An iPad 2 or a Fountain Pen?

No doubt that Apple has already sold well over a million of their new iPad 2 since its debut last Friday. The latest and greatest from Steve Jobs has many consumers reaching for a cool $500-$800 to get their fingers on the touchscreen of this gadget. As a purveyor of fountain pens and other luxury writing instruments, one can't help but feel that traditional pen and paper is fading away, along with Presidential portrait paper. But we've talked about that on this blog already. But lets assume we haven't already been brainwashed by Apple's slick advertising and the ubiquitous need for electronic gizmos. Lets imagine, if you will, that you are considering a $600 purchase in either a fountain pen or an iPad.

This could be either for yourself or for a gift, but you are buying this for pleasure, not business. In terms of usefulness, it's like comparing Apples to...um.. you know. The iPad allows you to play movies, listen to music, check e-mail, surf the web, play games, take photos, shoot video, shop, get directions so on and so forth.

The fountain pen writes.

Sure, on paper (pun intended) the iPad looks to be a dominant choice, an unequivocal multi-tasker capable of miracles. But how much of that is actually useful to you? Would you be more distracted by the bells and whistles: stalking on facebook while in the bath, playing Angry Birds instead of baseball with your friends, listening to iTunes instead of having a genuine dinner conversation? The fountain pen is the exact opposite - it eliminates distraction instead of inviting it.

First, you have to fill your pen, which either requires a pop-in cartridge or using a bottle of ink to fill. The time and concentration invested in getting your pen inked already forces you to focus in on the experience. Then, comes the writing. A buttery nib lays down a beautifully-shading ink on smooth, crisp, ruled paper. What to write? Does it really matter at this point? You would practice writing the letter "A" over and over again if you ran out of things to think of and put on paper. The world sometimes shuts off, the phone stops ringing, Twitter stops tweeting and you can actually focus on the thoughts and feelings going on in that beleaguered head of yours.

Lets consider the long run, which may not be far ahead if you're willing to spend $900 for just a spot at the front of the line to buy the iPad 2. Having owned consumer electronics since childhood, I can tell you that the life expectancy of computers and gadgets have certainly increased, but are still rapidly eclipsed by newer, better technology within a few short years of introduction. From pager to CD Walkman to Mini Disc player to cellphone to iPod, tech is in constant revolution. Fountain pens are actually more desirable when they are vintage and, in many cases, the design of contemporary fountain pens haven't changed much at all in the last 50 years. They are built to last, to be passed down and enjoyed, not just for years, but decades.

The scheduled obsolescence of current technology is also indicative of the device's future market value. Try selling a Nintendo or Atari game system for the original price tag you bought it for years ago. With the rapid increase in precious material costs, fountain pens are a safe bet to increase in value over time. Since fountain pen technology won't drastically change in the foreseeable future, you can imagine that people 20 years from now will be using the fountain the same way as they do now. Who knows when touch screen is replaced by gesture or brainwave interfacing a la Minority Report.

One final consideration would be maintenance. The iPad requires electricity. That so-called 10-hour battery needs to be recharged before taking it on a weekend trip. The warranty lasts for a year on hardware. The extended warranty, which is additional in cost, only extends out for another year. After two years, when the headphone jack is worn out from constant use and the screen is scratched, you're on your own, looking at a costly repair upward of $200. Some fine pen brands offer a 3-year, 5-year or  lifetime mechanical warranty. Even if you've destroyed your nib by dropping it uncapped on the floor, you can contact a variety of specialists who specifically work on fountain pens (a.k.a. nibmeisters) to repair or replace your nib for a fraction of an iPad repair cost.

Instead of summarizing the argument with a conclusion favoring one side versus the other, I will leave it up to you - the people of the internet who also enjoy writing with nice pens. Like the Starburst commercials declare, you are a delicious contradiction. I won't make a statement saying that pens are the right way to go, that would be too much like all the tech hype that we've had crammed down our throats. I'm merely putting all of the flashy claims in perspective. Take it for what it's worth. I'll keep on writing ;-)

The Cartridge Vs. The Converter

Many times you will hear of a fountain pen commonly offered with the cartridge / converter filling system. This means that the fountain pen can either accept disposable ink cartridges or use the refillable, screw-type converter that can draw ink from a bottle. My intention of this article is to pit the both of them in bloody battle and see who would triumph gloriously.

Just kidding, but I did want to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using either method of filling your fountain pen. This information is especially useful for first-time fountain pen owners, so listen up. You don't want to get ink all over your nice sweater before Thanksgiving Dinner, or on the Turkey, for that matter.

Cartridges are, by far, the easiest between the two. They are fully supplied with ink, so when you pop that sucker into the front section of your fountain pen and hear the satisfying snap of the insert being pierced, you know you are moments away from writing the Great American Novel, or signing your expense reports, or writing a passive-aggressive note for the noisy neighbor upstairs.

