school fountain pens

[cimorene]

In some countries children are still taught cursive/handwriting with fountain pens. There's some benefit to this because fountain pens don't require any pressure for ink flow - the weight of the pen itself creates the line. As a result there are fountain pens designed for schoolchildren: to be ergonomic, sturdy, often a bit smaller for their hands, and otherwise easy to use, as well as brightly colored. Some of these pens are easy enough to get hold of internationally, but a lot of them aren't exported along with the pens for adults that the manufacturers make, much to my dismay. They look like a lot of fun. Mainly they make me wish I'd been taught to write with them. There weren't really any fun pens at all when they started teaching us cursive in 1990.


Pelikan Griffix; Pelikan Pelikano Junior; Pelikan Pelikano; Pelikan Twist (Pelikan Twist is relatively easily obtained internationally. I've been meaning to buy one to play with for years)


Lamy Nexx; Faber-Castell Scribolino; Schneider Base; Stabilo Easy Birdy and Easy Buddy (this line also includes an Easy Ergo that looks rather suggestive)


Kaweco Perkeo Bad Taste collection and pastel collection; Pilot Kakuno with grey, white, and transparent bodies

Comments

[yvannairie]

Oh man. Do you know any vendors that carry these?

[cimorene]

Yes, you can get all the Pelikan brand ones (Pelikano and Pelikano Jr, Griffix, Twist), as well as the Faber-Castell Scribolino, at papierfischer, but their site is only in German; they DO ship inside the EU (for a flat rate of like 14€ though, which is a bit more than average for little things from Germany in my experience!).

My previous go-to pen shop in the UK, Cult Pens, carried some of the Stabilo Easy line but I haven't found a new shop that does within the EU yet.

And for EU online shops with English sites, you can get the Kaweco Perkeos, Pelikan Twist, and Lamy Nexx at Fontoplumo (Dutch shop), Fountainfeder (German shop), or Stilo e Stile (Italian shop). Stilo e Stile and to a lesser extent Fountainfeder also carry the Kakuno, although Kakuno, unlike the others, is a Japanese pen and these are perhaps easiest to get from ebay - Kakunos are popular enough that there are likely EU resellers. I've never really gone to the trouble of the ebay route myself yet.

The Schneider Base is also sold in some calligraphy sets (Fountainfeder has it) but in pastel colors, presumably for adults. I haven't ever seen those bright-colored versions for sale anywhere yet.

[yvannairie]

flags this for when I get paid the next time

[hebethen]

These are cute as fuck! While I admired the calligraphies and so on that folks have created with fountain pens, I never particularly desired to partake myself, but ironically the rainbow colored kids' stuff made some part of my brain perk up :P

[cimorene]

The fun kids' styles appeal to a good subset of people that way! Getting hold of some of these in North America is dicey, but the Kaweco Perkeo and Pilot Kakuno, at least, are readily available from most fountain pen stores and JetPens would be my first recommendation. They specialize in Japanese and Asian pens and stationery products, so they likely have some other brightly colored and fun pens besides these - the models that are typically sold to older schoolkids/teens and young adults basically. Also for example the Lamy Safari and Kaweco Sport, the two most frequently recommended 'entry-level' fountain pens, are essentially in this same category (without the more extreme ergonomic sculpting and so on aimed at beginning writers):


The standard Lamy Safari lineup made of ABS plastic and last year's special editions. Safari is a great writer and extremely sturdy. I own 2, but I'm gonna buy more.


The standard Kaweco Sport and the Frosted Sport. I own 4 currently, but I plan to buy more of them too. They're "pocket" pens, so significantly smaller than the Safari (or the Kaweco Perkeo above, which is a standard size and otherwise has very similar sculpting). There's a semi-common issue with ink flow from some Kaweco nibs being oversmoothed in the factory though, so with that plus the size being less comfortable to write with for many, I would recommend the Safari first.

[twistedchick]

I have used a Lamy medium nib pen for years -- it is my preferred pen for journaling and any other writing.

[hebethen]

It's been so long since I've journaled by hand, but I could definitely see using a fountain pen for that.

[harpers_child]

One of the things that's kept me from getting a fountain pen to play with is the slimness of the pens. I've got hand problems. A nice chunky pen meant for kids would be exactly my jam. The Pelikan Twist is really cute. I might try to get one.

[cimorene]

They've been sold by JetPens in the past, but apparently not anymore. It might be easiest to get them from ebay or Amazon in North America.

[james]

Those all look wonderful.

[krait]

Wait, does the little L+R hand symbol in the corner of that centre image imply that most fountain pens are either left- or right-handed?

[cimorene]

No, not really, it's just that there are in existence a couple of left-hand specialized fountain pens. I think this is usually to do with the molding of the ergonomic grip section, but Lamy, for example, makes a left-handed nib. Anyway, out in the adult world most fountain pens come with only one design which can potentially create an issue for lefties (especially children or people with ergonomic issues) for several reasons, including because fountain pen ink, or rather liquid ink in general, has a longer dry time.

Because of the high volume of children's fountain pens in Germany, there's more written about it in German. I found this page which says

In order to meet the special requirements of writing, pens for left-handers have a special cut of the writing tip. The grain here is generally rounded with a slight bevel or bevel on the right side. Left-handers slide the fountain pen across the paper, while right-handers tend to pull the pen. The beveled grain ensures that the filler does not dig and scratch the paper. Paper fluff between the feather wings would be an unpleasant result. Pens that write very wet and ink that dries slowly can smear and smudge with left-handers. Therefore, the nibs have a rather dry ink application. Almost all manufacturers, especially those in the beginner program, have special left-handed springs in their range. I particularly recommend Lamy, Pelikan and Faber-Castell. The springs are usually labeled as "L-springs".

But if someone were looking for lefty-friendly fountain pens for an adult without especial ergonomic issues, I'd try just web searching and you'll probably find a few more articles like this by Goulet pens. OTOH most adult lefties use the same fountain pens as everybody else - my sister, for example.

[krait]

Ahhh, that makes more sense. I kept trying to picture a fountain pen in my head and tilt it left or right, and going ???? when trying to spot anything that would be different from a regular pen. (As a lefty, I'm pretty used to figuring out when something is not ambidextrous in design, and the whole pull/push issue is a thing with any kind of pen, but I couldn't work out whether there was something about fountain pens that would make that impede the function more strongly.)

[viggorlijah]

I recognise some of those! We have them for sale at our local big box stationary shop. Do you want me to take pictures and buy some for you? Singapore-Finland shipping should be relatively fast.

[cimorene]

Ooh, which ones have you seen? Because some of them are easy enough to order here, like the Pelikan Twist and the ones on the bottom row, but other than the Twist the ones in the top rows aren't really sold to the international market much! If you've seen those, I would love to see some pics. I could Paypal you.