Re: Analog World: My Fountain Pen

~ew's post inspired me to share a picture of my shark pen.

I don't know exactly what happened, maybe it's just the summer, but my pens started failing one after another around September '21. I used a Jinhao 51A as a daily driver for a very long time, and these pens are extremely durable if you replace the soon-to-be-rusty screw early on. For some unknown reason, my beloved 51A became a super dry and unreliable writer, and nothing worked: I tried to flush the pen, switch to a syringe-filled cartridge and use a wetter ink. I even tried other fountain pens I have, and they had similar issues.

Pen prices went up, and free shipping was no longer an option. This 51A cost me $1.5 with shipping, but now all sellers in AliExpress charged $1.5 or more for shipping, while the prices of pretty much all Jinhao models that have metal parts (other than the nib) went up. Therefore, I went for the shark pen, the only all-plastic option: I found a seller that sells these for $0.87 with free shipping. It's the same nib as the 51A, and the internal mechanism (the feed and its housing) should be similar or even identical.

It's the best pen I ever had, and I decided to use it exclusively (with a $5 bottle of black ink) at least until 2023.

Jinhao 51A stainless screw mod

My pen