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Comment by Symbiote | Hacker News Reader

> I can't say erasure is a typical ability in fountain pen inks

By volume, it is probably the majority of ink sold.

Several countries require children to use fountain pens at school, or still have widespreaf use even if it's no longer officially required. Germany, the UK, I think India.

The blue ink that everyone uses most of the time is erasable with a chemical eraser pen [1], which everyone in my class (in the UK) owned.

Other colours were not erasable, so my gothic rebellion (requiring me to write in black or red) meant I had to be correct first time.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_eraser § Chemical

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Yep I remember the same forced fountain pen work too (also UK) and the inevitable ink-leaks in pencil cases, hands, books etc, and the fairly-awful erasers that went along with it.

The thing with the erasers was once you erased, the chemical was still on the paper so you could not re-write ont he erased parts. This meant you had to use the other-end of the eraser pen where there was a special blue ink pen. Often this would then "bleed" heavily (perhaps I didn't wait for the paper to dry?) and never looked the same as the fountain pen ink, so it was hugely obvious where you made a mistake as your normal wiring all looked normal, then you'd get this huge blurry fuzzy blue mess where you "erased" a mistake :-)

Maybe it's because someone (grandma?) bought me a mid-price (probably £15 or so) pen at the start of secondary school, but I don't remember that pen leaking. It seems more likely with a £3 thing from WH Smith.

I had the pen-from-grandma until I was about 30 years old, when it disappeared from my desk at work. "Made in W. Germany."

> Several countries require children to use fountain pens at school

Now I'm curious. Why is that? How are fountain pens different from regular pens when it comes to school? I've never even seen a fountain pen, let alone written with one (Canada).

It forces you to write in a certain way which means you learn correct hand placement, pressure, angle, etc. With a cheap pencil you learn bad habits.

The grip on the pen can (should) be much lighter, and the movement on the paper is smoother, so it's easier to write in a cursive script, and more comfortable to write a lot.

It's amusing to see discussions on fountain pens online. They're held in high regard by a section of HN, with discussions around ink type, importing Japanese nibs, using special paper and so on.

Mine cost €13 from a shop in Germany. It's a typical pen a high school student might own.

(You can buy them for as little as €4, although those are more likely to leak if dropped etc. Typical for a primary school student though.)

I didn't even know chemical eraser pens were an option. As a kid, we had to use Tipp-Ex to cover up our mistakes.

Reading your comment bought back terrible memories of those chemical erasers - they smell disgusting!

Neat!

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