China on Notes from the Rabbit Hole

This Just In: Jinhao 159

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 13:30:25 -0400

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

Jinhao 1200: Enter the Dragon!

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 02:36:23 -0400

When I saw this pen in my auction trawling, the seller piqued my curiosity with promises that this would be a mysterious pen. Is this pen some avatar of Eastern mysticism?

While this pen did not conjure any actual dragons (yet), it’s been quite a treat so far. It’s actually a rather challenging pen to photograph because my God, the bling! This isn’t just a gold colored pen, or a shiny pen. But this is a pen that mysteriously seems to be beaming myriad lasers into your eyeballs whenever you try to gaze upon it in any sort of light. To call it shiny or shimmery would understate just what Jinhao pulled off here; this pen is obnoxiously shiny, and I love it.

Baoer 388: Simple, svelte, and only two bucks

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 08:15:55 -0400

As soon as I saw this handsome pen available for only two bucks, 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 write worth a damn?

There was only one way to find out; I had to buy it and see for myself.

Size comparison between the Baoer 388 (top), Uniball Vision (center), and Lamy Safari (bottom). The Baoer is indeed a slender fountain pen.

The Jinhao X750: The pen that started it all

Sun, 03 Jan 2016 20:57:16 -0400

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 Namiki Falcon) was bitterly disappointing.

But then I read a blog about mounting a flexible dip pen nib onto a cheap Chinese fountain pen. Since the total cost was pretty low, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a Jinhao X750 and a pack of titanium Zebra G nibs. At the time, the Jinhao pen cost almost six bucks. I really thought I was getting a great deal. And I did get a great deal, but I paid a lot more than I should have for it. This pen started me down the rabbit hole of admiring absurdly inexpensive Chinese fountain pens.