RIP, Jinhao X159
I had a hankering to clean out a pen and change its ink, possibly to Troublemaker Kelp Tea, so I took a look at my currently inked batch of pens to see which one I might be tired of. I saw my original Jinhao X159 with a fine nib had Journalize Elphaba in it, which I felt done with for the month, despite it not being written dry. I pulled the pen out of my Muji drawers and felt the cap fall apart as I lifted it up! 😱
I have no idea why the top sheared off, as it had been in the drawer for a while, not being used much. And I hadn't been rough with the pen overall, despite feeling like it was a workhorse that could handle not being babied. I'm very surprised about this, and slightly sad.
I originally bought this pen for a white elephant gift over a year (?) ago, but ended up keeping it for myself and gifting a more typical fountain pen (which I'm blanking on...probably a Pilot Kakuno). I'd bought it because I watched a video from Pens and Tea saying that the Jinhao X159 is a great pen to test whether one would like having a large pen like a Montblanc 149. Anyway, I chickened out gifting it because I wasn't sure that the recipient would even care for a fountain pen, so I went more mainstream with the pen choice.
I really didn't think I'd like this pen because my initial reaction was that it was ridiculously large, and I didn't understand why people would like pens that size. I have small hands and write small, so early in my pen journey I preferred smaller and/or thinner pens. But eventually the X159 grew on me, felt pretty comfortable to use for longer writing sessions, and made me willing to give the idea of larger pens a chance.
I also found out that these large #8-sized nibs and feeds are quite capable of handling shimmer inks without clogging. I ended up buying another X159 in a dark blue color with an EF nib (or I swapped an EF nib onto it), and I got Jinhao 9019s which have even bigger pen bodies, so that I would have multiple different #8 nib tips. A Jinhao #8 medium nib is basically like a broad to me without being so broad that I don't want to use it.
Anyway, even though I was originally dismissive of this first Jinhao X159, and didn't really warm up to its color (wanted it to be more of a red-purple burgundy, not brown-red), I ended up really liking it, and often had it in my batch of currently inked pens. Its fine nib was quite capable of handling any ink well.
I am considering getting a replacement for it, but I'm not sure if I'll pick up another X159 (perhaps the white one), or get a 9019. Or maybe I'll pick up a Wing Sung 630 which I learned has a similarly-sized nib to the X159, but is bouncier/better? The "problem" with the 630 is that it's a piston-filler vs. a cartridge converter pen, which I prefer. I will think this over. Feel free to comment below or on Mastodon with your thoughts!
What a weird occurrence to be surprised by this evening! 🤔
