Anyone know anything about fountain pens?

[Brad]

I got snowed in on a Sunday, bored before the Superbowl, so I started cruising Amazon and found fountain pens.  Been a long time since I used or owned one.  Several ultra cheap Chinese brands and of course the name brand ones.

Ended up buying a $10 Chinese model and a modestly priced Parker Urban.

Anyone have recommendations on fountain pens or ink? Stories?

[Mackin USA]

What are they?

Do they write like a real pen?

Why would anyone communicate with anything but the WWW?

[Brad]

You know I had to write a notes in a meeting and it took me a few seconds to get back into cursive writing.   

I found out one tip online about the cheap Chinese fountain pens, wash the nib out with a drop of dish soap and hot water then let dry before using for first time. Clears out the machine oil from manufacturing.

[littleman]

My wife is into fountain pens, she has beautiful penmanship.  I'm dyslexic, so it looks like I'm trying to write something from inside a paint-mixer when ever I use one.  Generally, the nicer the pen, the freer the ink flow, the harder it is for me to use.  I've found that the semi-disposable  ball-points work best for me.

[Rooftop]

agh, horrible memories of being forced to use fountain pens at school.  Between the ages of 8 and 12 I had a head teacher who was overly concerned about handwriting.  I can only imagine how much learning time was lost to dealing with ink spills, smudges, stained clothes and generally focusing more on italic letter forms than the content of the lessons.

I've got awful and confused handwriting as well. It didn't help a jot.  Today I'm a liquid gel kind of guy.