Ask TGS: When Should I Upgrade from My Inexpensive Fountain Pen?

This is a common question I often get from customers in the shop and pen show attendees who approach me at the table. Unfortunately, there’s a perception out there that eventually, everyone will necessarily want to upgrade/graduate/progress from your “starter” fountain pen to a “nicer” (meaning more expensive) one. I don’t buy into this mindset for several reasons:

• In today’s market, you can get an excellent writing experience without spending a lot of money. Over a certain price point, you are paying for style and design, not functionality. If you use your pens primarily for writing and journaling, you don’t need to spend $100+ to have an excellent writing experience. In addition to the Kakuno, the Platinum Plaisir, Pilot Explorer, Pilot Metropolitan, Platinum Prefounte, and even the $3 Preppy are all exceptionally good options, at what I’d consider an extremely cheap price point for the quality you get.

• Even a $15 fountain pen is already an expensive pen. In today’s world flooded with disposable junk, the fact that you spent $15, or $10, or even $5 on a pen puts you in the rarified 1% of people who will ever spend that much on a pen in their entire life. Keep things in perspective and enjoy the fact that you already are writing with a “nice” pen.

• The best pen is the one that meets your needs. For some, that might be a pricey piece of art that not only writes extremely well but features a hand-lacquered urushi finish that they love to look at every day. For others, it’s a Pilot Kakuno. If you like your Kakuno and don’t find the writing experience lacking in any way, then stick with what works for you.

Check out the video featuring some additional thoughts on this topic over on the YouTube Channel.

I talk a bit more about this question in a YouTube Video I posted this afternoon, which I tongue-in-cheek titled “Cheap Pens: We All Love Them!” Honestly, I do love (relatively) inexpensive pens, and in the video I pull out the three pens/pencils I’ve been carrying at work all week, none of which costs more than $30. The main theme is that if you have a pen you love - even if it’s an inexpensive “beginner” pen - you shouldn’t feel obligated to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. If you want something different, like a clip or a larger ink capacity or a different nib, sure, but above all go with what you enjoy!

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I mean, how could this NOT work for anyone? :)

For pen recommendations at a range of price points, check out our “Best Pens” resource. For more Q&A-style discussions such as this one, I’ve pulled together a FAQ page featuring some common questions. Finally, if you’re in the Nashville area, you can now come pick my brain in person! You can view directions and up-to-date hours for our brick-and-mortar shop here.

New Arrivals: Select Japanese Papers from Yamamoto, Iroful Paper, Tomoe River and More!

If there’s one request we get, it’s for more fountain pen friendly paper, especially paper designed to show off ink. Of course, the gold standard for years has been Tomoe River (which is back in stock!) but of course there are so many more excellent options that have now reached the U.S. market. Sakae Technical Paper, known for it’s Tomoe River notebooks and pads, has developed “Iroful,” an incredibly ink-friendly paper that comes in blank, .5mm dot, and .5mm grid layouts, in both A4 and A5 looseleaf, as well as A5 notebook formats.

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Yamamoto Bank Paper and Tomoegawa Tomoe River (not Sanzen) A5 writing pads are back, along with A4 looseleaf packs of various Japanese Specialty Papers including different Tomoe River varieties, OK Fools, Slight White, Kin Kaku Den, Soliste, and Typewriter Paper. Though the specialty paper packs ship in packages of 50 A4 sheets, note that by cutting these sheets in half you will have 100 sheets of A5 paper, should you wish to hole-punch them for use in a disc-bound or ring-based notebook system.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported by the T.G.S. Curated Shop and the T.G.S. Patreon Program. If you’d like to visit our in-person location, you can view directions and up-to-date hours here.

Sunday Reading for February 9, 2025

1. Feeling Tender in a Devastating World (via A Gathering of Curiosities).

2. Visit to Traveler’s Factor Station in Tokyo, Japan (via Inkredible Colours). A large part of the reason that I want to go to Japan is to visit a Traveler’s Factory Store.

