The Hero 98 is a basic looking metal bodied pen. It features a metallic paint job with black plastic accents and a silver clip. There is some writing on the side of the cap in presumably Chinese. (Google translate indicates that it says “Hero” and “Do.”) The pen is very light weight. It looks and feels cheap. I purchased it for $2.56 on eBay and it arrived roughly 15 days later.

Inside the pen is a horrible aerometric filler. I filled this pen with Noodler’s Heart of Darkness and was able to get about 3/4 of a fill. Not bad in the world of cheap aerometric fillers. When I filled this with water I was able to get just over 1ml of water in, so perhaps there is about .75ml of ink inside. Bonus points for the blackout stealthy cover on the aerometric.

The grip section is made out of black plastic, with noticeable mold lines. I can feel them as I’m using this pen. The grip section is shaped weirdly and ends with a flair and another taper. Possibly for the sponge head to rest?

I referred to the sponge head in a livecast as “that maggot looking thing.” I still maintain that it looks like a maggot. The sponge seems to be made out of the same kind of sponge as makeup sponges. Which further grosses me out. The sponge is shaped like a teardrop. Flow is uneven and the tip dries out in use. Attempts to use this in a dry brush style were met with frustration. It gets too dry even for dry brush. Getting the ink to flow again means squeezing the aerometric filler, which I think we can call agree is an easy way to wear ink on your fingers. Well maybe, getting the ink to flow was a pain in the arse now matter what I tried. In the end I dribbled water onto the sponge and got the ink flowing.

The cap is not airtight so you go through the process of dribbling water and squeezing every time you want to use the pen. Very annoying. The clip is the best thing about the pen- it’s springy and give one something to fidget with.

The sensation of using this pen was not pleasant, at least not to me. Even when flush with ink the spong grabs and drags on the page- even with good art paper. On cheap copy paper the grab was even more distinct.

I don’t usually post negative reviews. I feel this is more of a warning than anything else. This is not a good pen for writing or drawing. It’s a great way to build up frustration tolerance because it just doesn’t work well. Avoid this garbage at all costs. Mine has gone into the recycle bin and trash*.

The Birmingham Pen Company puts out an extraordinary amount of shades of blue, blue-black, grey, and black. They seem to focus on professional shades with their inexpensive inks. Tarnished Nickel is grey with a hint of warm blue.

The ink is well behaved on most paper. I really liked it on the cheap paper at work. It didn’t show through despite the paper being only 20lb. With my fine nibbed pen it didn’t bleed or even show through. The ink felt good on every paper- from garbage paper to the good stuff in my L1917 and BF Confidant. Lubrication was good and flow was great in even my most finicky extra fine nib. Line width was accurate to the pen. With garbage paper there was a hint of feathering, but not a lot.

There was a bit of shading but not a whole lot. The ink photocopies well enough. The ink responds better than I expected with the drip and wipe testing. As soon as water hits the ink the warm black aspects lift and move. What is left behind is a cool but legible line. I would not expect this to survive a washing machine but it would survive tea or coffee being spilled on it.

This ink can almost be confused for a washed out black but it is a little more complex than just grey. It has great character, despite this, it isn’t exactly eye-catching or something that many people would notice. It is something that a fountain pen fan would notice.

In case you haven’t noticed I really enjoy this ink. It’s subtle and works great on a variety of papers. Even better, the ink is inexpensive.

This nondescript notebook was listed near the bottom of the price range for my inexpensive dot grid journal search in the depth of Amazon. At $5.99 it is decidedly inexpensive. The price also fluctuates from $9.99 down as low as $4.99. Gotta love Amazon. (Or not.)

So this book has all the usual bells and whistles of a basic notebook- hard vinyl cover, pocket in the back, ribbon place marker, and an elastic. It’s stitched and glued with a standard Smythe sewn binding. The vinyl cover has a nice fake leather imprint and has a bit of give giving the cover a bit of grippiness over the slipperiness of a L1917 or a Moleskine. The front and rear end sheets are basic and lighter than the inner pages. The pocket feels cheap and pulpy, though it will likely survive the life of the book. The ribbon is standard nylon and heat sealed. The elastic is appropriately sized and tight to the book. The size is narrow A5 or Moleskine sized.

So far so good.

The inner pages are dot grid on cream paper and are ruled at 5mm. There are 128 pages. They are not numbered. The paper is thick, smooth with a hint of tooth. In testing the paper felt great with fountain pens, gel, ballpoint, roller ball, and every other pen I used. Pencils felt good too. There is just enough tooth for pencil to leave a legible line but not smudge or be eaten by the paper. The only ghosting and bleed I had was with multiple layers of highlighters. Fountain pen was especially nice on this paper. The lines were true to nib size and there was no feathering at all.

The binding looks and feels solid. It folds over on itself and opens flat and closes back tightly, even without the elastic.

The paper performance stands up. The downside of this journal is that it doesn’t have numbered pages or an index, but honestly those are so easy to set up that It is hardly something to point out as a detraction. There are only 128 pages which means you might fill this up in a month or two depending on your bullet journaling habit and practices.

Overall, if I was looking for a plain black journal for bullet journaling I’d consider this one. It’s made well enough and has good paper. The leather imprinted vinyl feels good in hand.

