What was I thinking? I don’t think I had owned a fountain pen since high school. I used to always have a fountain pen, though it always was an inexpensive one. Strangely enough, it was a practical rather than an aesthetic matter that led me to buy a fountain pen. It was that my roller-ball pens generally refuse to write when I try to sign a typewritten letter on good paper.
When I checked Amazon for fountain pens, I was greatly surprised to see a pen that looked quite decent for $12.99. It’s a Beiluner pen with a stainless steel body and gold nib. It can use either ink cartridges (it comes with six), or a reservoir that you can fill yourself from an ink bottle. It writes — no joke — more smoothly than the roller-ball pens I’ve been using. And those roller-ball pens aren’t cheap.
Nothing on the box or the printed material in the box says where the pen was made. Some sources say that Beiluner pens are made in Germany. I am skeptical that German pens of such quality can be sold so cheaply.
Typewriters and fountain pens are a natural (or at least retro) dyad.
Speaking of typewriters, here are some recent photos of Tom Hanks visiting a typewriter shop in Nashville.
Update: I retrieved the box from the recycling bin. The box (as opposed to the display case) clearly says that the pen was made in China.
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