3. Tactile Turn Groove (via Figboot on Pens). As much as I love vinyl, I remain undecided.

4. Aurora Ipsilon Deluxe Italic Fountain Pen Review (via Blake’s Broadcast). I’ve not had good luck with Aurora’s specialty italics, but I’m also spoiled with a large selection of custom ground stubs.

5. Galen Leather Expansi-Pouch 10-Pen Case Review (via Fountain Pen Love). I love Galen’s blue leather. This customizable pen case is an interesting design that I will need to check out.

6. Titan Pens’ #8 Steel Bock Nibs (via SBRE Brown). It’s about time that more #8 Steel nibs hit the market. $300 nib upcharges for those of us who don’t like titanium nibs are beyond frustrating.

7. Brian Eno’s Notebooks (via Notebook Stories). As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I’m diving relatively deep into “notebooking” and how people use them.

8. Sailor Manyo Uri Fountain Pen Ink Review (via Pen Addict). I thoroughly enjoy colors like this one that cannot easily be categorized.

9. Journaling into 2025 (via Pete Denison). It’s really not too late to get started on your 2025 journaling!

10. Nagasawa “Odyssey Snow White LE” Fountain Pen (via Well-Appointed Desk). I love seeing all the annual special edition Sailor releases from Nagasawa, which are now available through our friends at Vanness Pens.

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The Jumbo Tombow Mono Eraser is another product that brings me an absurd amount of joy.

In Case You Missed It…

This week’s post touched on my own personal notetaking and journaling: I spent three days on the road earlier this week at the New York City stationery trade shows, and what came with me? The new Lochby Field Journal Mini and a bunch of write-anywhere ballpoint pens. I wrote a piece on how the new Lochby Field Journal is possibly an ideal size for a portable notebook, and made for an excellent travel tool. I also wrote a piece comparing the refills in four popular low-viscosity ballpoint pens that I’ve been using recently.

If I had to choose one photo to sum up the last 10 days….

This Week in the T.G.S. Curated Shop - and Don’t miss the incowrimo special!

We have all kinds of new arrivals to sort through, from newly arrived Japanese pencils, to the latest Blackwing release and restocks, to the Pilot Kakuno fountain pen, to Iroful and Yamamoto papers! It was an incredibly busy weekend in-store, and exciting to see so many people discovering the shop. To keep up to date on our new releases, be sure to check out each week’s Thursday Drops, and also remember that there is an ongoing InCoWriMo promotion for those of you interested in letter writing. Take 10% off the InCoWriMo section for the month of February using the coupon code “SNAILMAIL” at checkout.

Lochby

Kleid x Mnemosyne

Iroful Paper

Pilot

Check Out T.G.S. Patreon for Breaking news and first access/Special pricing on exclusives and Sample Sales

If you enjoy our content (whether here on the main website, Instagram, YouTube Channel or elsewhere), and would like early/extra access to shop releases and gently used stationery opportunities, consider supporting us via Patreon. We do our best to remain 100% self-supported without having to rely on third-party advertisers or affiliates. Of course, the number one way to help is to visit our curated retail shop either online (or in person, if you’re in the Nashville area)! If you enjoy in-person and virtual meetups and having access to more personal content, the T.G.S. Patreon includes these as well as access to early shop releases, the quarterly gently used sales, a monthly updates newsletter, and of course our monthly Zoom meetups. Patreon support starts as low as $3 per month, and if you pay annually there is a further discount.

No matter how you support us - even if just with a comment, recommendation, or encouraging word - we greatly appreciate your readership!

Comparing Low Viscosity Ballpoint Pens: Jetstream vs. Acroball vs. Anterique vs. Ohto

It’s been interesting to see pen manufacturers - especially the Japanese manufacturers - move away from standard ballpoints to low viscosity refills. You sometimes hear these refills referred to as “hybrid gel-ballpoint”, because they combine the permanence and quick dry times of a classic ballpoint pen with the smoothness of a gel pen. Personally, I love them, and they form a core part of my own everyday writing rotation. The downside is that outside the Jetstream line, you don’t have many color options, with most companies offering these refills only in black.

