October 15, 2017

I may be hunting for a new pen.

I went through this last year, and eventually ended up with a Caran d'Ache 849.

While I still love that pen, I have noticed that the colouring seems to be starting to rub off in the most handled areas. It is starting to be noticeable around the top of the pen, where you click it.  Underneath the orange, it is starting to show white.

I know, not enough to really say I need a new pen!  But I now have to choose, do I continue to use it daily and let the wear happen as a badge of being used? Or, replace it?

Tough choices.  My former pen gave me close to 35 years of being a daily pocket pen before I felt the desire to replace it.  I suspect I may replace this one, not because there it anything wrong with it's functioning, but because I would like to try something else. Or have been swayed by seeming something shiny and new.

A part of me just wants to order new pens, and see what they are like. But that can get expensive fairly easily. I am looking at a TWSBI pen that I bought before the Caran d'Ache, and while I like it, I don't like it enough to be my daily pocket pen.

I've tried fountain pens, and roller balls, and gel pens, but for me, nothing works quite as well as a ball point.  As much as I would love to be a daily fountain pen user, it doesn't seem to be a good fit for me.

I'm thinking I should start charting pen measurements to see if there is a measurable basis for the pens I like - weight, length or diameter.  I do know I have what is called a cramped writing style - small writing in less lofty terms. So I already know I prefer a finer point. But sometimes I wonder which came first; my preference for a finer point because I write small, or I write smaller because I use a finer point?