Disposable fountain pens don’t exist

But also everything is disposable if you try hard enough

Fountain pens have been in use since the 19th century, with the first modern pen patented in 1884 by Lewis Waterman. That means that there have been several more patents even before that time (shocker), and that the fountain pen as we know it has undergone so many changes, updates, and transformations throughout history that handling one truly is a journey in every shape and form. To be perfectly cliche, when you use a fountain pen, you’re using a piece of history. So why the heck would one use a disposable fountain pen?

Disposable pens (aka ballpoints) are those things some people use to sign receipts, chew on its end in a public place (like a post office, and a communal pen at that), or inevitably lose in the office when you get a bunch of them placed on your desk by people who don’t know better. Fountain pens are keepers, mostly. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the existence of some pre-filled fountain pens that you can also chew and lose, with the caveat that most people do not keep them in a communal space, so the cross-contamination when biting the fountain pen butt is minimal.

Let’s talk some “disposable” fountain pens before I inevitably say something like, ‘they don’t exist’ and why.

Group photo but one is taking the pic. Left to right: Itoya Blade, Zebra Zensations, Pilot V-Pen, Platinum Preppy (read on before tossing one at me).

Pilot V-Pen or Varsity

Disposable fountain pens would normally have a weird little nib that looks like a piece of scrap metal wrapped around a weird little feed without fins, and in lieu of actual feed and everything that goes into the physics of controlled leak, they have a wick.

The pen that most people think about when you mention a pre-filled fountain pen would be the V-Pen for Europeans and Varsity for the US folks. I first came across the V-Pen when I visited Barcelona in 2018, and I was immediately hooked. It wrote so well out of the box bin that I had to had it. For a price tag of 3 Euros, it was a steal. And it wrote super well until the day I had to retire it because my cat took the pliers to them and ended up breaking the feed¹. What’s great about this pen is that the nib is interchangeable with the Pilot Petit 1, in the case you wanted to swap the stock M for a F. If you pull off the nib — the same way you would pull off the nib off a Lamy Safari — you’ll see the wick. I believe that the one on Petit 1 can be taken out, but do not push it back in by pressing it against the table.

This pen comes in so many colors it’s silly, and I am partial to dark blue, of course. Wife currently has the ‘teal’, which is actually green.

Pilot V-Pen because I couldn’t find wife’s Varsity, but the shape is the same anyway.

Zebra Zensations

This pen was a zensational (tee-hee) discovery for me. Sure, they look like toys, but so do Lamy Safaris and you don’t hear me complain² about those, do you? My favorite color here is their turquoise, which is such a pleasant color to look at on the page and is absolutely unusable in an office because you’ll just end up staring at the ink forever thinking you’re at a beach somewhere, free of work. Anyway, I’ve seen these come in four packs and sold for $6-8 in CVS, although I haven’t noticed them the last few times I went there; haven’t had luck in Staples either. They’re still available online, of course.

Love the ink window, the color options are abundant — black, blue, turquoise, red, pink, purple, you name it — and although it kinda looks like a toy, it’s still pretty great. The nib only comes in a fine, and I haven’t let my cat try to disassemble the pen with pliers, but I want to say it’s doable.

Zebra Zensations with the clip being super aggressive.

Itoya Blade

Arguably my least favorite of the bunch, this pen is quite dry writing, and given the ample sample size of one, I must be completely right when I say it’s not a great alternative to the previous two pens. If you check the Itoya website, you’ll see that they call it a ‘ready-to-write’ pen, which it is, with a smooth flowing ink, which it could be. I like the ink window. I like that it’s a fine line (unlike the Varsity) that doesn’t really bleed. I don’t really have an opinion on color options, but it does only comes in blue and black, so if you’re into cool looking inks like magenta or maroon (I’ll never stop talking about Prickly Pear), you’re out of luck.

Still, the nib matches the other pens as well; it seems like that shape is the only option for these types of pens.

Itoya Blade.

Notable mentions: Platinum Preppy and Pilot Petit 1

For some reason, some people bunch the Preppy with the abovementioned pens and I don’t get it. You can use the Preppy with a cartridge or a converter, and apart from the plasticky feel to it, there’s nothing disposable about it. Heck, I’ve had mine inked with Platinum Carbon Black for several years now and it still works. I mean, sure, that’s the point of a disposable pen, one ink forever and then some, but still.

Platinum Preppy WA

When it comes to the Petit 1, technically, the pen shares the nib with the Varsity and has the wick, but it really does come with a small proprietary cartridge and you may be able to get more, so I didn’t want to include it.

Pilot Petit 1.

Sadly, this little one has been discontinued. You may be able to find refills online, and you may be able to find the Black, Blue, and Red somewhere on Aliexpress, but as I wanted the light green or light blue, I’m out of luck. But I see you, Petit 1. I see you.

Back to the topic

Now why is ‘disposable’ a misnomer? You can in fact refill (some) disposable pens by asking your cat to use the pliers to pull the nib and feed straight out. I do not condone this behavior and I would implore you to totally not do this at home. Especially if your cat is underage and missing opposable thumbs. My V-Pen met its untimely demise when I tried to experiment because I listened to too many YouTube reviews where people said to wiggle a tiny bit. I don’t wiggle just a tiny bit, it’s against my nature. I kept the pieces of the pen as I can still move the nib to my Petit 1 and because I mourn my youth and that Barcelona trip was one of the best in my life.

That aside, as I said, it is possible to refill a disposable pen, which makes it NOT disposable. One would say it would make it… a regular fountain pen with some caveats. With some asterisks. Footnotes. If you use a soft barrier between the pen and the pliers, like a piece of rubber, if you’re patient, and prepared to definitely lose that pen, the world is your oyster.

My point is, the only thing that makes a pen disposable is the moment you chuck it, and we all know this planet has enough trash on it as it is (I’ll see myself out). There’s no need for creating more waste by getting rid of pens without trying to refill them even if the manufacturer decided not to let you do that. So, if you keep it… it’s not technically disposable.

Another cool thing is that you can technically practice nib grinding on the empty pen that you’re somehow unable to refill. You can keep it as a decoy on your desk because someone will inevitably try to chew on your pens when you’re not looking.

The possibilities are endless!

My last point for today is — as I assume someone will argue that a pen that doesn’t write loses its utilitarian value, and stops being a pen. Well, to that person I will say this: would you write with a really expensive pen³ like a Montegrappa Chaos or would you keep it in a locked box? I thought so.

Let me know which ones you’ve tried and why was it a more expensive pen that you hated because it broke?

1. It may have been me who used the pliers.

2. Don’t answer that.

3. Or, you know, Raden Stripes (sorry Toga).