First Fountain Pen

[BMess]

I just bought my first pen today from Fahrney's in DC. It's a Parker Sonnett black lacquer with gold plating details. It writes well and works nicely as an intro pen. I will be buying another, higher end, pen later this summer at the DC pen show in Tyson's.

Fahrney's is a beautiful store with a tremendous selection of pens and inks. I didn't know too much walking in so I asked my sales person for some recommendations. I gave her my criteria and, unfortunately, she was absolutely know help what so ever. I told her I liked the Parker (that I ended up buying) and can she recommend anything similar. After 40-45 minutes of her saying "uhm and well" and making excuses about why she doesn't know anything I finally told her that she can stop looking (since she had no clue). This was quite disappointing because most people have nothing but great things to say about this store. I then asked her to out the ink cartridge in for me. She did and told me to write with it. The ink was a pale grey and she said that she accidentally got water in the nib and ink and after some time the color will go back to the correct color. This was even more disappointing. I finally left that store terribly annoyed.

Turns out my long time friend is very close with the owner of the store so I'm going to speak to him about this terrible experience.

Here is the obligatory picture: