A Year in Fountain Pens: 18 Pens Worth Talking About

Introduction

Looking back at a full year of fountain pens is a good way to separate the pens that earned their place on the desk from the ones that did not. This year covered everything from grail-level luxury pieces to a six-dollar experiment, and the contrast is exactly what makes the hobby interesting. Here are eighteen pens that shaped the year: the brilliant, the beautiful, the disappointing, and the ones that simply make you want to write more.

Montblanc Egyptomania

One of the best pens of the year, and still firmly in the top five favorites. Gifted as a Christmas present, the Montblanc Egyptomania genuinely changed how pens get used here, largely because it cannot be posted and forced a rediscovery of a childhood love of all things Egyptian. It has a very soft medium nib with a fantastic writing experience. There is not much line variation, but the vintage-style design and the feel of the pen more than make up for it.

Kaweco Special Collection Red

The Kaweco Special Collection Red is a more set and elegant pen, with faceted body lines that give it a refined presence. It pairs naturally with the Y Studio brass pen below, and holding them side by side makes for a genuinely fun comparison even though neither likely influenced the other.

Y Studio Brass Pen

The Y Studio brass pen is a little heavier and far more interactive, because the red paint wears off over time to reveal the brass underneath. It snaps together in a satisfying way and has a wonderful industrial character. Two pens with faceted bodies that seem to hold a conversation with each other: the Kaweco is elegance, this one is character.

Platinum Kanazawa Haiku

The Platinum Kanazawa Haiku raises a familiar question: how much of the price goes into the pen and how much into the decoration? At this level you are partly paying for artistry, and if a pen brings out a quality in your writing, gets you journaling more, and gets you expressing yourself more, it is worth every dime. It is a beautiful artistic gold pen, and sometimes that is exactly what you want in hand.

Diplomat Arrow

The Diplomat Arrow has an almost Zeppelin-like shape, and the propeller-style emblem at the end leans fully into the airship idea. Ours is the green fluted version, and while it wrote beautifully, there was a small chip in the aluminum around the cap snap point. Whether that was a one-in-a-million unit or a quality control issue is impossible to say, but it was a disappointing detail on an otherwise striking pen.

Pilot Kakuno

A genuine discovery. The Pilot Kakuno, with its delightful winking face on the nib, has a charm that is hard to resist, almost like a friendly video game character in fountain pen form. Two were bought, one blue and one pink, and the pink one was liberated almost immediately. It is an affordable pen that puts a smile on your face every time you uncap it.

Jinhao 159

One of the least enjoyable pens of the year. The Jinhao 159 is one of the heaviest pens ever written with here, and the nib was not pleasant out of the box. Nib work is not something we like doing, so a pen that arrives needing tuning is already starting from behind.

Pelikan M200

The Pelikan M200 was a rediscovery after earlier Pelikans had been sold off during a big pen purge. The beautiful nibs and the classic design pulled us back in. There is one serious caveat: the cap has a Houdini-like ability to come undone, and the pen will wiggle its way out of a pocket. That habit once resulted in a point-first drop and a bright black ink stain on a shirt right before an important meeting. Lovely pen, but carry it carefully.

Pelikan M600

The M600 arrived first, a gift that reopened the door to Pelikan in the first place. It showcases everything that makes the brand appealing: gorgeous nibs, beautiful design, and a writing experience that feels considered at every level.

Schon DSGN Pocket Six

A birthday gift, in copper, and a very interesting piece of design. The Schon DSGN Pocket Six is essentially a short tube that accepts a US number six nib, like a pocket pen on steroids. Design-wise it is not as classically inspiring as something like the Pelikan M200, but having a full-size nib in your pocket is a genuinely fun proposition.

Brown Orchid Ambrosia Collection

The new Brown Orchid from the Ambrosia collection is a magical pen with a writing experience unlike anything else used this year. The cap is ringed by a bouquet of amber-toned flowers that hold the light in a fascinating way. This is the pen that inspires love letters and poems, something more expressive than everyday journaling. If a pen motivates you to write more creatively, it has done its job.

Ferris Wheel Press Brush Pen

The award for the most beautiful, intricate grip and nib goes to the Ferris Wheel Press Brush Pen. Its Victorian industrial look is brilliant and the whole pen feels elegant. You can post it, though it is recommended that you do not, as posting can scratch the enamel. The writing experience is very nice.

Pilot E95s

The Pilot E95s in burgundy and ivory is a slightly underrated pen that looks like it was transported directly from 1960. Sliding the oversized cap off and fitting it to the short body creates a properly sized, elegant pen, and the whole mechanism works together beautifully. The gold nib is soft with a gentle, aqua-line quality. It does not hold a lot of ink, but at a little over a hundred dollars you get a wholly unique design and a fantastic gold nib that behaves differently from a steel nib. Everyone should own one.

Montblanc 146 Calligraphy

A grail pen, bought from a retailer in the Netherlands when a strong dollar made the exchange work in its favor. The hope was for a nib that combined softness with meaningful line variation, and the initial experience brought profound disappointment because the pen is simply not designed to flex the way imagined. It is literally a calligraphy tool. After taking calligraphy courses, though, the appreciation flipped: it is a powerful tool that was just being used for the wrong job. It flexes and springs right back, is very responsive, and has been getting softer with use.

Esterbrook Nouveau Blue

The oversized Esterbrook Nouveau Blue with the SD Flex nib is an entirely different animal from a true flex pen. It is stiffer, and the brand makes no grand claims about it being incredibly soft. What it excels at is emphasis: write your regular handwriting, then sign something with a beautiful downstroke full of wet, inky character. A smooth, fun pen to use.

Jinhao X159

One of the big disappointments of the year. The idea is wonderful: an entry-level pen with the dimensions and general writing feel of a much larger classic. Unfortunately, the unit that arrived was super scratchy with plenty of false starts, even after two cleanings and a wet ink. At six dollars the value is obvious, and it did begin to open up after further tuning, but a beginner pen has to be reliable out of the box, because a first-time owner may not know how to tune a nib. Pens should come ready to use, not arrive as hobby kits.

Esterbrook Camden

A real highlight. The Esterbrook Camden in the Oktoberfest finish runs from gorgeous yellow to gold to orange, very much like fall foliage. It also carries the SD Flex nib, so it shares that same talent for expressive, emphasis-friendly strokes. Fun to write with, an absolute joy to look at.

Conway Stewart Churchill Honey Noir

One of the highlights of the whole fountain pen year. The Conway Stewart Churchill Honey Noir with a lever fill looks like it came out of a time capsule, so convincingly vintage that you would swear it was celluloid, though it is resin. The resin goes all the way to the nib, the bands are nine carat gold, and the gold nib is assembled in the UK by hand. It is very smooth, very expressive, and a lot of fun. A special pen in every sense.

Buying Advice

If this year teaches anything, it is to buy for the writing experience you actually want. The Pilot Kakuno and Pilot E95s prove that joy and value do not require a grail budget. The Pelikan M200 and Montblanc Egyptomania show what refined nibs and considered design feel like at higher tiers. And the Jinhao X159 is a reminder that at the very bottom of the price ladder, quality control is a lottery: a cheap pen is only a bargain if it writes well on day one.

Conclusion

A year of eighteen pens delivered grails, gifts, surprises, and a couple of genuine letdowns. The pattern is clear: the pens that matter most are the ones that make you want to pick them up again tomorrow. Whether that comes from a six-dollar nib with a winking face or a hand-assembled vintage-style lever filler, the result is the same: more writing, more expression, more enjoyment.