@freemo I have a #3776 Century (F tip) from Platinum, it's the cheapest model (~100 USD). I started using it since high school and now I still use it.
I'm not a fan of collecting pens, but I do like using pens since I don't need to swap the cartridges (the Gel Pen Refills). This pen works very well. Before that, I was using LAMY (also the cheapest model, about ~20 USD), but it had a lot of problems and I eventually decided to invest more.
I like using carbon black ink, however it's not good for pens, especially when you don't write a lot. But this pen handles it pretty well.
But now I rarely do handwriting after graduated. I don't know if this is good, but the ultrasonic cleaner is pretty good at dealing with dried carbon ink.
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@skyblond its a richer dark, but it is also more permanent. If you write with flex fountain pens it is also very much superior when it comes to not "railroading" (when a flex stroke breaks the ink film and creates 2 lines instead of one thick one).
@freemo Yeah, I wrote a lot when I was in school, and carbon black ink is better than the black dye ink.Thee dye-based one looks like dark purple instead of true black.
But now I mainly write things with pencil (easy to change the design), so the carbon ink often dried in the pen.