My Big Mouth Billy Bass is in pieces on the workbench. The teardown is done, the components are identified, and I haven’t decided what to build yet. That’s the point.

The best deal in quality writing instruments going today is, without a doubt, the Jinhao X450. This pen, for only 99 cents shipped from China to the US, should prove to be a gateway drug into https://cheapgeezer.wordpress.com/the-good-shit/ for an…

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering how to get better performance out of your cheap Chinese fountain pens. I spent a few bucks and got my hands filthy with Hero blue-black ink so that you won’t have to.

I didn’t want to call out any particular pen today, though my image shows a Jinhao 699. The problem I’ve been observing spans multiple value brands from China, including Jinhao and Baoer. There are some nibs out there that should be avoided. Let m…

!jinhao159 Next to a common (and spendy) Lamy Safari, the Jinhao 159 is a beast of a fountain pen. Total cost: $3.59 on eBay.

When I saw http://www.ebay.com/itm/131300838435 in my auction trawling, http://www.ebay.com/usr/hejing1314 piqued my curiosity with promises that this would be a mysterious pen. Is this pen some avatar of Eastern mysticism?

As soon as I saw this handsome pen available http://www.ebay.com/itm/361345956777, I had to pull the trigger and see what it was all about. I mean, sure it looked good online in a photograph. But would it hold up to closer scrutiny? And could it w…

I’ve been a fountain pen user for about five years now. The number of pens I had was actually pretty small, and the few times I’d dabbled with “cheap” pens it ended with disappointment. Actually, the first time I dabbled with an expensive pen (the…

I had a pretty interesting childhood. My mother was from a very frugal working class family. Her’s was a big family with lots of brothers and sisters. Her father was a blue collar worker, and her mother stayed at home to raise the kids. I remember…