Back in the day, one of my favorite hosts on Hacker Public Radio Dave Morris aka perloid did a number of wonderful episodes on the topic of fountain pens¹. These episodes got me intrigued. My first fountain pen was a PierCarlo d' Alessio I can't remember what happened to it but since then I've gone through a number of cheap eBay pens à la Jinhao x750. They always worked well for a month or two but inevitably broke down in one way or another. At some point I got tired of buying new fountain pens and kind of gave up on them.

But recently I bought a Lamy AL-star Fountain Pen. This is still a cheap pen but I believe it's at least a level above the eBay pens with respect to quality. I would lie if I said that there hasn't been any problems with this pen. I had to send it back because it was "leaking" ink and had to replace the nib.

At the time of writing this I'm happy with my Lamy AL-star. It's comfortable to write with and has a nice hefty feeling to it due to the aluminum. And it looks so good!

I've never had a more expensive fountain pen so I'm not sure if this is true in general but I'm starting to suspect that fountain pens simply are fiddly and prone to problems. It's just something you have to get used to and it might be a good idea to teach yourself some fountain pen DIY skills. There are lots and lots of videos on this out there.

While my penmanship has improved from absolutely terrible to at least acceptably readable I try to practice a little everyday.