Editing The Pen Addict 108/transcript (section)

== Jin Hao Pens ==


'''Tim Fletcher:''' Yes, Jin Hao. I will never buy another one of those pens because I've bought a lot because I was just going to put my own nibs on them anyway. But the nibs that come on them are just so terrible, in my opinion, that they're unwriteable, which is contrary to what people online say. Like if you go on the Fountain Pen Network or something, they say that they have really good medium nibs. European medium too, not the Asian medium that come in a lot of them. I just have not had that experience. I think the quality control is lacking. But yeah, go ahead.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' How do you compare something like your Duke that you like to like a Pilot Metropolitan that's $15? And how do those two pens relate? Do they relate at all in quality and value?

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Yes, I think the Duke 209 is better. If I had to rank my sub $50 pens in terms of quality, it would probably be my Parker Frontiers followed by the Duke 209 and then everything else. With the Pilot Metropolitan pretty close to the top, but I think the Duke 209 at $5.50 or $6 shipped is a better pen than almost any pen you can buy for under $50.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's crazy. I guess we're going to need to try that out. It is crazy.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Yeah, it seems like it. You should really try it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, we don't want to have a visionary experience here. I don't think that will happen though because a lot of people talk positively about them. So it's something I need to look into and something I need to test out for myself just because I've never gone that route. And people tell me to all the time that you will like several of these pens. So I need to give them a look and see what I think.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' It's worth a shot. I mean for $5, it can't really hurt. But for a lot of people who are fountain pen fanatics like we all are here, if you've got 40 fountain pens, do you really need another pen that looks kind of like a Parker Sonnet that writes pretty good when you have a bunch of much better pens that cost you much more? Why would you want to write with that? Why does it matter? For a first pen, it's great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm kind of hitting that spot now, I think, to where I'm not just looking at is this pen a good value. I'm looking at, well, if I purchase this pen, am I actually going to use it in conjunction with all these other pens that I already use? And it's starting to be like where my collection or my purchasing habits are getting a little bit more refined. And that's getting a little bit tighter and I'm just not winging it as much. But I guess that just comes over time and figuring out what you like to use and things like that. So one of the pens you did review that I haven't bought yet that I keep staring at is the Monteverdi Impressa, the one that you talked about earlier. So what do you like about that pen? And talk me into buying it or not buying it.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Well, man, it's hard to talk someone into buying the pen. Here, let me grab it and stare at it for a minute. I've just dropped it. I've just dropped the pen. All right, well, I'll stare at it from across the room. Anyway, I really like the looks of the pen. It just looks cool. And if you don't like how it looks, then you probably don't care about the pen that much. Because the thing about it is it's not – I mean, it's a pretty good performer. It performs like a much more expensive pen even though it's only $40. It's smooth. It doesn't skip. It's got a nice clip. It's got a nice weight. I could write with it for hours. And it's got a cool-looking black nib. It uses a standard number six size. So if you want something fancy, you can shove that on there. But primarily the cool thing about it is the looks. The one I have is red and gunmetal. And they also have a blue and kind of off-white thing to it. Frankly, it's really hard to say anything about this pen other than it's really, really good. It's just a gosh darn good pen. It is right below a Duke 209 in my opinion.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Does the – does this one come with a black nib or is that a chrome nib? I can't tell on there.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Oh, on the gunmetal and red one?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' On the gunmetal, yeah. Cool. Okay. I might have to get that. That's pretty sweet.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Well, you know what you can do if you want to test the pen out without dropping 40 bucks is there's a – but how is that Chinese pen spelled B-A-O-E-R? Yeah. How do you pronounce it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I call it bear, but I really don't know.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' It starts with an A, right? But I've heard people call it a bower.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It could be any of those.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Well, they have this – the unnamed Chinese company one has this pen called the unnamed Chinese company one 051. So the bower or bear or whatever, 051 is virtually identical if you close them to the – the Monteverde Impressa. I'm holding both of them right now. The clip is exactly the same. The size is exactly the same. And the weight is almost the same. When you guys in the ink links put up a – you linked to – what is it? Penhabit. The Penhabit blog's review of the bower 051. Now, I actually told him to review that thing because he reviewed it in Impressa and liked it so much. And I was wondering if they were the same. I couldn't. I couldn't wait for him to review it so I just bought it myself. And they're similar but they're not the same. So people have proposed that perhaps because Monteverde does not – they don't make pens in the United States. They make them in China. Perhaps they purchased this pen design from Bower and then made it frankly look better. It's got better finishes. It's got a little bit better tolerance. And it's the – what do you call the thing at the end of the barrel? The back end? What is that called?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I just call it the butt of the pen. But if it's a piston filler a lot of times, it's called a blind cap and a vacuum filler or things like that. Yeah.

'''Tim Fletcher:''' Well, on the butt of the pen, it's a little bit smaller on a Monteverde. It looks cooler. There's a lot more detail on that. But I don't – Bower also copies pens. They have one called a 388 which looks exactly the same as a Parker's sonnet. And the Bower 79 looks like a Starwalker. They do really good copies. So I don't know if it's a copy or not. But it only costs $6. And the only real difference is on the Monteverde, they have a special feed and nib that's good. And on the Bower, they have a special feed and nib which is good for $6. But it is a standard number five, so you could replace it if you wanted. So if you're really, really cheap and are okay with sending money to a questionable Chinese manufacturer of pens, you can buy one of those 051s. It has to be with a zero. That zero is important for some reason.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Gotcha. My interest is at least a little bit peaked. I might have to poke around in this. So one more question real quick and then we're going to let you go and wrap this puppy up. But I see just through your Twitter and just through our talking that you're into astronomy, right? So what's your involvement with astronomy? And number two, part two of that question, do you use the Field Notes Night Sky Edition?