I purchased the Wing Sung 618 via a seller on eBay for $11.90. It arrived in my mailbox roughly 14 days after payment.

The packaging for this pen is the showy Wing Sung knock off of a Lamy Safari box inside a wrap of bubble wrap and a bubble mailer. The whole thing is very secure feeling. The box arrived undamaged and the pen in excellent condition.

With any pen I buy I clean it with water and test the fill capacity. This holds roughly 1.3ml of ink, not bad but not an ink tank. The piston mechanism locks and unlocks by pulling on the blind cap and then twisting. I didn’t realize this at first and immediately unscrewed the piston from the pen body. Oops. I realized what I had done pretty quickly and looked at the listing to find some “instructions” on how to use the filling mechanism. THe instructions aren’t great but I was able to figure it out.

I’ve grown to like the locking mechanism. The piston works smoothly and easily sucks in the fill of ink. I purchased the translucent model and this includes a clear feed, so as I filled the pen the ink is visible throughout the process. Very cool.

My nib was a tad scratchy but was easily aligned and smoothed. Ink flow is great. The hooded nib is fantastic for forgetful notetaking. I can leave it uncapped on my desk for 10 minutes or so and come back and it’ll still write. I do find the section a bit too narrow and the thread to sit in a funny place. For most people this won’t be a problem, and it’s not a problem for me, it’s simply noticeable.

The cap is sturdy and screws on tightly and looks to be nearly airtight around the nib, you can see the sleeve push against the cap when tightened. The cap posts deeply but throws the balance off for my hand, but for people with larger hands this won’t be an issue. For my tiny lady hands the pen feels good unposted and is of a nice length. The clip is diminutive and the worst part of an otherwise nice pen. The arrow clip is done poorly and looks and feels cheap. While it holds onto my shirt nicely it does catch on the stitching and has torn a stitch on a favorite chambray. The clip is awful.

The look of the pen is a mash up of a variety of pens. It looks a bit like the PArker 51/21, the TWSBI 5XX series, and an assortment of others. Sometimes it feels like Wing Sung takes all the pens from other brands and mashes them together. Sometimes this works really well, and others, not so much.

This isn’t a bad pen, but it is underwhelming at $11.90. I do seem to have a  thing for hooded nibs now, especially the clear versions. Overall this pen writes really well and has a neat locking piston, but it’s just not mind blowing.

Montblanc JFK is a limited edition ink released in conjunction with a limited edition pen. It can be found in a variety of places ranging in price from $16 to $30 with an average price seems to hover around $25 for 30ml.

The ink is navy blue and doesn’t lean green or too purple. Rather it is a warm dark blue. The color is dark and has no shading that I noted in any of my use or testing. It photocopies spectacularly well. In some instances, it may be hard to tell that this is blue instead of black on the page.

I found this ink to be fabulous on all the papers I’ve tested it on, from the nice L197 and Confidant pages to the garbage paper at work. I noticed that it didn’t spread or feather on anything. There was little to no bleed through or show through on any paper. Dry time was as expected- longer on nice paper, roughly 7 seconds and shorter on lesser paper, around 5 seconds. This ink made even scratchy pens and garbage paper feel good, the lubrication and flow are fabulous.

Overall this ink is perfectly professional and looks lovely on most paper. The warm paper in a Baron Fig Confidant really works well with this ink. Most of my testing was with a fine nibbed pen but in a medium, it really looked especially wonderful. Overall if you are looking for something professional with a bit of character that works really well on a lot of different papers, this might be the right ink for you.

The Artfan “Dotted Bullet Grid Journal” is another Amazon offering that has frequent price fluctuations. I purchased my copy for $5.99 but I’ve seen it as high as $9.99 and as low as $4.99. There are multiple color offerings but mine is dark teal.

The Artfan has all the bells and whistles of a L1917- hard vinyl cover, 2 ribbon placemarkers, pocket, elastic, index, and numbered pages. It also arrives with a label tucked into the center of the book.

The images of the Artfan show a belly band but the book arrives in a plastic sleeve sans belly band. Which is fine so long as you aren’t planning on gifting the Artfan. The plastic envelope feels cheap.

Inside the book are 4 index pages and 124 numbered pages. A total of 128 pages. The paper is cream colored with grey dots at 5.5 mm ruling. It is thick and smooth. Most of my fountain pens and inks responded well to this paper. They felt really nice on this paper. There was enough tooth for pencil as well. It didn’t do well with brush pens but did surprisingly well with highlighters and mildliners.

The ribbon bookmarks are thin and in two colors. They are lengthy enough to be useful and are heat sealed. I quite like the color matching of the ribbons to the cover. The elastic closure is tight without being too snug. It can be stretched the traditional manner or diagonally. The vinyl cover is smooth with a bit of imprinted grain. The only logo is at the bottom center of the back cover.

Of the cheap depths of Amazon this is one of my favorites. The color is a great shade of teal, the elastic is secure and the pages are numbered. The paper is great too. If you put this into your cart and wait there will likely be a price change. It fluctuates often and will drop down to $5.99 for a day or two then bump back up and then down again.