I'm no pen enthusiast, but I used to really enjoy Zebra. Build quality was good for the price point, and they were super smooth to write with. Unfortunately the quality went downhill maybe 5 or so years ago and they haven't been great in my opinion ever since. They still feel fine physically, but the ink will stop dispensing randomly while writing. Got sick of it and switched to Pilot. Been using Pilot Precise V5 0.5mm and find them great. The ink runs a little wet though, so the only downside is that if you rub your palm across the page too soon after writing it'll smear a bit.
Does Pilot have any twisting pen options?
If you're looking for a satisfying twisting pen, the Faber Castell hexo ballpoint has been my favorite for a while now.
It uses a parker style refill, so I swapped it out for a Schmidt easy flow 9000 😙👌
Bank teller w/half a dog tag chain.
I literally go to the bank to write my novel. The tellers are starting to suspect why I'm a depositing a single penny every ten minutes
I’ve used all kinds. My favorite is still the cheap Pilot G2. Writes effortlessly and has a great click to it.
OP asking the real questions! Also just ducking glad to see something not news or politics related. My gosh it's overwhelming today.
:)
Rotring. German company. Outstanding heft and quality. I like the 800, but if you prefer a click actuation to a twist, go for the 600.
Clickers are why my pants and pockets have ink all in them. Twist for life.
G2s are nice for pena. We also have some of the Sharpie ones.
I really like the Papermate felt tip marker pens.
Zebra F701 is also nice.
You can chuck a fisher space pen refill in the f701 if you want to spice it up
Parker, specifically the Jotter. I still have and use a stainless steel one that I bought in 1999 because I kept losing pens, and I thought that if I spent a little more on one I might take better care of it. It's my favorite by far.
I’m a big fan of the Tactile Turn machined pens. They are made in titanium, copper, and bronze, and they have microgrooves for grip. They make bolt and click pens in standard and slim width. They take either Pilot G2 refills, Parker-style refills, or (in the case of the mini) Pilot G2 mini refills.
Pens for $100. Reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke. "I bought an expensive pen because I was tired of not caring when I lost it."
Bic
The cheap white plastic bics with the colored rubber grips are some of the most consistent pens ever. The cheap black/blue all plastic ones are some of the shittiest pens ever. I don't understand how this is the case.
Bic mediums are comfortable in my hand and I don't ever worry about losing them because their cheap and reliable.
Uni jetstream edge .28 mm. Uses an oil-based ink that doesn’t smear if it gets wet. Feels good in the hand too.
Also, the rOtring ballpoint pens.
Jetstream is my favorite all purpose ink. I got the refills to put in some of my other favorite pen bodies.
You have some tiny writing with that 0.28! I find 0.5 to be my happy place.
Kaweco sports, LAmy, rotring, and pilot vanishing point, opus 88, and one from montblanc but that wasn't a fountain pen.
I slept on the kaweco sport, but when I finally got one, it quickly became my everyday. I got a transparent body and fill the body directly with ink like an oil tanker ready to defile the ocean within my pocket, then lube the threads with petroleum jelly. Not a single leak.
Iconic style, affordable, ink lasts forever, one of the most reliable, smoothest gold bibs came with it, and it's comfortable to write with. I love that pen and wish I had as many chances to use it these days as I did in the past. Unfortunately, my writing at work is almost entirely digital now.
Picked up a Rotring for my wife a while back and she constantly gets compliments on it. Really nice weight and feel to it.
Zebra F-301
Papermate inkjoy. The other nurses keep trying to steal my last one that I stole from my last workplace just before it started going downhill and stopped buying the nice pens. It was about 6-8 months before they swapped all our managers and supervisors with ones that were literally physically violent. Now that I think about it the pens have actually been a pretty good thermometer of all my past workplaces. If you go to a hospital and all the nurses have the same decently nice pens, that means their employer is probably taking decent care of them (at least as far as healthcare execs go) and well kept nurses are better at taking care of patients.
