Fun With Fountain Pens: A Beginners Guide, With Extra Notes for Lefties

Back when I was an college student, I burned through notebooks quickly, and I was a frequent visitor at my local stationery store. And, for better or worse, like many engineers I am an optimizer at heart. So, while I loved my Pilot V5 (and still do, for the record), I was always trying to find something better. Something that wrote smoother, something that would be more pleasant for me. And so began my quest to find my perfect pen. I always was curious about fountain pens, but, as someone who is left handed, I assumed they weren’t for me.

I was wrong. Fountain pens are for everyone. And you should use one, because they are amazing.

There are plenty of guides online about fountain pens, and I’ll link you to a few of my favorites in a moment, as well as give you a few starting recommendations. But before we get to that, why should you try a fountain pen? Ballpoints can be had for next to nothing (there are plenty of places that will give you one for free if you don’t mind a bit of branding), so why should you invest in an expensive pen that you don’t know if you’ll like?

They’re Not Expensive

Fountain pens really aren’t that expensive. While you can easily drop several hundred on a high end fountain pen, you can get a get a great one…