Jinhao on Notes from the Rabbit Hole

What the heck, it's only a buck

Wed, 09 Mar 2016 02:05:31 -0400

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 the good shit for anyone with good taste and frugal spending habits.

Buying the Jinhao X450 is easy. If you go out on eBay, you’ll find a bunch of them in all kinds of different colors. But you probably won’t find any for 99 cents… unless you know where to look.

various nibs on a Jinhao X750

Wed, 27 Jan 2016 23:37:46 -0400

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 was super excited that our friends over at Goulet Pens (who did not sponsor or participate in this in any way) got through the giant snow storm that just pummeled the US east coast recently, and got a care package out to me. I’ve been collecting their nibs, you see. And this order gave me a pretty nice variety of nibs to work with. Goulet’s nibs are made by JoWo in Germany, stamped attractively with Goulet’s logo, and only cost fifteen bucks bare (use the feed that came with your pen).

Beware the Hooded Nib

Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:54:03 -0400

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 me explain.

Most of the Chinese pens you’ll find for sale in the West come with a Medium nib. These nibs aren’t bad at all, but usually require five to ten minutes of fine tuning before they are particularly practical and enjoyable to write with. I’d already mentioned previously that the Jinhao broad nibs are, in my limited experience with them, not worth the extra effort or expense to procure.

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.

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.

Fountain Pens for Cheap Bastards

Sat, 19 Dec 2015 13:30:34 -0400

I’ve enjoyed using fountain pens for a number of years. This probably tickles the same part of my brain that appreciates typewriters and Victrolas. This is a really elegant writing instrument that never should have been allowed to fade back into obscurity and the hobbies of overpaid eccentrics.

If you’re curious about fountain pens, you might be put off by the enthusiasts who pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a pen. You just want something nice to write with, right? Maybe spending $25 to $30 on a Lamy would make sense to you if you already knew that you liked fountain pens.

Reading & Writing Updates

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 09:44:22 -0400

During this calm before our family Christmas storm, I thought I’d drop a fresh State of the Nerd report. This one was going to be all over the map, as I’ve been very busy with a lot of things. But it became clear as I was writing it that it would be too long even if I just narrowed the scope to what I was reading and writing.

Reading Stuff

I’m back to my old habit of parallelized reading, so I’ve got a number of in-progress books right now that I’m jumping back and forth between.