The ability to use home-made inks, guache, and stick-inks makes Ackerman very special. Particularly since I get to use my favorite Brause Bandzug nibs. And of course there's the fact that they're a small specialty company helps make them "favorite".
If you're asking who makes my favorite pens for every day carry or low-maintenance with standard fountain pen inks, definitely Lamy. They will still stand out a bit in a business setting in a way that might be a bit uncomfortable for some, but not in the brute utilitarian way Ackerman's do. I love broad nibs, and frankenpens just aren't reliable enough for me at work.
Don't have an actual favorite. Just using bics forever due to convenience
Zebra F-402 - I write really small and their fine tips flow great but don't run. Plus they're cheap enough that I don't care when my wife or kids steal them out of my desk.
Sharpie.
Crayon,
Parker, usually. But Pilot is also good. Depends if I want a nice pen or a cheap pen. Kawecos are really nice, but I don’t currently own one.
Brand? Bic.
I bought myself this beauty a year ago, metal body and refillable
Bic 4 colour ftw! 🇸🇸
I have a Plaisir Platinum fountain pen that's awesome. It was pretty cheap as far as fountain pens go but it writes really nicely and has a good solid feel to it.
For day-to-day disposable pens I like the Zebra Sarasa ones, or the Pilot P500 for drawing. I bought a big box of the P500s to keep in reserve in case they ever stop making them lol.
Zebra Sarasa. Bought one on a whim at a 711 in Tokyo a long time ago, kept coming back.
TWSBI has been good, in my experience, for fountain pens. But I haven't tried many different brands, just a handful.
Those Zebras that are, like, 1/8 of the volume of what the median pen in this thread is gonna be. I'm not here to pinch hoses 5x their cartridge diameter, half of their length hanging out for nothing, I'm just trying to write. Any non-zero thickness works for that.
i use Mitsubishi roller balls, real nice and inky, great colours. I'm a lefty so can't really use fountain types.
TUL pens. Super durable as I click my pens from anxiety and I havent had one break on me. Write very smoothly too
I'm surprised more people haven't said TUL!! they are, and have been, my daily for 6+ years. Got all sorts of colors too!
I like the Muji aluminum fountain pen.
https://unsharpen.com/pen/muji-aluminum-body-fountain-pen/
Cheap enough that if it breaks or you lose it or some such, you won't be that upset, but writes wonderfully. It is nice to have a pen where you can choose your own ink, and it will accept either refillable cartridges or pre-filled cartridges.
The way the cap posts on the back of the pen is pretty unique as well.
Not the pen I was thinking of
I've been using 0.7 point Pentel Supremes since I began high school
Back when I constantly needed a pen I used to use a Parker espirit telescopic fountain pen, since it was the best small fountain pen that cost little enough that I wouldn't mind loosing, but it was still small enough and good enough for my tastes. More recently since I stopped needing an actual pen with any sort of frequency it just kept getting dry and I just decided to stop carrying one.
This days the only thing that I physically write with any sort of frequency are ttrpg character sheets and for those I just need a good pencil, so I moved to the wsd magnetic 2.0 mm lead holder. I just love it both as a great mechanical pencil and a fidget toy
I carry a Fisher Space Pen everywhere, but I switched its cartridge for Pilot Hi-Tec-C refills. It takes a little fiddling to get the refill in there, but once it's in it works great!
I'm not familiar with the pilot refill, what about that swap do you enjoy?
Pilot Hi-Tec-C is a gel pen with refills that happen to fit in the Space Pen. It puts down a crisp, fine line.
The problem with the stock Space Pen is that it's a messy ballpoint. I might be getting worse-than-typical results due to being left handed, but in general I find ballpoints don't write crisp lines, and the ink smudges on my hand much more than gel pens do. But with the gel swap I do lose the feature of being able to write upside-down.
Waterman
I commented this elsewhere, but I figured it deserves it's own top level comment.
You can take an affordable stainless steel zebra f701 and swap out the ink with a fisher space pen refill for a solid, utilitarian pen for less than 15 bucks.