No mess filling your pen, but it does take a few moments to get that ink into the feed and to the point. To juice the process, I usually like to give the ink cartridge a gentle squeeze with my thumb and forefinger to get the ink down faster. Removal is as easy as taking out the empty cartridge and throwing it away.

The big negative with going the cartridge route of filling your fountain pen is that they are disposable, hurting the environment and your wallet at the same time. Buying box after box of cartridges isn't as cost-efficient as getting bottles of ink. Also, there hardly is as much of a color variety as there is with bottled ink. Most manufacturers will simply offer the blue, black and blue-black, while their selection of bottled inks will have every color "under the rainbow."

Converters are the modern compromise between the traditional bottle-filling systems of old with the industrialized notion of interchangeable parts. Without going into a whole historical tangent, the converter's purpose is to allow the user to fill their fountain pen in an old-fashioned way without having to worry about delicate pen repair down the road. You simply insert the converter in the same manner you would a cartridge. Seat it properly into the front section of the pen. Then, submerge the nib and feed into your bottle of fountain pen-friendly ink. Screw the black knob clockwise to draw ink up through the nib into the converter's ink chamber. Screw anti-(counter)clockwise to expel the contents (air, ink or water) out of the converter. This may take several twists up-and-down to get the proper suction, making sure all of the air is removed from the converter and that you are drawing up only ink. Filling via converter is a process that takes several tries to get a handle on it and novices are sure to get their fingers inky at first. Heck, I still get inky sometimes.

There are two main "draws" with a converter : one is the actual process itself. It may be nostalgic for some, while many also experience a sense of being deliberate and caring for your writing implement. With so many of our modern consumer items being disposable, it is a nice change-of-pace to actually take the time and fill your fountain pen, getting it ready to meet the day's tasks head-on! The second point is that it is more cost-effective to fill from an ink bottle than it is to continually buy cartridges. By the time you are buying package after package of disposable ink cartridges that last a few months, you could have had a whole collection of modestly priced ink bottles to last you a few years. There are online communities like Fountain Pen Network that encourage ink swapping or ink sampling, which would mean getting small 2 mL samples of different brands, hues and formulas of ink to find one that you really would love to get a bottle of.

The intimidating part of using the converter over a cartridge is the potentially messy process. The closest activity I can relate it to is changing the oil on your car. It is far more satisfying to do the job yourself, but you need to take time and get a little messy to accomplish. Taking the car to Lube 'N Go will be more expensive, but far less effort involved. If the oil came in different colors, which would change the colors of your exhaust, now we'd be much closer to the experience of filling a fountain pen.

Bottom Line - Most pen manufacturers offer both the converter and one ink cartridge with the purchase of a new fountain pen for the same reason that both Jiffy Lube and Advance Auto Parts are around. There are people who prefer to be more hands on, while there are others who want to keep things simple. It really depends on the effort of the individual. Not that I'm saying people who use ink cartridges are lazy, they just would rather concentrate their daily efforts elsewhere. People who like filling their fountain pen with a converter want to invest themselves into their writing instrument and are willing to take the risk of getting ink on their hands because it is part of the charm, the very reason why they selected a fountain pen to write with in the first place.

Pens and the Age of Consumer Electronics

Now, the general consensus may be that the era of the handwritten, pen-and-paper affair is over. But you're reading a blog about fancy pens, and our job at Goldspot.com is to sell these archaic writing instruments, so you can assume that we would argue the opposite case. Not today. It is over. Everyone can shelf their Pelikans, Parkers and Mont Blancs. Steve Jobs is going to send everyone iPads for Christmas this year. Your pens will make a great addition to our museums to show how primitive our lives were before everything evaporated into a digital "cloud." Schools will replace lessons on handwriting with typing and computer literacy. We send our "signatures" through biometric scans of our thumbprint. Even grocery checklists are automated with bar code scanners and your Stop&Shop card. The luminaries of silicon valley will tout, "We're saving thousands of acres of rainforest to re-build our thin ozone layer. And our wallets have never been thicker!" Actually, they won't say this in person, but in a text message that you receive as a Tweet. And America will say, "Well, it has to be true if @million_$dollar$_CEO said it." Meanwhile, my daughter is going to be more concerned if the boy she's dating changed his relationship status on Facebook from "single" to "in a relationship" than waiting for any love letters to come in the mail. And after she bugs me to check her Facebook one last time as she goes to bed, I'll be up writing a blog post about how people are losing touch with reality the more they "connect" online. As I tap away at my keyboard, I think about all those nice pens that are now collecting dust in the closet. It was nice to look at people's handwriting and get a sense of their personality and the emotions they have in the moment they are putting the pen to paper. What's that word again, "SUBTLETY?" Emoticons can only express so much, even if you copy and paste the same one over and over again. It was far less frustrating to write notes in my notebook than it is to type notes in my tiny iPhone screen with the battery dying from looking up YouTube videos on my way to work. And gee, although the computer wizards claim they're saving the forests, they make up for it by creating massive amounts of environmentally unfriendly batteries and draining our already-tapped electrical power grid. I hear the chanting of "Drill, Baby, Drill" in the distance. Then, there was the one day that an internet prankster in South Korea decided it would be LOLZ to wipe out every hard drive on every server, notebook, netbook, iPod, smartphone and personal computer (even your Nintendo DS isn't safe) in the entire world. Since we went paperless, everything was lost. To Doctors, patients have no more medical history. That amount you owe to the credit card company - gone. Your savings account, however, is also history. And the best thing about this phenomena is that no one can Tweet about it, no one can "like" it on Facebook and you will actually have to step out of your cave and strike up a conversation with your neighbor, "hey, my internet is out, do you have a phone book so I can call up the cable company to complain?" This is what the digital "cloud" has to offer : a veiled, distant form of reality that is even more fragile and difficult to maintain than our real lives. One day, we can wake up, and our lives are hijacked from us by a hacker who managed to crack our foolproof password : "12345" (...and change the combination on my luggage!) What do we hope to pass down from generation to generation? When we click OK to accept the terms of a Last Will and Testament, does that mean we have to upkeep Uncle Larry's MySpace page for all eternity? What value does any of this have in the long run? If pen and paper dies, does our humanity go along with it?

