The Cheap Pen Thread.

jackknife said:
For a lot of my life, I carried a nice pen. An old Cross with a lot of the chrome worn off, an old Parker Jotter, an all metal Parker. But the last few years I've been carrying cheap pens. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like ball point pens have come a very very long way since the 'old days'. I've always liked the Pilot G2, but the Zebra Z=Grip, and Bic Gelocity do write very well with a smooth dense line. Even the cheep Bic crystal that has been around since my high school days, seems to be better now than then. Like they have refined the ink technology to a point that there is very little difference now in actual writing experience between a high priced pen and a standard Papermate stick pen or a Uniball.

For the past couple if months I've been using a Pilot G2 alternating with a Zebra Z-Grip, and both have been great pens. I find myself wondering if there is any point to an expensive pen, other than ego and status?
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For the last 20+ years I've been using Pilot Dr. Grip Gel pens (replaceable cartridge). I tried expensive pens, but found that I just like the Dr. Grip better at everything. Unfortunately, they aren't easy to find (used to be able to pick them up at Walmart off the shelf).

dr-grip-limited-SLV.png
 
Scott321 said:
For the last 20+ years I've been using Pilot Dr. Grip Gel pens (replaceable cartridge). I tried expensive pens, but found that I just like the Dr. Grip better at everything. Unfortunately, they aren't easy to find (used to be able to pick them up at Walmart off the shelf).

dr-grip-limited-SLV.png
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The only place I've found in Chicago where I can walk in and buy one is Walgreens, black/gray only IMO the ugliest of Pilot's six colors.
 
Be careful with gel pens. A lot of them will smear, or just wash off if the paper gets wet. I had ordered the pilot g-2 pens with my office name and number on them for clients to sign wills and real estate documents with. Did my friends will. 2 months he finally took it out of his car during a Florida rain storm. You could not tell someone signeous the will as all the ink was now on the envelope. I had to contact several clients to re-sign the documents with an older style ball point pen. I have been using a Cross Roller Ball pen, that will run if it gets wet for about a month, but after that time it seems to fully cure.

I need to test the sharpies out the next time I order pens for client use. They are a little cheaper than my current ones purchased in bulk. Another thing I found is that when purchased in bulk, pens with my firm name are cheaper than the cheapest ones at Office Depot.

Knarfeng I have found that alcohol gets most ink out of shirts. If not amondex will. It was recommended by cross when I had a new expensive shirt stained by a leaky pen refill. Also I have heard of fights breaking out in aerospace engineer meetings. My wife has witnessed a couple over the years.
 
I've been pleasantly surprised by the 701 stock ink. Have not had smearing issues with highlighters though I have not tried washing ink off. That might be a fun experiment one of these days
 
Tjstampa said:
Be careful with gel pens. A lot of them will smear, or just wash off if the paper gets wet. I had ordered the pilot g-2 pens with my office name and number on them for clients to sign wills and real estate documents with. Did my friends will. 2 months he finally took it out of his car during a Florida rain storm. You could not tell someone signeous the will as all the ink was now on the envelope. I had to contact several clients to re-sign the documents with an older style ball point pen. I have been using a Cross Roller Ball pen, that will run if it gets wet for about a month, but after that time it seems to fully cure.

I need to test the sharpies out the next time I order pens for client use. They are a little cheaper than my current ones purchased in bulk. Another thing I found is that when purchased in bulk, pens with my firm name are cheaper than the cheapest ones at Office Depot.

Knarfeng I have found that alcohol gets most ink out of shirts. If not amondex will. It was recommended by cross when I had a new expensive shirt stained by a leaky pen refill. Also I have heard of fights breaking out in aerospace engineer meetings. My wife has witnessed a couple over the years.
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Uniball 207 is a gel pen, but is supposed to be check safe.
 
I used cheap pens so I wouldn't mind losing them until I bought a nice Parker set for appearance sake when displaying at trade shows. I found that with a few bucks invested I was more careful and never lost them.
 
My favorite general inks are either Energel or the Sharpie S-Gel. They are somewhat interchangeable between a variety of pen bodies. For desk use, either can be used in a Sarasa Clip body. (The Sarasa Clip has one of the better pen bodies but the ink is not as good. It takes either the Energel or S-Gel refill without modification. Carrying over the S-Gel spring will provide a more positive click with either.)

As far as carry, I typically use Energel refills, needle tip or traditional, in either a Pentel Style or a Pentel Hexreform. The Style is also called the Pentel Philography depending on the market, and is a great $20-25 pen body with smooth twist operation.

(Picture deleted in the great purge of 2024.)
 
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BigMoney said:
Pilot v7
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I've been regularly using the Pilot Precise V7 since the 1980s, back when they were beige and only had their color indicated by the circular cut-out on the cap. It is still one of my favorite pens but over the years, I've had that liquid ink leak a few too many times for me to continue using them in an EDC role. That was the major reason I switched to a gel-based ink. After trying lots of them, I ended up settling on the Energel and S-Gel refills.
 
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