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Comment by ballenf | Hacker News Reader

No idea if it’s heretical in the fountain pen world, but I’m a fan of Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens. They come in both fine and medium points and a variety of colors. One upside is I always know which pen is mine since I’ve never run into anyone else using them.

I also have some expensive fountain pens, but don’t take those to work.

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The Varsity pens are the only fountain pens that "just work" when I use them. Any other ones I own (Parker, Monteverde, Cross) seems to get dried up if they sit too long. My only complaint about the Varsity pens are they are too light -- I like a bit of weight to mine.

I wonder if the not-drying-up is to do with the ink solvent mixture?

It has a different smell to other inks.

Possibly, but I've used Noodler's ink in them and it doesn't dry up either. (I left one sitting for nearly a year and started hard but would otherwise write fine. Back to normal after I cleaned it.) I suspect it may be the feed they have.

It's possible. Another factor is simply how air-tight the seals are. My older fountain pens tend to dry out faster than most modern ones. There are also some pens (Platinum 3776 for example) which are designed to virtually never dry out.

My Pilot Prera is always ready to write. Oddly enough the one other fountain pen is my super cheap 1990s Parker Vecto fountain pen. Just always goes.

I will echo the Varsity as a great daily. Its the only fountain pen the office supply place at work stocks without a special order too. They don’t leak, ink is smooth, and it comes in purple.

I use them, used them at school sometimes (also used some of the cheaper Parker pens back then).

Now I have a small collection of 'cross' fountains that I love to use on the few occasions I have cause to write anything.

There are still a couple of pilot varsity pens in the drawer though.

Those things are wonderful! If you want to move on to a refillable fountain pen, the Pilot Prera and other "lower-end" Pilot pens provide a similarly nice writing experience with a dash more style and refillability.

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