How does the Pen Addiction Start?

Bet you if you look quickly at this stock photo of a syringe, it seems an awful lot like a pen with a spot of red ink. For many of us, "using" and collecting nice pens is no longer a choice. It is a part of our lifestyle. But how did it all happen? How did I end up justifying that a $300 fountain pen is a better buy than a Blu-Ray player? Or an Xbox? Or a nice suit? As with any addiction, pen addiction starts off small and seemingly innocuous. Maybe it was back in grade school, when your parents took you to an office supply store the week before school started. Stocked up with folders, erasers, notebooks and a backpack, you make your way to the pen aisle. The last cheap-o pen you used last year has either dried up or got sucked in the "black hole" of your messy room. Gel ink?! Cushion grip?! Such things are unheard of! The callus that you developed on the middle finger of your writing hand rejoices, "God be praised!" Starting off with relatively inexpensive, non-refillable Pilot or Uni-ball pens, you get a feel for how better life is without the cheap plastic of the pen you got for free at the bank. In college, you come to the conclusion that the cheap, mass produced Bic is a tool of socialism and that fine pens, although bourgeois, represent the American Way. Uncle Teddy gifts you a nice Parker for graduating high school and you think to yourself, "boy, now I've made it." Thinking about how flashy and great your new pen is, you start to notice what everyone else is writing with as they take class notes. You go down each row, "Crap. Crap. Bic with chewed up cap. Pencil. TD Bank Pen. Crap. Crap. Wait a second..." What looks like a white speck on top a cylinder of dark, polished lacquer is actually a snowflake, and you've spied a Montblanc. Allured by the prestige of even knowing someone who owns a Montblanc, you ask the student after class if you can try it. After a period of awkward silence, you grab the pen and jot a note down to test it out. "Huh. I don't see what the big deal is," you say as you hand the pen back and walk away. Best $500 you didn't spend. This next part may vary, but it usually involves some type of window shopping. You've ran out of ink for Uncle Teddy's pen and he forgets where it was purchased. So, you do some research. Search online, visit an office supply store, or, if you're lucky, find a REAL pen shop. In looking for the refill, you find your next pen. "I think this rollerball will suit me. After all, if I'm going to get that promotion, I'm going to need to feel professional." Since no one could refuse to sign a contract with such a beautiful pen, you get the promotion. Attributing all the success to the pen, you get another, and another, and another. Even when times are down, a pen will pick you up! The boring paperwork that came with your new responsibilities isn't so bad when you have a smooth-gliding Pelikan fountain pen in your hand. Where does it end? Does it ever end? Many folks talk about having a "grail" pen, or a writing instrument of their deepest desire that is made almost unattainable due to price or scarcity. But once they obtain that pen, does the want for another really subside? Pen makers and manufacturers churn our interest by offering new materials, new technologies and better designs. Their enabling ways push the addict into relapse, over and over again. Several ways a drug addiction is similar to a pen addiction:

• "Users" have a stock (or stash) of ink refills to fill up whenever they go empty.
• When the ink runs out, the user gets into a frantic rush about finding refills and often has to hunt around town for a "dealer" and sometimes has to go online to find the specific compatible replacements.
• Yes, pen shops are commonly referred to as "dealers."
• There is a syringe involved. Some fountain pen users prefer to refill ink cartridges by using a blunt syringe and bottled ink.

So, if you or someone you know suffers from pen addiction. Please call us. :-P