I’ve got a few hybrids at this point. Some really nice pen bodies come with crap refills, or they will come in a tip size you don’t like, or you can put a more expensive refill in a cheap pen, so if you like using something like a Cross pen but worry about losing it, put a Cross refill in a cheap disposable pen body.
Most pens use one of 2 fairly universal refill types, so swapping is easy 90% of the time and there are a number of great styles and brands in those formats, and now with 3D printing, you can buy adapters for popular pens that use oddball refills to use the common ones.
There are so many good pens for $3-5 that you can just pick an assortment from a place like Jetpens (they list compatible refills for each pen body!) and mix and match until you create your perfect pen.
It’s a much more affordable and practical (sorry fountain pen fans) way to get an affordable but perfected for you writing instrument that you won’t cry about if you lose it or someone walks off with it.
Edit: If you’d ask me to make you a $20 pen that should be awesome for almost anyone…
Zebra Sarasa Grand - metal body, good weight but not heavy, nice spring clip that shouldn’t snap off and you can clip it to things normal clips wouldn’t like, comes in a ton of unique colors ($14)
Uni Jetstream refill ($2) - the Sarasa Grand ink isn’t bad at all, though I thought it was a little free flowing for my taste, but when I bought it they only had the bigger 0.7 tip, which is too big for how I write. It’s a gel ink, so it looks superb and bold, but it will smudge on labels. The Jetstream is a great hybrid ink blending the good qualities of oil based and water based inks, pretty smudge proof on just about any writing surface, comes in black/blue/red and 0.3/0.5/0.7/1.0 mm tips so anyone can get a size and color combo that works for them. Lasts much longer than a gel ink also.
That’s a great tip about the “undercover fancy pen!” I hadn’t even thought about that, but I’ll definitely be doing it now!
I’ve got a few hybrids at this point. Some really nice pen bodies come with crap refills, or they will come in a tip size you don’t like, or you can put a more expensive refill in a cheap pen, so if you like using something like a Cross pen but worry about losing it, put a Cross refill in a cheap disposable pen body.
Most pens use one of 2 fairly universal refill types, so swapping is easy 90% of the time and there are a number of great styles and brands in those formats, and now with 3D printing, you can buy adapters for popular pens that use oddball refills to use the common ones.
There are so many good pens for $3-5 that you can just pick an assortment from a place like Jetpens (they list compatible refills for each pen body!) and mix and match until you create your perfect pen.
It’s a much more affordable and practical (sorry fountain pen fans) way to get an affordable but perfected for you writing instrument that you won’t cry about if you lose it or someone walks off with it.
Edit: If you’d ask me to make you a $20 pen that should be awesome for almost anyone…
Zebra Sarasa Grand - metal body, good weight but not heavy, nice spring clip that shouldn’t snap off and you can clip it to things normal clips wouldn’t like, comes in a ton of unique colors ($14)
Uni Jetstream refill ($2) - the Sarasa Grand ink isn’t bad at all, though I thought it was a little free flowing for my taste, but when I bought it they only had the bigger 0.7 tip, which is too big for how I write. It’s a gel ink, so it looks superb and bold, but it will smudge on labels. The Jetstream is a great hybrid ink blending the good qualities of oil based and water based inks, pretty smudge proof on just about any writing surface, comes in black/blue/red and 0.3/0.5/0.7/1.0 mm tips so anyone can get a size and color combo that works for them. Lasts much longer than a gel ink also.