Expensive Pens

I can't recall the last time I actually paid for a pen. I seem to pick up quite a few promotional ones at work and there always seems to be one organization or another giving out pens and keyrings in my local shopping centre. Neither have I considered pens as a status symbol.

Now I'm sure that there is a massive difference in quality between pens and if you often write by hand then I can see how a decent pen would be a treat. I'm quite happy with my freebies though, the most handwriting I ever do these days is writing an address on an envelope.

 

Well, I think primarily status symbols. I went to a pen shop at a local mall here and I was blown away by the expensive pens. Some were 5 and 6 hundred dollars and in their own display cases. I mean a nice pen symbolizes quality, but really??? Someone could make a mortgage or a car payment with some of those pens. I would suggest going on ebay for one!

 

Oh wow, a pen can cost that much LOL?! I don't bother that much with overly posh pens. I'm happy enough writing with a BIC. In fact, more often than not I use BICs. I have a thing for stationary, so sometimes I'll go into a stationary store and get a whole lot of stuff, including pens. I like to get what I think are fancy pens that cost maybe $10 LOL There's no way I'd pay even a $100 for a pen! I'd probably lose it, so there's no point really.

 

I don't pay for pens at all, because I find that people either give them to me as gifts, or I am able to pick them up from somewhere. Either way, paying for them has never been something that I have had to do. I would never pay a lot for a pen, because I just don't think that it's necessary. As long as a pen writes, it really shouldn't matter how much it cost, so I would never want to break the bank for one.

 

I am another BIC pen enthusiast and may pay for them, but happens that I usually can pick them up from anywhere too, sometimes from other brands though.

As note by @Ke Gordon, difference between costly pens and cheaper are the supposed status they give. I received from my dad a set of Gold Parker ballpoint pens and another of Gold Wearever fountain pens while I was in high school and these pens made me feel a celebrity despite I used to end up writing with a BIC if the cartridge of the fountain pen ran out and I had no replacement at hand.

Later in life, my parents suspended the financial help they used to give me, I was jobless and needing money, I thought to sell those pens for a good amount of money. It's supposed they were all gold as their color and texture looked like.

But do you know what happened? they had gold, but only next to ballpoint in the Parkers and in the nib of the Wearevers. So that the ridiculously high price of these pens was reduced to a few bucks when I tried to sell them or pawn them.

 

I honestly don't think there is a quality difference. The function of the pen is the same inside. It is the exterior that makes a difference. Some high end pens have special grips and designs. But, mainly when it comes down to it the higher class is paying for a label, like Montblanc. It is nothing more in my opinion, since I have made the purchase and seen the pens upfront myself.

 

Oh wow.. I'm not picky with pens but I guess there is something special with them for expensive ones.A status symbol or career advancement or something but in reality they're all the same- we use them to write

 

If you’re into calligraphy or art, I can see paying a little more than average for certain types of pens. But even those won’t usually run in the hundreds of dollars. Pens that cost that much are yet another thing that make me think of Patrick Bateman… So I agree, they’re pure status symbols, nothing more.

If that’s what someone wants to spend their money on, I won’t judge (unless you ARE Patrick Bateman, maybe) but it’s not something I could see myself doing even if I had the income. Probably just buy myself a $20-ish calligraphy set and pretend I still know what I’m doing. Haha.

 

I think it's just mostly for status whenever people buy expensive pens. In my family there are some members who use pens a lot and giving them a good one makes for a very good gift during the holidays, so I think these are mainly for those types of people. I see it kind of like professional video game players opting for expensive mouse and keyboards or being gifted high end ones even though middle ranged ones at less than half the price would probably be sufficient.

 

Most expensive pens are refillable so that's why they are more expensive and the nib is more durable. I used to use fountain pens and some had gold plated nibs. The more durable the nib the more accurate the flow of the ink. Also it's about the click of the cap, the tighter it is, it will keep the ink fresh and running and not to dry out. That's why cheaper pens or ones with poor lids dry out must faster.

 

More or less this. It depends on the function of the pen, whether or not it should cost more than a few bucks. Calligraphy pens and the like are a bit more finessed, and require more control. They also need to be refilled since the ink is so concentrated. Expect to spend more.

A normal pen, though? Meh. If it's expensive it's probably more to do with the brand or the materials used to make the body of the pen rather than the ink or the delivery device. Hopefully something so flagrantly expensive wouldn't explode in your pocket, either.

(Don't carry your pen in your pocket. I ruined a nice pair of shorts doing that. Sigh.)

 

I actually was searching for colored pens 5 minutes ago on Google! I have been into writing on planners and agendas lately and wanted to get nicer colored pens for that. I was looking into some by Crown and Staedtler, but they are super expensive! I will just have to go to a Staples or something like that and see what's good for less money.

 

At a previous job, where I was part owner of the company, I would go out shopping for all the supplies for our office as well and we were all particular about what pens we wanted. Since I'm a lefty, the only ones I would buy are the Pilot brand rollerball pens. Not only does the ink dry almost instantly, so no smudges and ink all over my hands, but the pens themselves write so much smoother than you standard pen with sticky ink in it. After doing a lot of writing you can really start to notice the fatigue on your hand when using a regular pen vs. a rollerball pen.

Another reason I used the Pilot rollerball pens was because I was majoring in art in college, and loved to do pen drawings with them, as opposed to using technical pens, which had a tendency to leak all over the place, and you had to clean them constantly.

 

Most architects these days have no need for drawing tools but when they did, they had to buy expensive, "professional grade pens."

They'd cost up to $150 but since they guaranteed precision, they had to buy them pens anyway. Most people don't need such pens so why buy them?

 

If you think that pens are all of the same quality, then you're either blind or a flat-out liar. A $1.00 pack of 12 pens is low quality but gets the job done. You can definitely notice the writing and precision difference of a $5.00 pen compared to a $1.00 pen. It doesn't matter for casual writing and whatnot, but it's far more convenient and precise to write with a $5.00 pen on important documents and where speed is important. Cheap pens smear, and they're spotty in that the lines they create aren't 100% filled in. Now, a $200 pen might not be necessary, but to each his or her own.

 

I do agree with that. I’ve always noticed that the cheaper pens I use, as well as the free ones (with a few notable exceptions), affect my handwriting. My penmanship is always messier, and the act itself becomes so uncomfortable after a while that I always end up reverting to the slightly pricier stuff. I’ve been doing a lot more writing by hand lately so if it’s just a few dollars difference, I’m willing to fork it out for the sake of comfort. And a little bit of style, I’m not gonna lie.

 

The difference between a $2 pen and a $200 pen is the perceived luxury attached to the latter. The business is similar to ordinary cars and luxury cars. If you are purchasing a very expensive pen, you are buying the luxury attached to it. The market for these pens is composed mostly of collectors. They don’t buy the pens just so they can write with them. They buy them to be displayed in glass boxes.

 

I love pens. I don't know when I picked up this desire for them, but I've been collecting nice pens for the past 10 years.
I've never spent more than 20 euro on a pen though, and that was a really gorgeous calligraphy pen.
In my experience, there is very little difference in the quality of the writing, other than the feeling and maybe the look of the ink. Whenever I'm writing a letter to my partner, I'll use one of the nice flowing calligraphy pens, as I feel it makes the letter that little bit more special. However, I've found very cheap pens, that have an absolutely beautiful feeling to them when I write.

 

I love to write, and therefore love a good pen, but it is hard for me to imagine what would make a pen worth $200, other than it being encrusted with diamonds and other jewels. I wouldn't mind writing with a pen that costs that much, just so I could tell if the writing experience really is different, or if it's all a bunch of hoopla.