Sometime around age 10 or so, I started reading Mike Royko in the editorial page of the Burlington Free Press. I knew nothing about this guy or his history, but he was funny and I got hooked. Over the next several years he wrote about a lot of things, but one that stuck with me was his love of of fountain pens. This was a guy who had gone on extensive rants about $6000 analog wristwatches compared to the power of a $20 digital watch, and had an entire post about the pronunciation of “Prix Fixe”, which is to say, not any kind of snob. But he delighted in the act of writing with a fountain pen, and I think some of that rubbed off on me as a kind of curiosity.

But if you’re a kid in Vermont in the 80s and not looking to spend hundreds of dollars on a showpiece pen, fountain pens are not something you casually put your hands on. I was limited to what I could get at drugstores, department stores and sometimes a bookstore. I tried a lot of other pens though, and developed a fondness for them. That kid in high school with an Israeli paratrooper satchel¹ with a differently colored pen in each of the bullet loops? That was me. To this day, I still vividly remember when the first Staples opened in Vermont, and it was like the promised land.

But I spent several years on the lookout for fountain pens. Calligraphy pens (most of which are very broad nibbed fountain pens) and speedwell dip pens weren’t hard to find, but real fountain pens were vanishingly rare. But the summer I worked as a page in the U.S. Senate, I got access to the Senate’s stationery supply store, which had the best collection of quality pens & notebooks I had ever seen in my life. This was not the public gift shop - it was the secret shop for staffers and senators. It was small and intensely curated - if you have ever gotten a letter from congress on beautiful, rich, thick paper, it probably came from this shop. What little money I had got spent there on some parker fountain pens which I used for years before I started finding other sources.

All of which is to say, when I got into fountain pens, it was very hard (I’M OLD). But today? It’s a whole new world. You can find them in small quantities in stores and in copious amounts online. There are still luxury pens going for hundreds or thousands of dollars, but the entry point is much, much lower.

Now, do you want to get into fountain pens? 25 years ago, the compelling argument was that they wrote so much better than ballpoints, and that was absolutely true. But pen technology has greatly improved since then - rollerballs, gel ink and general improvements mean you can get a good writing experience with even an inexpensive pen. Fountain pens still write marvelously well, but they need more maintenance, you need to worry about ink, and they’re just generally more work. So why bother?

You don’t have to. But if you like to write longhand, then things like the pen and paper probably matter to you, and you’ve maybe wondered what this whole fountain pen thing is about. The good news is it’s easy find out. The Pilot Metropolitan is a wonderfully well made fountain pen for less than twenty bucks. It’s tough, solid, and it writes well. If you’re very curious, probably grab some ink too.² For less that $20 you have everything you need to see what this is all about, including whether this is not for you. You can love pens and not enjoy fountain pens at all. Honest.

A few other notes: if you are left handed? Be careful. Fountain pen ink doesn’t dry quickly, so it’s easy to smudge. You can still use fountain pens, but you need ones with very fine nibs with ink that dries quickly. The Metropolitan with a fine nib will do ok in this regard, but you might need to hunt down an extra fine nib, which tends to require a special order from a place like jetpens.com.

You will also frequently hear recommendations for the Lamy Safari as a starting fountain pen. These are good suggestions! For years the Safari was my recommendation too, and the Metropolitan has merely nudged it to an honorable second place. The Safari is not as heavy as the Metropolitan, and has a softer nib - neither of those things mean its worse, they’re just different performance characteristics. But in my experience the Safari is a little bit more of a leak risk, and its a few bucks more, which tipped me over to the Metropolitan. But if you can get one (and especially if you like the look of it) the go for it!

For all that, there is an even easier option: disposable fountain pens! The Pilot Varsity pens³ are wonderfully simple, write well, and come in a lot of great colors. If you want the absolute easiest entry point, this is another great way to go.

What I would suggest against is surfing Amazon and buying a cheap, pretty fountain pen. It’s a risky proposition. There are a number of overseas manufacturers who have hit the market with very inexpensive and nice looking fountain pens that are fairly unpredictable as pens. Once you have reached the point of having an opinion about what you like in a fountain pen, then absolutely try them out, but expect a lot of them to be junk. I promise you - a crappy fountain pen is a terrible experience, and a quick way to sour you on the whole idea.