That’s right, I’m back on my bullshit. Now with this:

In my apparently evergreen quest to own every single production retractable fountain pen in the world, here is the “Writech” W-784. In keeping with tradition for this sort of thing, I have no idea if Writech is the actual manufacturer of this, or if it’s a yum-cha OEM product that is likely to appear under a variety of baffling and inscrutable nonbrands depending on where you buy it.

But never mind all that, and check out this cool plastic capsule case thing it comes in.

The lid on the capsule is a clutch fit and is not hinged, but the little pedestal mounts that hold the pen for retail display are clearly designed to be removable and the lid does stay on securely enough that you could, if you really wanted to, use the capsule as a general purpose pen-and-pencil case.

But the packaging is not even the weirdest part about this pen.

This is, of course, yet another retractable fountain pen. It is capless, and operates via a clicky plunger on the end that is familiar to anyone who has handled a retractable ballpoint pen. So, everyone. Since I have enough black and silver pens, and I learned my lesson after our last little… incident… I got this variant in a rather pleasing sky blue color.

Herewith it bears the warning sticker that I peeled off immediately after taking this photo, never for it to be seen again and instantly ruining my collector’s value. Yeah, I cut all the tags off of my Beanie Babies back in the day, too. Sue me. (Actually, I stuck it to the inside of the capsule.)

Obviously as a real live fountain pen this needs some kind of sealing mechanism to keep the ink from drying out when it’s not in use. The various retractables on the market therefore employ a variety of tricks with trap doors and little ball valves with varying degrees of elegance.

This… Not so much. The diagram on the sticker kind of gives away the punchline.

In again, out again, Finnegan.

The Writech employs this gimcrack setup, which I can only describe as a submarine hatch trap door. It pushes out a short distance and then swings away to the right side. It is exceedingly bonkers.

The Writech is entirely made out of plastic, and when they made that decision they really meant it. Even all the flexible and what should at least be superficially spring loaded parts in the trap door are also made out of plastic. The only metal parts in it near as I can figure are the nib itself, the clip, and the spring that drives the plunger. Since I’ve only owned this for about a week, the wisdom of this methodology is something I really can’t comment on.

At first blush there’s no visible gasket, either, but closer inspection reveals that the ring the trap door’s inner face seats into is made out of some kind of squishy silicone-like material. That probably goes some way towards keeping the interior sealed when the point is retracted. I’ve had mine inked up since the moment I got it and it still hasn’t dried out, so it must work.

The Writech is nearly completely cylindrical in cross section, 12mm in diameter. There are two shallow scallops in the grip end which serve to indicate which side is up, and provide a little more secure grip. It’s really not much, but it’s something.

Even so, it feels decidedly strange to use because you are always cognizant of the trap door which is just there the entire time you’re writing with it. It really feels as if it ought to knock against the paper all the time when you’re writing, but somehow it doesn’t. But it’s still likely to fill you with trepidation all the same. With any luck that’ll go away eventually. Maybe not.

In the capsule you also get a little cardboard box containing five of what are as far as I can tell completely proprietary ink cartridges.

The pen unscrews in a normal fashion and there’s an empty cartridge inside it, I suppose perfect if you prefer to fill it with your own ink via syringe. There is no inkwell converter, nor is one available that I can find. Just as well, probably, since the nib lacks the traditional inlet hole at the top of the split. So it’d probably be a bugger to vacuum any ink up into it even if you had a way to try.

Even the cartridges are weird. They’re very short and fat, very flasklike. That’s the Writech one on the right there, and I’m pretty surprised this thing doesn’t take regular old international shorts (left), nor even the old China Knockoff Standard cartridge (3rd from the left) or any of their near-twins like the Zebra V-301’s. Any of the above would certainly have been an easier – not to mention cheaper – way to do it. Maybe there are other brands of pen that take these but I’ve never seen one in my life. I find it hard to believe that anybody bothered to make a bespoke cartridge for this, but maybe they did.

The nib is all steel and very plain Jane. The split between the tines is seriously tiny, nearly invisible to the naked eye. That doesn’t seem to affect its performance any, though, and this “fine nib” per the manufacturer lays down a line width of about 0.43mm with not a lot of variation (measured via my highly scientific method of randomly scribbling on a Post-It and peering through a loupe at my calipers on it, and averaging the results). Unusually for a fine nibbed cheapola Chinese pen, the Writech is actually a pretty wet writer and puts down a lot of ink.

The nib is folded over the feed, with what would have been its wings rolled over so far that it’s nearly cylindrical. That probably explains a large part of its stiffness, plus as usual most of its length is supported by the feed as well.

This is one of those jobbies you could probably reliably use on multipart write-through forms if you had to.

The nib is quite sharp and rather scratchy. If we’re feeling charitable we’d call it “controllable.” It puts me a lot in mind of the nib on the Oaso K016, although it’s much wetter, bolder, less sensitive to position, and quite a bit less awful.

It’s actually pretty okay if you don’t mind the scratchiness. But it is neither elegant, nor refined, nor expressive. If you’re one of the types who likes to have an inch long 14k gold tuning fork on the end of your pen, it will surely annoy you mightily.

The action certainly isn’t very refined, either. The click is not very clicky, and is in fact rather vague and mushy. This is made up for somewhat by the fact that every deployment should probably be accompanied by, rather than a click, blaring klaxons appropriate for preceding the firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Awooga! Awooga! Open the hatch and prepare for launch!

The clip is okayish. It’s aluminum and has a nice bead blasted finish with a Euro chic vibe going on. It holds well and releases easily, but the end of it isn’t chamfered or sloped much so you have to employ some fingernail to spread it away from the pen body enough to get it onto your shirt. It’ll do.

It hasn’t got anything sticking out in the way of itself, and there’s a pretty sizable gap left between the clip and the body of the pen so thick fabrics should be no issue.

The only other note I’ve got about it is that the clip is on the plunger end of the pen rather than the end with the point, which is the reverse of most of the premium retractables. This has the side effect of leaving all of the rather long plunger sticking up past the clip, which isn’t a dealbreaker but is mildly annoying if you clip your pen to a t-shirt collar rather than a breast pocket since it’ll be prone to poking you in the neck.

The Inevitable Conclusion

If you can get over the inherent wartiness of the trap door design, I think the Writech is the least expensive retractable fountain pen you can get that’s not objectively awful. Yes, the K016 is cheaper, but it’s also a lot worse.

The Writech costs about $27 in the US and comes in a couple of pastelly colors if that’s your jam. It frequently goes on sale whereupon you can get it for even less. And it comes with a “free” pencil case, I guess.

The only problem with all this is that it’s really not far off from the cost of a Majohn A2 Press which is even better, not to mention quite a bit less doofy. So as usual, my recommendation is still that the Majohn A2 (or the A1, but definitely not the A3) is still the best value for a retractable these days.

Unless you absolutely must be a hipster or otherwise generally contrarian. Because the Writech sure is damn weird.