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In order of darkness, I would rank the inks as follows: Pilot Acro Ink, Uni Jetstream, Anterique Mach Ball, and Ohto. In order of dry time, I would rank them the exact inverse: Ohto, Anterique Mach Ball, Uni Jetstream, and Pilot Acro Ink. That’s not to say that any of them “dry slowly,” but with a darker like, you will get more smoothness, and with that added smoothness comes increased dry time because it means more ink is on the page.

With so many of these sorts of pens entering the market, I thought it might be helpful to do a quick comparison of my thoughts on four of the most common brands: Pilot (Acro-Ink / Acroball), Uni (Jetstream), Ohto (various needle-tip refills), and Anterique (“Mach-ball”). See below for my thoughts on each. Please note that this post is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather an overview of the more popular refills that I often get asked about, with a focus on how they compare to one another. For a more general overview of low-viscosity ballpoints, including other brands, see this post here.

• Uni Jetstream. Probably the easiest to find of all the refills featured in this post, the Jetstream comes in anything from D1 size to Uni’s own proprietary multi-pen size to a standard Parker-style cartridge. The biggest selling point of the Jetstream is the number of options you have. D1 and multi pen refills come in colors that include black, blue, red, and green, and even though the Parker-style cartridges are available only in black, you still have .38mm, .5mm, and .7mm tip sizes. Jetstreams are smooth writers - maybe not quite as smooth as Pilot’s Acro-ink, but you’d have to be a pretty big ballpoint aficionado to notice the difference.

• Pilot Acro-Ink. In my opinion, the smoothest, easiest-writing refill on this list. While Pilot’s Acro-Ink refills aren’t quite as ubiquitous as the Jetstream line, I like them for longer-form writing. The .7mm writes a smooth line without smearing, and in my opinion it’s a better .7mm tip size than the Jetstream. These refills are found in the Pilot S20 ballpoints, the “Dr. Grip” line, and the Pilot “Acroball” pens that you can sometimes find in larger office supply stores.

• Anterique “Mach Ball” Refill. Anterique is known for taking the classic vintage-style click pen and upgrading it with their excellent refill. It only comes in one tip size (.5mm), with black ink, but it’s a great pen and relatively inexpensive. Pro tip: you can often substitute one of these refills into a standard vintage Bic Clic ballpoint. I have a large collection of vintage ballpoint pens, and it’s been a joy to give many of them a fresh life with a new refill. Sometimes you have to trim or extend the Anterique refill, as I don’t think the specs on the Clic were consistent over the years, but there are only a couple of exceptions where I was unable to make it work. Anterique’s biggest selling point is that it dries nearly instantaneously.

• Ohto Needle-Tip Ballpoint Refill. The ultra-precise .5mm needle-tip ballpoint has become Ohto’s hallmark. Of all the pens on this page, Ohto’s are on the drier side, but what this means is that you will get a very precise line and zero smearing. Ohto makes the refill for Object Index, Traveler’s Company, and Mark’style branded pens. Honestly, if you see any Japanese needle-tip ballpoint pen, chances are it’s an Ohto.

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Writing sample pens are, from left, the Pilot S20 (shown here in brown), the Anterique Mach Ball Standard Size, the Object Index Cedar Pen, and the Uni Jetstream 4+1 Bamboo.

I’m a huge fan of ballpoints and they play a huge role in my everyday working life because, well, they just work. We stock a wide variety in our shop, and if you come visit us in person, ask to try each of the refills featured here, as we have testers generally available.

Thank you for reading! The Gentleman Stationer is supported by the T.G.S. Curated Shop and the T.G.S. Patreon Program. If you’d like to visit our in-person location, you can view directions and up-to-date hours here.

