This past Christmas I was given a Majohn T1 fountain pen, formerly known as the Moonman T1. I like to make a mess so I went with the Medium nib. I like big bold letters and wetter ink. This might be one of those things that you have to experience yourself, like how keyboard enthusiasts refer to keyboard keys as creamy. It doesn’t sound appealing does it? Why would you want wet ink or creamy keys?

This gift, and the bottle of ink that was gifted along with it (Hongdian black) started something of an obsession and now just a month later I’m six fountain pens and seven bottles of ink deep into it. Two journals, several pocket notebooks, etc. It is something of a problem.

The JINHAO X750 was the second fountain pen that I added to my budding collection, also a medium nib. It doesn’t write quite as smooth as the Majohn T1, but I do like the cap better. The cap on the Majohn is threaded and can’t be snapped over the pen, while the JINHAO isn’t threaded and CAN be snapped over the pen. As much as I love my Majohn I do worry about losing the cap.

The next pen that I bought was a Platinum Preppy. This is a $5 pen that is surprisingly good for the price point. I did need to invest in some converters so that I could use bottled ink instead of cartridges but that was a minor inconvenience. Quality control could be better because one of the three doesn’t write as nicely as the other two, but for a $5 fountain pen I can’t expect the world I suppose.

Oddly enough this is the workhorse of my collection so far which is used for most of my journaling. I can’t say that it’s amazing, but I also can’t say anything bad about it.

This is probably the most overrated pen I’ve tried so far. Granted it’s a very budget pen but my personal feelings on it are that it’s still twice as expensive as the Preppy and it doesn’t have anything extra going for it other than a smiley face on the nib and a different shape. I’d rather have gotten 2 more Pilot Preppys but I have this pen now so it is what it is. I have heard that higher end Pilot pens are fantastic, and I believe it because I have a bottle of Pilot’s Iroshizuku Kon-Peki (Azure) ink and it is far and away the highest quality ink that I’ve used. Ironically it’s in one of my Preppy pens.

I’ve also ordered a Jinhao 100, and two Jinhao 82s but those are coming from China and I’m not sure when they will arrive. I have also been told to expect 2 more pens as gifts for my upcoming birthday, as well as more ink.

Next up I’ll show off my ink collection.