Need info on nice roller ball pen!

lrp

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Aug 16, 2003
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Hi, I'm looking to buy a quality roller ball pen for small hands with twist action, any advice would really be appreciated!! Thanks!
 

Monocrom

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Only one company makes a truly good rollerball refill... Pelikan. (and by good, I mean smooth). What every other company puts out is crap, compared to Pelikan.

(I used to work as a Sales Associate in a high-end pen shop).

The good news is, Pelikan rollerball refills will fit into Waterman rollerball pens. (The tip does extend just a bit further out from the barrel. But not to the point of being an issue).

Still, if a twist action is a must, the capless rollerballs from Retro51 are a good alternative. Not as smooth as Pelikan's rollerballs, but not too expensive; and you have the option of using ballpoint refills in your Retro51 Rollers.
 

lrp

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Aug 16, 2003
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Thanks for the info!! I would be willing to go $150 for one that I really liked!
 

ElectronGuru

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I've not gotten into high end pens, but:

Favorite plastic ballpoint: Pilot VBall (remove cap)

Favorite medium priced ballpoint: Sensa (twist top)
 

RA40

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I wish I knew who made the cartridges for the various brands out there. Schmidt RB work well and I've liked the Waterman ones. Montblanc I was told was a Schmidt. Kyocera's worked wonderfully when I had them but I dunno the distribution. I've also gone through many that performed horribly on many papers so they go circular file.

Sadly, ball points seem to perform for me under a wider range of papers so as much as I'd like a nice pen body, the inexpensive disposable ones do as required. :(

Bring along your usual writing papers and see how they write for you.
 

Monocrom

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Sadly, ball points seem to perform for me under a wider range of papers so as much as I'd like a nice pen body, the inexpensive disposable ones do as required. :(

As for ballpoints, Parker refills are quite smooth. (And I mean actual Parker refills, not the Parker-style refills that so many other companys pump out and refer to as "Universal" refills).

Waterman's is quite smooth too. But they're BP pens suffer from a serious design flaw that only becomes very obvious with heavy use. That thin little tube on the inside of all their BP pens is garbage! It works fine at first, but with constant use; the plastic top of their ballpoint refill wears a groove inside the tube. One that you can't see, but will definitely notice when the pen one day just rotates; without the tip of the refill coming out. I lost one of the best Writer's pens because of that damn flaw! .... A Waterman Charelston. Not a cheap pen. But so light-weight, so smooth, so well-balanced. I literally wrote with it for several hours each day.

Cross BP refills are as smooth as they get. A bit too smooth at times. You can tell when someone writes with a Cross BP pen... Their fingers are always stained with ink.

All of the above applies to each company's standard BP refill only.

Best bet would be to find an inexpensive pen that takes Parker refills, and use those.
 

thunderlight

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Nov 24, 2005
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Restricting yourself to a twisty, I would concur with the Parker Gel Refill.

However, I like the Cross Ion Gel Refills. With these, you can get somewhat of an idea of how much ink is left in the refill because they are made of translucent plastic. The Parker refills are metal. [In theory, the Parkers might be less likely to leak.]

If you're accustom to using ballpoints, rollerballs and gel ink cartridges have a fraction of the write-out of ballpoints. That is why I would prefer the Ion refills. The quality is identical in my opinion.

Cross also makes gel refills for their rollerball [selectip] pens, but they are metal like the Parker refills.

[For the most part, I am a Fisher ballpoint person, so my opinion probably isn't worth that much anyway.]
 
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