So I just put together my first fountain pen. It’s a Baron. I am a little confused. It came with a ink cartage and what look like some sort of pump. What do you all use?
Mike, like Gary said, you can use the cartridges, or if you have bottled ink, you can use that by installing the converter. Depending on the ink and the pen, I use both.
For me, it's bottled ink all the way. I have more than a couple bottles, if you want to try it out drop me a PM and I could send a brother a vial to try. []
I find almost everyone uses cartrages but only serious fountain pen users use bottled ink and than usually at there desk. But most of the kits can use both and you should include bothe with the pen.
As far as selling, I recommend include a cartridge and a converter with every pen.
Fountain pen users love having a plethora of inks types and colors to have fun with, and even though you can get lots of colors in cartridges, most users have all their inks bottled...hence the converter.
If you or the buyer does a lot of travelling, carrying ink on the plane can be difficult these days. So for at home, particularly for alot of writing, the bottle makes more economical sense, but I always keep a few cartridges handy for travel.
I use Private Reserve ink in bottles exclusively. So far, I have taken my Baron fountain pen to Bonaire twice and Detroit and Phoenix once each. Every time the converter was quite full and at no time did it ever leak.[:0]