for the Preppy?)

* Karkos Black

* Karkos Blue

* A couple genuine Lamy T10 carts for the Safari, forgot which color(s). 

Ah, but I have the additional stuff coming in from Temu...

* A Jinhou 950 "Blue and White Porcelain" pen for $7.29

* A generic 0.7mm fountain pen with an "art tip" (fude nib?) for $1.59

* 20 more 3.4mm ink carts for $1.19

* 2 generic 3.4mm converters for $2.39 (converts fountain pens to use bottled ink instead of carts)

* A "retractable tip fountain pen 0.38 mm nib" for $1.59

And one more item from Amazon...

* Platinum Preppy M nib black  (I bought a converter from LONG time ago for the blue one, which is MIA)

Now I just need a converter for my Lamy Safari... :) Which is like $5 on Jetpens. I am also eyeing one of their closeout limited edition Safaris for $30... But that'll have to wait when I *do* have money. 

Don't have much in terms of paper, but I did buy a Rhodia A5 notebook at my local stationery store (Patrick and Co) for funsies. It was like $8. Most of my current fountain pen writing was in a diary I bought off Temu, nice paper, but it has a little bit of bleed through. 

This hobby can add up, but if you do a bit of bargain hunting on Temu and such, you'll get a LOT MORE for your money. I am of course NOT saying that these fountain pens are comparable to Japanese (Platinum, Pilot, Sailor), German (Lamy, etc.), muchless Italian (Visconti) craftsmanship, but they are also 1/10 or 1/100th the cost.  Platinum Preppy can be had for $6, but is plastic-y. You need to go up to something like Metropolitan to look less plastic-y. Lamy Safari is also plastic-y and starts at $30 (discounted) or $37 (official store), and you need Lamy AL or Lamy 2000 to get to metal body which costs significantly more. Visconti pens STARTS at $120 and goes up to THOUSANDS of bucks. 

That Hero A11 full metal black cost me less than $5. I think it was $4.25 or so on Aliexpress. 

I think I've wrote enough. Now I need some breakfast.