Did I mention that I absolutely love cheap colorful pens? How about how I have really tiny hands? Well, this week’s pen is both!
The Pilot Petit1 Mini Fountain Pen is cheap in the best possible ways. Seriously, it is like a comfortable dive bar of pens. Normally I try to give a couple different buy links but for this one you really should buy it from Jet Pens where it is less than $4. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT. And you know what else? The refills? Less than $2 for three of them.
I have two of these pens cause I mean, zomg… so cheap, so handy, so portable. I keep one of these in my purse all the time and it is totally not a big deal. Not only does it not leak, but it also keeps writing even if you haven’t used it in a really long time. Seriously, my cat used the white pen for a hockey puck last night and it was totally fine. No leaks and just the tip needed wiping off.
I wrote an entire novella with that purple one. It is absolutely the perfect size to just clip to the the elastic band of a Moleskine notebook and go.
So let’s assume you don’t have freakishly small hands like me. I mean, I could be a hand model for value menu burgers. That’s how small they are. WELL NEVER FEAR NORMAL SIZED HUMANOID– just stick the cap on the back and it is pretty close to a normal pen length in the hand.
Now if you are a mini-humanoid hand size, the pen without the cap is a very comfortable length and very light. I can write with this pen for a really really long time without fatigue. I like that.
And the cartridges come in these tubes that are about the same size as a pen so they fit in pencil cases and pen cases/pen pockets TOTALLY PERFECT.
Also, the cartridges themselves look like tiny little mad scientist test tubes! I may cackle a bit maniacally to myself as I put them in… *coff*
The Good
- Lightweight.
- compact
- round grip
- secure snap on cap for traveling. Have never had a leak.
- Cheap
- writes nice.
- writes FAST
- smart packaging for cartridges
- cute cartridges for evil geniuses (also good color selection)
The Bad
- hard grip
- proprietary cartridge
Overall grade: A
Cheap. Fast. My go-to travel pen. Buy two, they’re small. If you are looking for a fancy writing experience this won’t work. If you are looking for a functional pen for slap dash writing, you can’t beat it.
MINERVA ZIMMERMAN 
This is going to sound crazy, but I have some cartridges for those if you want me to send them.
(I warned you about the crazy.)
I saw Brian’s tweet about your fountain pen blogging (because I am procrastinating by fake-plotting a kidnapping on Twitter) and clicked it (because I am addicted to pens in a crazy pants way) and my first thought was: THOSE ARE THE PENS I HAVE REFILLS FOR!
I tried one of the pens once, but I don’t have tiny enough hands and they wrote too thick (I like the fine Platinum Preppy pens better, but that’s irrelevant–can you tell I get excited about pens?) so I gave the pens to a friend who promptly lost them. Except, I couldn’t find the refills when I gave them to her, so they’re still in my drawer. I don’t want to throw them out. They’re still sealed in their little tube, unopened. I know of NO ONE else with these pens.
So, do you want them? You have a PO Box or someplace I could send them?
(I hate throwing out things that are still good.)
nelizadrew at gmail dot com