Would you buy a Prototype Fountain Pen?

Would you buy a Prototype Fountain Pen?

This may be a simple question but the backstory goes into far deeper and darker depths than this - Read on to hear more...

Within the tech industry there is a growing trend for products being released for sale, or onto eagerly anticipating end users (e.g. customers) far too soon, i.e. the product isn't "finished" and shouldn't be available to customers.

For example, if you use a smartphone there is a high chance that a software update which is supposed to bring great, new features may have turned out to be not so good, or worse still make your experience of using that smartphone worse.

The two main smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) are both guilty of this. I'm not going to pick sides in this smartphone operating system (OS) battle, but rather than one big annual update to the OS which is ready for customers and almost entirely free from bugs and problems, we are seeing more and more incremental updates, with each one of these released to (hopefully, but not always) correct issues and problems caused by the previous update. The result is that the software/OS consistently has some bugs which mar the user's experience.

Us, the customers become the product testers. We pay good money for something which doesn't work as well as it should do. The worst case scenario is a product or service which isn't at all ready for people to use.

So where does this fit in with fountain pens?

Firstly, one of my earliest blog posts was for the Venvestas D'Art. This was designed and sold as a "competitor to the Lamy Safari" - which it really was not. This model soon received a much-needed update to its design to address the significant problems. I also reviewed this pen here.

After paying good money for this fountain pen, only for me to discover it's two fatal design flaws (it was almost impossible to hold comfortably and the capping "system" hadn't had any thought put into it), I decided never to buy another Venvestas fountain pen, even though later designs might have been better.

Experiences like this put customers off, which is not something that any designer/seller wants! Failure to address such issues can easily leave a sour taste in one's mouth, which can propagate through social media, further damaging the brand's reputation.

A good example of this is the admittedly very popular TWSBI ECO.

I have many ECOs in my fountain pen collection. I use many of them regularly and I have never once had a single pen crack on me. However, cracked barrels/sections certainly were a problem, early in the ECO's life. Social media posts to this day still criticise TWSBI for making pens which break/crack, even though these problems do seem to have been addressed, however the damage is done: Customers regard the ECO as a pen which breaks.

TWSBI didn't help themselves with later model releases: The TWSBI Swipe has some marginally innovative features, but there is no doubt that the Swipe will crack where the clip joins the cap, if pressure is applied to the clip - This is a design flaw, which has not been addressed, despite the Swipe still being sold. Not good, TWSBI.

Companies who get their products to market too soon run a risk of damaging their reputation, unless problems are really quickly, freely and to be honest, generously addressed.

There is also the problem of demand: If a new pen is released in very limited numbers, "early adopters" can be reviewers such as myself. My fountain pen reviews are totally honest - I spend my money on pens, and even where a company gets in touch and offers to send me a pen for review, they will receive a thorough and honest review of their product. Not all companies want to leave themselves open to this early criticism  - My message is this, please get it right, check it, then release a new pen for sale.

We, the customers, are not your quality assurance testers!

Maybe I'm missing something here. Have we become too used to buying crap items, so when we buy yet another badly-made item, we accept it, go "meh" and throw it in the bin??

What recently worsened this situation was a YouTube video which I felt compelled to mention in a video which I posted to my Fountain Pen Journey channel (video here). It feels like in 2024 there is no freedom of speech, for fear of people becoming upset or swayed by a review, and there is also the increasing problem of online fake reviews, with Amazon being possibly the worst for these.

My reviews will always be open and honest. The thing is that I recently bought a very nice looking pen (made by a pen maker) and it's turned out to be pretty bad - One of the worst fountain pens I've used for years. Part of me feels that reviewing this pen would be a bad thing (for the pen-maker), but when a model of pen has some important issues, I feel that I can either 1) Not review this pen or 2) give my honest review of this pen. Remember that my reviews are based on my experiences and my opinions! (Note that I bought this pen second hand, therefore I have no connection with the pen maker, therefore I cannot go to them with these observations.)

One of the longest-running fountain pen designs is the Lamy 2000. I love this pen, but after various (only recently widely accepted) problems with its design, I stopped using it. Lamy Customer Service did a great job when I first bought a broken Lamy 2000, for which I shall still give them lots of credit for, but the design remains flawed, and these flaws are accepted. Does this stop people from buying a Lamy 2000? No, it doesn't. Has any of this damaged Lamy's reputation? No, not at all. The Lamy 2000 continues to remain one of the top/best fountain pens, but I wonder if the Lamy 2000 was released for sale in 2024, would its problems lead to a change of design to address its flaws?

Each year Namisu release a new design of fountain pen. I've bought a good few of these and even a few of their actual prototypes - I have been highly satisfied with all of them, even if the pens have not turned out to be to my taste. For example the Namisu N1 isn't a bad pen, but those rubber O-rings make capping/uncapping and posting/unposting this pen too difficult. Me, as an early adopter, knew that there could be some issues (Namisu always release their pens via Kickstarter campaigns), so this serves as a good example of what to expect from prototypes.

However! Pen designs which are not sold as prototypes (when they really ought to be) should be better than a prototype: I would prefer to see such pens sold as such.

Poor designs or quality issues are part of the prototype lottery and prototype pens should be sold as prototypes, not as finalised products.