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Comment by Beltalowda | Hacker News Reader

I had to use them at school; my hands and clothes were almost permanently ink-stained. I do not miss them.

That was my experience as a kid, but using them as an adult that’s never the case. I think it was a combination of cheap pens and a child’s carelessness.

Pens in general are terrible for me as a left handed person. The only ones I like are the Frixion pens, as their ink seems to actually dry fast enough to not cover my hand in ink. Really writing as a left handed person feels like a fool’s errand. It just wasn’t made for me.

Pencils do it for me too, the graphite rubs off on the side of my palm and onto the paper. I rarely find myself physical writing much nowadays though.

As for some solutions: The choice of the writing instrument helps a lot. While fountain pens feel amazing to write with, one looks like a smurf after writing with one. Hard pencils are one of the better choices. Writing slower also helps a bit.

A “different” solution would be to write from right to left. I’ve tried it multiple times — both writing with mirrored symbols and writing non-mirrored symbols. The positive was that my hands were a lot cleaner. The negatives were that others couldn’t read what I wrote and that I looked as a crazy person.

Hah I took my notes in high school this way too! It came surprisingly naturally and wasn’t even that difficult for me to learn to read. Maybe I should just start taking notes backwards in business meetings, since nobody else reads them anyway.

I've had a higher end one as an adult as my main daily pen for years now and have yet to have a single spill (knock on wood).

I have several higher end fountain pens that are my daily drivers. And I have zero incidents as well.

I own several Lamy, Pilot, and Platinum.

If you ever write with a Pilot Custom 823 on decent paper, you will never be able to go back.

(If you enjoy the friction in writing, you need to try Lamy Al-Star/Safari fine nib, or Pilot Metropolitan fine nib. Medium nibs are smooth and some people don't like that.)

And even as the prices are high, they do last literal lifetimes.

Any suggestions for good lower cost pens?

I've gotten some cheap pens from China via Amazon and eBay. They're not as nice as the expensive pens, but for the price they're amazing. Some of the Lamy Safari knock offs are only a few dollars.

At that price, sampling becomes very reasonable. Sometimes knock offs can be perfectly usable, though I've had my share of disappointments when I didn't expect a fake.

Lamy safari Kweco sport Pilot metropolitan Those are all 20 bucks or so and are refillable

Platinum preppy's are not refillable but were my first fountain pen, can be had in many ink colors, and are about 5 bucks.

Thanks!

Start with either Lamy Safary [0] or Pilot Metropolitan [1].

If you like smooth, go with Medium nib, and if you like some feedback, go with Fine, as I said.

Writing on decent paper (not always the expensive one) with a decent medium nib pen is something everyone needs to try at least once.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Safari-Fountain-Charcoal-Medium-L17M/...

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Metropolitan-Collection-Fountai...

Thank you!

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