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Comment by artimaeis | Hacker News Reader

Seiko 5 automatic watch - Simple, timeless, affordable. It's just a great watch and it always will be.

rOtring 600 mechanical pencil - the feel of this pencil is unlike any other writing implement I've found. It's a legend. My new goal is to find a fountain pen that I can enjoy as much as I enjoy this. Though I fear that will be a notably more expensive purchase.

Yamaha Custom Series Bb trumpet - before becoming a developer I was a semi-pro musician and this is still the most fantastic instrument I've ever worked with. I've owned it 9 years now and it still feels brand new. Every mechanism on it was perfectly made. There's no unnecessary stiffness or play in any component.

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On the pencil front, I recommend checking out kuru toga pencils. They rotate the lead slightly with every cycle of applied pressure and release, so you don't get the lead worn down until you're writing at a shallow angle with a much larger effective cross section of lead.

On the fountain pen side, just be aware that if you work in an office environment, you'll have to deal with low quality paper that's incompatible with fountain pens. In that way paper is like fruit and vegetables: there's an enormous amount of variation in quality, and it's not terribly expensive to get something really good, but as a country the US has decided it's a commodity, so we just use the lowest quality white rectangles money can buy.

I enjoy the Kuru Toga quite a bit! It's the pencil I'm more inclined to travel with because I wouldn't be quite so heartbroken if I lost or damaged it. And it performs so admirably!

Totally understand about the low-quality paper. I'll probably stick to roller-ball pens for the office and save fountain pen shenanigans for home where I can use some nicer paper stock.

Pigment pens seem to also survive the scratchy, bleed-y world of budget office paper, if you want a crisp line at the cost of higher writing friction.

Re: fountain pen. If your grip resembles a "normal grip" then Lamy Safari. It's my absolute favorite, especially in this price range (less than 20USD/EUR).

Charcoal Black comes with a dark nib (I'm using M size), looking gorgeous. All the matte versions are super nice to hold.

For some it might be quite light in hand but for me a capped Safari provides a nice balance.

With a converter it's easy to use any other ink but for daily use I prefer to just carry a bunch of dark pink (Dark Lilac) refills.

Not that you asked but my favorite paper for FPs is Clairefontaine (incl. Rhodia notebook brand) :-) Very little bleeding and no feathering issues.

I've heard so many good things about the Lamy Safari that I'm going to have to break down and get one! I've used a Pilot Metropolitan for a couple of years now and have enjoyed it, so I'm sure I'll enjoy the Safari.

I love my Rhodia notebooks! They make fountain pens perform astoundingly well. For ages I used Field Notes steno pads because I found them so good looking, but the paper is rubbish for fountain pens.

Not to take away from the other fountain pen recommendations - but I always suggest people try out the Pilot Varsity. It's an inexpensive and disposable fountain pen with an incredible nib; good enough (and cheap enough) that there are a lot of videos out there about how to refill them.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll see if I can find one and try it out.

I've been using Sport5 Automatics as general beaters for years, they're generally just nice little uncomplicated watches.

They tend to drift a little, but it's no hardship to +- a minute or two once a week.

The best fountain pens I know are from Stefan Fink http://www.stefanfink.de/en/

Not cheap, but unique and handmade.

Those are beautiful, and this is the first I've heard of them. Thanks for sharing!

Do you have any experience using a Fink fountain pen? They look gorgeous but I have to wonder if the lighter weight of a wood body would adversely affect the way it feels and writes.

You're aware that rotring used to make 600 series fountain pens? No longer available retail, but they show up in used markets.

>Though I fear that will be a notably more expensive purchase.

Not necessarily. There are quite a number of good pens in the sub-$100 range. I personally recommend the Pilot Metropolitan or the Lamy Safari. Both are less (much less) than $100, and can either fit ink cartridges or converters.

I love my LAMY Safari (€12 in most stationers in Germany, it's a cultural phenomenon that's unfortunately slowly dying out, the previous generation learned "Schönschrift" (cursive) in school with theirs and take their pen through life with them). That said, of the two that I own, I can't use either without getting grubby inky nailbeds, I assume the problem lay with me, not the pen.

Also, seconded the rOtring series mechanical pencils are astoundingly good, I'm always close to mine, I never travel without it.

I love my Metropolitan! And based on all the feedback from this thread I'll soon be ordering a Lamy Safari as well.

Rotring's 600 pen sits right next to my 600 pencil in my bag. None better to hold a high quality Schmidt replacement ball point cartridge.

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