Black ink, finest point I can get. I think my current ones are ball point (Tul, u with a horizontal bar over it). DH likes fountain pens, I’ve never mastered using them. He routinely carries several pens, I’m doing well to be able to find one if I’m away from home.
Uniball micro point, black ink. Buy them by the box and use every day. Note taking, sketching, drawing. Occasionally use their fine (larger) point.
Standard U.S. Government ball point pen. Being able to convert it into a pellet gun is the best feature.
This is a public service announcement about a subject that I (or rather my bank) found out the hard way.
If you use your pen to write checks with, make sure it uses pigmented ink, not ink made from dyes. Checks made from pigmented ink cannot be washed with acetone to remove the writing, and thusly allow a larger monetary figure to be written on the check. Dye based inks can be washed in seconds.
I had a check washed one morning, the amount raised from $350 to $1,750 and cashed before the end of the same day. Luckily for me, it’s evidently standard bank policy (at least at my bank) to eat this loss, so it didn’t come out of my bank account.
For lots of interesting information, including a complete “how to” on this subject, Google “Check washing”. Pretty simple to do.
Among other things, I’m a cartoonist and illustrator so all of my pens write in black. For ordinary writing any black ballpoint will do, usually bought in multi-packs from Staples. Staples own OptiFlow pen has more of a “pen and ink” line than a regular ballpoint.
For drawing I usually use Staedtler pigment liners now, but I really prefer the old technical drawing pens along the lines of the Rapidograph.
I have four pens right now, having winnowed down my collection of vintage fountain pens to my very very favorites.
- 1952 Pelikan 400NN Tortoise (celluloid & resin), gold full flex fine nib. German.
- 1912 Waterman 52 black hard rubber (latex), gold full flex fine nib. USA. These are some of the finest nibs ever made, so are highly coveted by calligraphers and others who just like to write, like me.
- 1940’s Eversharp Skyline, celluloid blue/gold striped, gold full flex fine nib. USA.
- 1940’s Esterbrook SJ series, green celluloid, steel semi-flex fine nib. USA This pen is only worth about $35 bucks so it is my purse pen. The others are a lot more, the first two are in the $200 ballpark.
The US was once one of the greatest innovaters and manufacturers of fine writing instruments. Oh well.
Inks . . . I have about a dozen colors of bottled ink, although there are hundreds available.
I never, ever write with ballpoints. Once you experience the joy of a truly good fountain pen it is like the difference between the best french cheese and velveeta. Can’t go back.
Ulfreida has some magical pens there, but unless they could be used to destroy a dementor, $600 worth of pens is too rich for my blood. We can feed The Three Frigs for about six weeks with that money. A pen should cost somewhere between the price of a loaf of bread and a pound of decent beef.
Is it the gel pens that smear if you even accidentally rest the edge of your hand on the writing? Don’t like that feature. Fine point Bics, black, are the best. Felt tips are good to keep in the car, they don’t freeze up in the winter.
Don’t ever buy those cheapo packs of pens in the Dollar Store, they aren’t worth a dollar!
Covet! 
Any pics you could link to?
ETA: I use a simple click ballpoint. Love cool old pens but never invested the time to develop expertise in them…
On a semi-related note, if you get stuck with a gloppy pen, hand sanitizer does nicely at getting ink off skin. 
…mightier than my sword is.
I’m not picky about pens. Black ink, medium point. And I’ll buy the cheapest kind I can find, usually a pack of a dozen for about $1.
A Reform fountain pen with a 1.1 mm calligraphy nib.
I’m pretty picky about pens, and have tried a variety of calligraphy nibs through the years, but I believe this is my favorite. They’re no longer made, alas, so I’ve got four or five squirreled away for the future. They’re not terrible expensive: somewhere in the $20 range these days.
The appeal of the ballpoint has always baffled me. They are both harder to push and don’t quite go where I expect them to.
There are worse things to spend your money on than something beautiful and practical and clever that itself produces beauty. Old, well-made fountain pens don’t get used up. They will last your lifetime and can be passed on to someone else when you’re dead.
My pens were each cared for and used by nameless others, probably dead now (certainly dead now in the case of my 1900’s Waterman). It’s a different way of looking at tools than the modern way. It’s true I don’t need four. One or two is enough, but I love each of them and can’t decide between them.
You can google any of the pens I described and get an image. Or, if you need more info, check out fountainpennetwork.com. More about fountain pens than you have ever imagined. About 67,000 members. About evenly divided between modern and vintage users and collectors. It’s a thing. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. I found my Esterbrook in an antique store for $10.
And do you prefer spending all that time cleaning them? As soon as I found the Sakura Micron 005 pens that could draw with as fine a line as my skinniest Rapidograph, I ditched my tech pens altogether.
I do really intricate illustrations, and I’d love to find a pen with as fine a point as the Sakura (because of the limited colors). The 005 is close to half the width of the Staedtlers.
I prefer fountain pens since that was the popular choice in the Catholic school that I went to for 17 years. We also were required to write in cursive very early on and fountain pens offered smooth cursive writing. I have been using the Pilot use and throw fountain pen “Varsity” for a while now, and I love it. My mother in law recently gave me two Bulow brand fountain pens and they are fabulous as well. One has a black cartridge and the other one has blue. I also got purple ink cartridges.
Blue, medium point, ball point pen. I like how Parker pens write. I bought a Rotring 600 which takes the Parker refill. I’ve had that for about five years so far and am happy with it.
My Limited Edition Montegrappa Solid 18K Gold Chaos Series Fountain Pen by Fountain Pen and Wristwatch Aficionado Sylvester Stallone (keep watching, it’s really boring at first but the description gets so ridiculous later on).
No, but seriously I like generic felt tip pens. I just have trouble writing with ball points. I’d really LIKE to write with a fountain/calligraphy pen, but that’s just not gonna happen – I suck with writing with them. (I’d kill to write with a brush though, my handwriting somehow becomes really good with a nice brush and some ink)