My Papermates wander off and I don’t care. BWHAHAHAHAHA.
I see the Pilot G2 is a little over a buck though, which is an affordable luxury. What color ink? Fine, Ultrafine or what?
I use the blue medium point Papermate. Sometimes you can get them for 10 cents each. The knockoff at Office Depot is even better, but I can’t promise they won’t change their supplier on a whim.
Bic Cristal.
When I moved to Florida to start this job six years ago, I bought two ten-packs of Bic Cristal pens; one package each of blue and black. I’ve used half of them.
They’re reliable, inexpensive and don’t walk off.
I carry a Parker Jotter with me everywhere. It’s basically indestructible, so having it kick around in my pocket with keys and change doesn’t hurt it, and it won’t bend or leak if you sit down wrong on it.
It’s a real pen, not a disposable, so nobody will just walk away with it, and it is a lot more professional than a throw-away. The best part is that they’re cheap enough (~$7-8) that you don’t get bent out of shape when one goes missing.
I don’t think they make the Uniball kind I used to love. Lately I enjoy the thin Sharpies that came out a few years ago
because they write smooth and dark. Good for crossword puzzles. But they do bleed through a little bit.
pilot Precise V5 or V7. They are very consistent and the ink dries very fast. One of the very few liquid ink pens that left handers can use because the tip doesn’t mush in.
Favorite that I use all the time is my Caran D’ache ballpoint (medium, black). Second favorite is a Zebra G301. The ones that I have sitting on my desk, that people ALWAYS comment about - “what kind of pen is this? this is great!” - are cheapo, Target house brand blue ballpoints. These things. Seriously, 50 pens for $4 and they write really nicely.
I have a handful of these pens that I don’t like. They are Pentel Wow! Gel, Papermate Profile and a Pilot G-2. They have a black rubber grip and click mechanism. Since so many people have vouched for the Pilot G-2, I’ll give it another try although my main pen will remain the basic Bic. I also have a Papermate InkJoy and Uni Jetstream.
Uniball Uniball Uniball. There are no other pens.
Failing that, any liquid ink will do. I hold my pen in (what I am told is) a “left-handed” grip, despite being quite right-handed; the result is that I drag my hand across the page when I write. Liquid ink dries, unlike ballpoint. Also, ballpoint ink smells foul and leaves blobs of ink on the paper. The fact that liquid ink doesn’t dry fast enough for me to, say, take small notes and move on without blotting the paper is not enough for me to give it up compared to having to huff ballpoint fumes and look at those horrible blobs and get the knife-edge of my hand all filthy. Yech.
Uniball, uniball, uniball. My only sadness is that you pretty much can’t get the green ink that was my favorite any more. But liquid ink or nothing.
Another vote for the Uni-ball line. I got hooked on the Roller Deluxe years ago, but have since moved on to the blue-black Vision Elite. Like everything about them: the way they feel in my hand, the smoothness as they flow over the paper, and the look of my finished scribblings.
I love my Reform pen I bought 25 years ago, but my current favorite is a Pilot Custom 74, with a push button rather than piston filling system.
Love Private Reserve inks, my currents favoristes are Electric Blue and Black Magic Blue, with Tanzanite coming in close. Iroshizuku’s Asa-gao is also rather nice.
I have a Jin-Hao, the gold-colored dragon design, and it’s a nice pen.
One of mine is a fat, heavy Jinhao gold dragon pen. I had to adjust the nib slightly for for a wetter line, which took only a few seconds. It is one of my favorite pens. I use it at work where my students are fascinated by it.
Another surprising performer is my Schrade Tactical Fountain Pen. A co-worker gave it to me as a gag gift, but it turned out to have a high quality nib and writes beautifully. It took a little shopping around and then modifying it slightly once I found one to feed it from a converter, though. Haven’t used it as a weapon to comment on that.
My favorite pen is anything that doesn’t smear or transfer ink to my hand when I write with it (I’m left-handed, and this issue is an enormous pain in the ass). Zebra seems to be the brand that works the best for me.
When I came to my new job, I brought the last couple Pilot Precise V5 Ultra-fine pens I had from my last job with me. By the time they were used up, half the office had converted and they’re a regular part of the supply closet now.
I prefer to use fountain pens, but when I can’t use one, I like gel pens—the ones with a thick, smooth, dark flow, and some degree of resistance when the point of the pen moves against the paper without having to press down. Ordinary stick pens or ball point pens require you to press down and don’t offer any resistance and it makes your handwriting worse.
Finally! Someone else shows up who exhibits excellent aesthetics and a sensible practicality. Finally!
I have been hooked on the Uni-ball Signo Gelstick pens for about 10 years now. I don’t find them in stores anymore, so I order them online and pay $12-14 for a box of 12. Everyone who uses one of them comments on how well they write…and they usually end up stealing it! I order several boxes at a time.
Skilcraft and Zebra.
I take back what I said about TUL. I went for a pen run yesterday and they’ve changed the design on their gel pens. The design I used to like was sleeker, more steel-oriented than the new design, which has a thicker (and frankly, too-bright to the point of almost gaudiness) grip.
As a result of this thread, though, I just tried the Zebra pens and I’m a convert.