I'm looking for cheap. This one at about twenty bucks was fine, but I hate to go over 30 because I don't trust myself not to lose it. I had an inexpensive Cross fountain pen a few years ago -- it was under fifty dollars. I kept up with it for a couple of years, then lost it, and that bothered me more than I'd like to admit. So I want to keep the stress level down.

I know how addictive it can be -- I got on the mailing lists for all the catalogs and boy, there are some gorgeous pens out there!

I don't mind ending up with a few of the cheap ones, though. I learned to write with a cheap old Schaeffer that had a clear green plastic barrel and used cartridges. I wish I'd held onto that one!

What I discovered with this Lamy is that the EF nib is actually easier for me to write legibly with. I don't know what size the other nib was but it was probably medium -- I like a bold look with a fountain pen. Problem is, my handwriting is horrifyingly awful and hard to read, and I now realize that bold pens make it worse.

I got the EF nib on this one because my planner I'm using is very small, the lined pages are very narrow, and my writing tends to scrawl. To my surprise, the EF nib just looks a lot nicer on any page -- not just the narrow lined ones.

Thanks for the feedback -- I'll explore some of those options!

ETA: I have gotten converters for my fountain pens because I prefer drawing in the ink and changing colors as desired. What I'd probably end up doing is reserving separate pens for different colors of ink. Right now, that's four bottles I have.