Thursday Drops: Yamamoto Writing Pads, Traveler's Notebook Restocks, and More!

Our massive paper restock continues, with a large shipment from Yamamoto Paper arriving this morning. First out of the box are the A5 Bank Paper and Tomoegawa Tomoe River 52gsm writing pads. We also have the entire line of Mnemosyne x Kleid spiral notebooks (featuring that tiny 2mm grid!) as well as Lochby and Traveler’s Company restocks. It’s so much new stuff that we’ve had to reorganize the displays in the Brick-and-Mortar shop!

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Mnemosyne x Kleid Notebooks are here in all sizes!

Remember: We have all sorts of pencils and erasers on the shelves, recently arrived, and all items in the “InCoWriMo” section have a special promotion this month with the coupon code “SNAILMAIL” at checkout. Finally, it appears as though several TWSBI colors are being phased out in favor of new releases. If you’ve had your eye on the TWSBI ECO Heat, the TWSBI Diamond AL Mini in Grape, the ECO-T Eggplant Purple, or the ECO-T Jade and Rose Gold, we’re down to the last few units and it doesn’t appear that restocking is a possibility. Once we clear these out it makes room for more!

1. Yamamoto Bank Paper and Tomoegawa Tomoe River A5 Writing Pads. these 100 (Bank Paper) and 200 sheet (Tomoe River) writing pads were favorites when they were in stock, and we finally have more!

2. Mnemosyne x Kleid Spiral Notebooks. The classic Mnemosyne spiral notebook is now available in A4, A5, B5, A6, and B6 sizes with Kleid’s signature 2mm graph paper. Both vertical and landscape/wide layouts are available.

3. Lochby A5 Field Journal Notebooks (68gsm Tomoe River). These slim A5 notebooks fit the standard Lochby Field Journal, and are one of the few remaining options that contain 68gsm Tomoe River paper, the thicker version that I personally prefer because I think it dries faster and doesn’t crinkle as much.

4. Lochby Pocket Notebooks (68gsm Tomoe River). Similar to the A5 Field Journal Notebook, these pocket notebooks come in three different layouts and are the same size as a standard Field Notes notebook. They also fit the Lochby Field Journal Mini Cover, linked below.

5. Lochby Field Journal and Field Journal Mini Notebook Covers. These sturdy waxed canvas covers have proven enduringly popular, and Lochby recently released a “Mini” version of the Field Journal sized to the standard 3.5 x 5.5 pocket notebook. You can read our review of it here.

6. Traveler’s Notebook Starter Kits. We currently have all colors and sizes of TRAVELER’S COMPANY Traveler’s Notebooks in stock. Most refills and accessories are also restocked, including brass products.

7. Clairefontaine Basics Life.unplugged Pocket Notebooks. I’ve been unable to get the two-packs of Clairefontaine pocket notebooks, but these larger 3.5 x 5.5 notebooks contain a whopping 48 sheets/96 pages, which is big for a pocket notebook.

8. Notsu Index Cards. I’ve spent the better part of a year searching for ink friendly index cards with useful layouts, and these Notsu cards are among the best I’ve used to date. The “Centre Rise” Box Set version includes “To Do” cards and dividers that you can use for task management.

9. Ohto Ceramic Rollerball Pens. We now have the larger version of Ohto’s “CR” series rollerball pens, the CR01. If you found the CR02 a bit slim for your taste, give this one a try in some fun camouflage colors. (Don’t worry, the CR02 is coming back at some point!)

10. Ohto C-305 Rollerball Refill. Both the CR01 and CR02 Ohto Rollerballs use this excellent .5mm rollerball refill. I’ve also had good luck getting it to fit Lamy pens by using a spacer at the end.

Thank you for reading! The Gentleman Stationer is supported by the T.G.S. Curated Shop and the T.G.S. Patreon Program. If you’d like to visit our in-person location, you can view directions and up-to-date hours here.

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The larger Ohto CR01 Rollerball is in stock, in three new colors!