India's artisanal fountain pens are making their mark

When I was at school I learned to write with a nibbed pen and I always had ink on my fingers (and often on my clothes much to my mother's chagrin); in fact during the early years we weren't allowed to use ballpoint pens at all!

I can only guess the reason for this is that ballpoint pens don't provide the correct kind of tactile feedback that's necessary for good writing. Anyway, it seems it's so for me, I think the reason is that they offer little resistance, and what there is of it is uniform, and with too little variation, thus one needs to better control the pen's movement but fails. On the other hand, fountain pens have a solid tactile resistance that seems to change dynamically as one changes direction when forming characters. (The fact that ballpoint pens were banned at school seems to indicate that others must have the same problem as me. I'd be glad to hear from anyone who's had similar experiences.)

Perhaps this is why I also find that my writing is much more legible when I write with a pencil. For normal day-to-day use, note taking and such I usually use propelling clutch pencils with 0.5 or 0.7mm leads (I've many scattered everywhere).

I am sorry I never learned to write those cursive scripts to which you refer. Whenever I see old historical handwritten documents I never cease to be amazed at the excellent standard of the handwriting, and it's often in this cursive style. Furthermore, from my observation, the older the document then generally the higher the handwriting standard is. In fact, the quality of handwriting in old documents, especially official ones, seems to be almost universally of a high standard (it seems that then clarity was more highly esteemed than it is now.).

It is a shame that nowadays we no longer pay much attention to the standard of our handwriting and that so few recognize or appreciate the fact. I've always believed that humankind loses something significant when a skill that's still useful— or that can be appreciated just for its aesthetic reasons alone—is lost.

Fountain pens on the other hand were expensive, messy (they can leak in your pocket, you have to refill them with ink, the nibs might need replacing) and just plain hard to use in general.

I think I got my first fountain pen in high school - one of those landmark dad / son moment along with things like learning how to shave etc.

My prep school (that's a UK private school for 13-16) encouraged pretty much anything that made a neat mark on the page. The Head who later retired to Bursar was a massive fan of fibre tips - less blotting I suppose - how progressive. I should point out that corporal punishment (ie cane/belt/backboard rubber) was still legal back then, not so progressive 8) Everyone had a fountain pen or two. Generally cartridge type but some used a bladder sucker type and a bottle of Quink because it was much cheaper. We used a lot of pink blotting paper.

At Rheindahlen infant school, I think we used chalk (it was pencil.) Paderborner First - probably a chisel on stone (pencil.) Those are BFES (UK military) schools and yes it was all a bit bewildering for a young child. Before 13, I went to those and Button Lane infant school in Manchester, not to mention "Jerboa" School in Soltau. I may have missed one or two out.

That's why you have waiting lists in many luxury industries (think about Tesla too). It's part of the trade.

You're mistaking the market with other firms for a pricing failure of this firm.

I'm a bit flabbergasted how you'd think that a customer willing to wait 95 weeks for a product is proof of a pricing failure. It's proof that price is not a factor.

There is satisfaction in receiving fair wages for your work. At some price point, it feels like overcharging, even if customers are willing to pay that, and not everybody wants to go down that route. There is satisfaction in working with somebody like that, or buying from them, even if it takes longer.

I have a couple of custom pens. One was about $500, used a rare celluloid material no longer in production, and had sterling silver hardware and an 18k nib. The other one was just as well crafted, but only cost about $225 because it was from someone relatively new to the market and it had steel hardware.

I'm sure someone would pay more if the prices went up significantly, but I would either just buy a vintage pen that writes better anyways or I would stop collecting.

Also, so far there doesn't seem to be a secondary market for scalping people with custom pens.

I dabble in woodworking/woodcarving too though, and there's a lot of people flipping custom carving knives for 3-6x what the makers charge. Its a pretty obnoxious practice.

This is why I feel modern economic machine has failed us. An artisan is making something and selling at a price they are happy to get as wage. And external people have to now think* how the artisan should be raising prices to make more money.

There is no pricing failure. Someone is happy creating their version of art and selling it to run their life and family. They have enough customers to keep working for the next many years. Full stop.

The pens they do show have a profile that reminds me a bit of the Montegrappa Elmo, which I have and love:

https://www.montegrappa.com/en/cluster/fattoperte/myfirstmon...

As far as being heavy, well, neither has anything on a brass Kaweco.

I have a dozen or so other pens, all of which are "thinner", but that's the one I use the most.

Some of the quick drying waterproof gel pens give similar feel of a fountain pen.

To be a scarcity is to chase things with high specialization and a relatively small niche.

It's actually not hard to do in SW/HW per se, find a really old language/hardware and become useful in it. Mainframes come to mind.

They are a pleasure to write with and if you write with the 01 nib size with the nib facing the opposite way than normal, you get an extra extra fine line (at the cost of huge friction) that leads to amazing fine drawings.

I do. Like taking photos with film, the relative inconvenience of using a quill pen gives you time to focus on penmanship and what you're writing and engage more deeply with the act.

I sometimes use a refillable fountain pen instead but the nib isn't meant for it so changing it a pita.

Have you tried a Right to Left language? Seems like it might help you get into fountain pens? (I'm happy enough writing illegibly with my right hand and a ballpoint though)

I don't have that problem anymore since using a fountain pen because I don't have to apply any pressure when writing with a fountain pen.