I just tried three Bic pens from a package. The first two wouldn’t write. I tried scribbling on paper to prime it.
My luck with pens is terrible. When find one that works. It won’t work for long. Sometimes it fails after laying on my desk for a week or two.
I don’t write pages of text anymore. My biggest use is jotting down notes while I’m on the phone, signing checks, or addressing a couple envelopes.
Remember when everyone had a old coffee cup as a pen holder? There would be a handful of pens in it. Most of the time they worked when I randomly pulled one out.
It’s been over 20 years since I ran a pen dry. You could see how much ink was left. Today it’s rare to use even a half-inch of ink before the pen fails.
I used to pass over the Bic pens in favor of the blue medium point Paper Mate. Then I got a batch that dried out after a couple of years. But the most recent Paper Mates, which are thicker, work fine for me.
I’m a fan of cheap pens. Buy 60. If someone asks to borrow your pen, just give it to them. Leave them around everywhere. Flood the zone.
Not that I’ve noticed. We have a half-dozen inexpensive pens in the house at any given time, and I don’t recall a recent time in which we pulled out a new one and it didn’t work.
I’ve been using Uniball Roller Grip pens for years. They feel good in my hand and produce a nice smooth line. I haven’t noticed any decrease in quality.
We’ve had some comments in the past extolling the virtues of the Pilot G-2. My absolute favourite pen is the Pilot G-2 with an 0.7 mm point and blue ink. I love this thing.
For some reason related to god-knows what marketing policies, it’s not available in stores anywhere in Canada that I know of, but can be ordered online. I’ll soon be ordering a second box. It’s now the only ballpoint pen I ever use. If anyone knows of anything that’s just as good, I’ll be glad to hear about it.
I bought a Fisher Space Pen from the planetarium gift shop when I was in Chicago earlier this year, because I occasionally have to work inside a freezer and blowing on the tip of your pen to thaw out the ink gets tiresome when you’re trying to take notes and figure ouf what products you need to order in.
It is now my all-purpose pen and I’m never going back.
Which leads to a funny habit a lot of us have without really realizing it.
As mentioned above, it’s common to have like a ceramic mug or something on one’s desk with 20-30 pens in it. If you have an immediate need for a pen, you grab one out of the mug. You try writing with it. It doesn’t work. So … you quickly stick it back in the mug and pull out another one.
Which means, over time, the mug will eventually contain mostly nonfunctional pens.
Related to the topic of the thread, I think this habit used to be somewhat justifiable, back when pens were just intermittently finicky instead of being cheap and crappy. The pen might not work right now but maybe it’ll work later so put it back and try it again.
I’ve had to adjust this habit, personally. Now, if a pen doesn’t work, I don’t put it back in the mug. I set it aside while I take care of whatever the immediate writing requirement might be. Then I try the uncooperative pen again. And if it’s actually dead, I throw it away.
Great - now you made me waste 10 minutes testing every pen in my mug.
I threw most of them away, of course. The only non-functioning one I kept has a cool NY subway map on it, and it used to belong to my dad, so I’m keeping it. Besides that, my mug has two functioning Uniball gel pens, a cheap functioning ballpoint that makes a satisfying click when you press its button, two small box cutters, and a tester.
Disposable pens are disposable, what do you expect?
Since I write with vintage fountain pens almost exclusively I’m not really in any position to comment cogently, but what I do know is that if you want a pleasant, reliable writer, you’ll have to pay money for it. Pens come in every price range, but a twelve dollar pen will write better than a two dollar pen.
Once upon a time, a good pen was built to last the lifetime of a person and you only had one, and took care of it. People bequeathed such pens to their heirs. We think about objects differently now, but it isn’t necessarily an improvement.
Of course, basic ball-point pens have to be held vertically, and stored point-down, in order to write correctly, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the OP’s problem.
Heh. Ever since college my preferred pen was the Expresso Medium, which had a conical fiber tip, available in several colors, but it’s been discontinued for decades. Eight or nine years ago, in desperation, I found someone who had a stash of them in original boxes so I bought a gross - about half of them had dried beyond recovery but I’ve been nursing the survivors along.
It was nice you can buy them in 1 or 2 paks, not just a box of 12 or 20. When one pen lasts 5 years’ of writing, not much need to buy even two, much less a more-than-remaining-lifetime supply.
I’m a Pilot G-2 fan. But just to be sure - you know that most pens these days are sold with a little cap on the tip that you have to remove before you start writing, right?
I’m a uniball fan. And i like thin pens, not those big fat clunky things that are claimed to be more comfortable. And i like a fine line.
These days, I buy the Uni-ball Signo DX 0.38mm pens, and I’ve been quite happy with them. They sometimes get fussy before they are empty, and then i toss them. But when they are working well they were beautifully smoothly. And as a lefty, i appreciate that they don’t smudge.
My husband buys cheap biks, and while they have a fatter line and don’t write as fluidly as my expensive pens, they work fine. I haven’t noticed any decrease in pen quality.
Ball point pens have always had a chance of drying out if you don’t use them for a long time, and i guess if you rarely use a pen, it’s likely to dry out before the ink runs out. But that’s always been true, in my experience.
