The Genius and Madness of Fountain Pen Filling Systems

Visit Fountain Pen Network or a host of other fountain pen related websites and you'll see a host of reviews. Many of these break things down into various categories and then offer scores for each. One of these categories is, invariably, the filling system of the pen. This perhaps made sense some time in the distant past when a bevy of different filling systems, sometimes of wildly differing reliability, dotted the landscape. But those days are long gone. Among new pens, Roughly 95%, or perhaps even more, filling systems are cartridge/converter with the remaining 4% piston and a holdout few throwbacks like aerometric or lever filler. Yet this category remains obligatory, bizarrely being granted equal weight with things like writing quality.

Despite having decisively won the battle of the filling systems, cartridge/converters are often viewed with scorn, seen as decidedly second rate compared to pistons. This, to my mind, represents the steampunk sensibilities of those of us enamored of these objects. We like the 19th century clockwork of the screw gear and having a (relatively) hefty knob to turn to fill our pens. We like the decidedly unwelcoming (at least for newcomers) requirement to fill from a bottle, possibly dirtying our hands and much else besides. Cartridges, despite their portability, cleanliness, and ease, are to be scorned. The piston and the bottle are king. At least for westerners.

It is curious how cultural filling systems seem to be. The apparently ever-practical Japanese recognize sense when they see it (at least in this area), and are c/c fillers, even for the most expensive pens.

The Germans, masters of finely machined parts to infinitesimal tolerances, still favor pistons on more expensive entries, but economize lower down. This, however, seems to be changing. The Pelikan 200, most people's first encounter with the piston, now offers c/c as an option. Montblanc seems to be heading more and more in this direction as well.

Like much of the rest of Italy, there is a sharp divide between north, where pistons still hold some sway thanks to Aurora, and south, solid c/c territory. This division between the Teutonic and Mediterranean cultures spills over into France, solid c/c territory, even for top of the line pens like the Edson.

China, that vast factory of a country, seems divided between c/c and, bizarrely, aerometric. The latter seems an artifact of companies like Hero, where time has mostly stood still since the Communists took over in 1948. They happily churn out Parker 51 clones of varying quality using the same, state of the art in the 1950s technology, that vaulted Parker to the very pinnacle of pendom. Companies with newer plant seem to have gotten the memo about the virtues of c/c.

Even though filling systems have mainly converged on a single solution, they have not managed to converge on a single standard, nor will they, I think. The c/c solution won the day not just because it is technologically superior, but also because of its business potential. The claims of pen manufacturers not withstanding, any fountain pen ink will work in any pen. Waterman ink works perfectly well in Pelikans and vice-versa. But this is not the case with cartridges. A Sheaffer cartridge is entirely useless in a Lamy.

The simple, humble cartridge is the 1960s antecedent to its more modern cousins sharing the name---inkjet cartridges and, even more recently, coffee cartridges. The idea is simple yet powerful. Once the consumer buys the durable product, the pen in this case, she is locked into buying branded cartridges for all eternity. Thus, the knockdown price of the Sheaffer No Nonsense pens offered in nearly every drugstore in the 1970s represented a gateway into the consumer's wallet via the odd shaped Sheaffer cartridges. The now ubiquitous Lamy Safari is the 2010s equivalent. At $35 or thereabouts, the Safari offers an exceptional deal. At $5 a pack, the ink does not. Such a strategy works, of course, only if you have a popular entry level pen to sell in volume. It's a nonsense if the products on offer are niche items.

This is reflected, somewhat, in the marketplace. A number of companies sell items that accommodate international sized cartridges, as close to a standard as there is likely to be. But these are not the companies whose bread and butter are "cheap and cheerful" pens for the masses. Consider a partial list of the two sides, proprietary and international:

Proprietary: Parker, Sheaffer, Cross, Lamy, Platinum

International: Waterman, Faber-Castell, Caran d'Ache, Pelikan

The outlier on the list is Pelikan. We they are mostly associated with high end products in the US, their place in the German market is entirely different. They still offer high end products there, but also do a lively school pen business. Indeed, some of my favorite knockabout pens are Pelikan school pens. For instance, the Pelikano is simply an outstanding pen, at least as good as the Safari, though far less well known. Why in heavens did Pelikan not adopt a proprietary strategy?

As a bottle user, the strategy utterly fails on me. Instead, it's simply annoying to have to buy a zillion different types of converters to fit pens that do not provide these. (Another clever, cost-effective and somewhat evil strategy to encourage customers to give up the bottle.)

To conclude my rant, let me make two points. First, it is silly to review a pen's filling system and use this as a basis for anything. If you abhor filling from a bottle, avoid pistons. Otherwise, it hardly matters. Second, if you are a slave to cartridges, you might want to reconsider. Not only do you get a lot more pretty colors from bottles, you save yourself from becoming Lamy's, or someone else's milk cow. 

The greatest mechanical pencil ever made

When I was in grad school, I came to rely on mechanical pencils, almost exclusively, for notetaking. My time was the era before PowerPoint, before professors could professionally typeset their notes on a laptop. In short, it was a time when notetaking was king. The shift marked a profound change for me. I was a fountain pen guy through and through while working as a consultant. I loved the flair of being able to match the partners in the firm on at least one dimension. Sure, my suits were not as tailored (nor expensive), my shirts did not have my initials monogrammed on the cuffs, my ties were often bought from the streets of NYC's downtown rather than from some upscale store. But despite all this, my pens were in the big leagues--Montblanc 146, Pelikan M800, Parker Sonnet and Duofold.

Until grad school, that is, when I put my pens aside for a spell of about 4 years. The reason was simple enough. Taking notes produced mistakes, sometimes quite serious ones. I viewed my books of notes as fairly essential pieces of equipment to carry with me into life as an academic economist, and I wanted to be damned sure that they were not filled with cross-outs, scribblings, and so on. In principle, I could have viewed my in class notes as a kind of first draft, to be recopied and corrected subsequently. But I was far too lazy and too bored by the prospect to consider such a task. I was happy enough to make corrections, but a complete rewriting was beyond my tolerance. So I made the switch.

When using mechanical pencils all the time, you quickly discover their strengths and their limitations. For note taking, they are a major upgrade over the old fashioned wood cased pencils. Not having to sharpen and having a point of a consistent, and thin, width are admirable features. Sure, lead breakage could be an issue, but I learned to preload my pencils, to carry spares, and to not write so hard that breakage was an issue.

So what's not to like? As it turns out, those much vaunted thin, consistent points are more myth than reality. Unless you continually rotate the pencil during use, it develops a flat spot. Thus, what should be a crisp 0.5mm line becomes a drab, somewhat lighter 0.6 or 0.7mm line. Until you remember to rotate at which point it returns, for a time, to its former glory. The other weakness, the tendency to smudge and fade, simply goes with the territory. I still have these old notebooks only now, almost 20 years later, they are considerably more difficult to read.

It is the first weakness, however, that brings me to the greatest mechanical pencil ever made: The Uni-ball Kuru-toga. To put this claim in context, it is important to know that I love writing and drawing instruments, so I've tried many, many mechanical pencils. Of those I tried, the Lamy 2000 and Rotring 600/800 are some of the nicest, at least ergonomically. But given the choice, I'll take the Kuru-toga every time. It's secret is actually a very small thing: Every time you lift the pencil, the lead rotates a tiny bit. Indeed, the rotation is so small as to be virtually imperceptible and, given this, you might doubt that this would have much effect. But you'd be wrong. Unlike every other mechanical pencil in existence, the Kuru-toga ensures that you'll have a sharp 0.5mm point all the time (or 0.3, 0.7,,or 0.9 as strikes your fancy). No rotating, twisting, or even awareness is required. Moreover, this is no small benefit. Comparing the writing quality of my beloved Lamy 2000 side by side with the Kuru-toga, it is simply no contest--the latter looks much cleaner and nicer.

Now, there is one caveat: Those of you capable of endless, flowing cursive, or perfect Palmer method loops with each letter beautifully connection to the last are out of luck. The K-T only twists when you lift the pencil, and the lifts under this writing style are simply too infrequent to have much of an effect. This is not to say that only ball and stick people can get the pencil to work. I write in a kind of cursive italic writing, so some letters are connected while others, like the letter "r", are not. Even so, the system works perfectly.

Better still, a Kuru-toga is cheaper, much cheaper, than a Dr. Grip or a number of other blister pack pencils meant for the more discriminating masses. It typically runs $5 at Staples though I've gotten copies for only around $3 from time to time. Online prices are similar. In the US, it comes in a very business like chrome and translucent plastic. In Japan, however, you can obtain themed versions of the K-T, including such favorites as Hello Kitty and various superheroes. These cost a bit more, about $1 or so, than their more boring cousins.

So give it a go. At $5, there is little too lose and much to gain.