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Wing Sung 3008 Piston Filler Fountain Pen US $1.68 (~AU $2.35) Delivered @ Computer & Stationery Supplies AliExpress

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This is without a doubt the best $2-odd I have spent in a while. The Wing Sung 3008 is a genuine piston filler fountain pen, meaning that there is no cartridge or converter, the barrel of the pen holds the ink. I can get about six weeks worth of writing out of one refill.

These were about $4 USD until recently. Now Aliexpress is selling them for $1.50 USD. I find it honestly incredible that you can buy a piston filler pen for the same price as a Bic Crystal. Normally you would pay around $150.00 for a piston filler from the "traditional" brands like Lamy or Pelikan etc.

Its an extra fine nib. Normally not my style but I like how I dont have to worry about it bleeding through the paper. Its not a great nib, however its Lamy compatible so you can always swap it out for another. Some people complain about it but I have had no issues with it. No skipping, scratching or hard starts. To be honest it performs better than a lot of brand name pens that I have.

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  • +1

    What colours did you choose? Gold would look lovely on my chequebook;-)

    • Plain black. Forgot to add it's a demonstrator pen, made from clear material so you can see the ink flow through.

  • +14

    $1.34USD from a different seller.

    • +2

      Thanks, ordered a transparent one.

      I got way too many fountain pens but 2$ can't hurt.

      • What is a transparent colour good for? Would u recommend these for writing in wedding guestbooks?

        • +1

          The pen body is transparent, these pens don't come with ink!

          I wouldn't suggest this particular one just because it's an extra fine nib which doesn't look as 'cool'.

      • +2

        @Yanofiles - is there such a thing as too many? Every time I think I've reached the end of my collecting I find something else interesting and it just keeps going. (Although, I'm sure Mrs. C would probably agree with you.)

        These pens are reminiscent of the TWSBI Eco. I've tried a TWSBI Diamond 580AL before and it was very nice, so these Wing Sung pens would have a lot to live up to, but you sure can't beat the price. Another great aspect of the TWSBI pens is they're meant to be easy to disassemble for complete cleaning, I wonder if these ones can do the same? Anyone able to comment?

        As for inks…watch out, that can be a really slippery slope. Believe me when I say it's hard to say 'no' to "just one more colour". I've got 'em all: Noodler's, Private Reserve, Pilot Iroshizuku, Parker, Sheaffer, Caran D'Ache, De'Atramentis, Waterman, Sailor Jentle…and then Robert Oster came on the scene and I'm back on the merry-go-round again. At least with Robert Oster I know he's Australian so I assuage my conscience by telling myself I'm supporting a local industry. If you want to stick to locally-made Aussie inks that aren't too expensive then try Toucan Inks, which are made in Brisbane. They're not as fancy as Robert Oster, but they're less expensive and perfectly serviceable. Bookbinders Online have them for only $6.90 a bottle + p&h.

        A note to FP newbies - when changing to a different ink always remember to flush your pen throughly. Not all inks are created equal, and chemical reactions between brands, or even colours, can have undesirable effects.

    • "It's a knock off." according to one of the reviews.

      • Knock off? Of what?

        • TWSBI - see my post above for a link

        • +1

          This one and the original bargain both seem to be fake Wing Sungs, a Chinese rip off of a Chinese product, which is probably in turn a rip off of an international product. Inception.

  • +4

    I don't know why i need this but it sounds good. Bought all colours!

    • +2

      Hope you have ink or you'll have to buy ink too!

      • +1

        any cheap ink recommendations?
        never had one of these

        • +4

          I don't really have cheap ink (I spent quite a bit buying Pilot Iroshizuku inks) and I only recently gotten into this hobby.

          I was looking at Robert Oster inks which I hear are really good and they are about $17 a bottle delivered with eBay Plus via eBay.

          If you just want to just have a feel for fountain pens I'd suggest buying a cheap decent pen that comes with an ink cartridge e.g. Platinum Preppy rather than this + a bottle of ink that you might not use.

          Otherwise this is some cheap ink you can try:
          Black - https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Parker-Quink-Ink-Bottle-Black-Bl…
          Blue - https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Parker-Quink-Fountain-Pen-Blue-I…

        • https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F322888613192

        • I usually get Parker quink from office works for 10 dollars

        • +3

          I'm planning to get this. I'm guessing it's correct to get a bottle. Cheap ink to match with a cheap pen. 2500 positive reviews though.

          https://www.aliexpress.com/item/-/32833173512.html?spm=a2g0s…

        • Believe it or not Supermarket bought food colouring works really well. I don’t know how many years it will last on paper but it is quite a passable ink for jotting notes etc. I think a bottle of Queens food colouring costs about a buck.

  • +1

    don't forget cash rewards

  • Love these piston filler FP’s. High quality, nice to write with, well made & a little bit different to normal pens

  • +2

    How leak-prone are these piston ink reservoirs? I've used similar twist type ink chambers on cheap fountain pens before and they bled from every orifice.

    The only Chinese fountain pens I swore by in my high school years many many moons ago were Hero-branded ones, which were a Parker knockoff, those never leaked unless provoked and had a rubber bulb which you squeeze repeatedly to refill.

    Parker Quink is perfectly fine and seems to flow well with all of my fountain pens.

    • +3

      All reports are that they are fine. I've had no issues with mine.

    • +5

      they bled from every orifice.

      Pretty sure you're only supposed to write with them.

    • If you carry them whilE flying any FP will start leaking

  • +2

    Great pen to get started without a lot of investment.

    Normally you would pay around $150.00 for a piston filler from the "traditional" brands like Lamy or Pelikan etc.

    I wouldn't go as far as to compare these to higher end pens…

    • +2

      Put it this way I would prefer this pen to quite a few of my legit pens. I honestly don't think that there's much point buying entry level Lami safaris and the like anymore. The Chinese pens are better and cheaper.

      Tbh, put a genuine Lamy nib on this and you'd be hard pressed to fault it in any way.

      • +1

        I wouldn't argue these pens for this price range.
        However, I would agree that replacing the nib will be a game changer but a Lamy nib costs nearly as much as the pen itself (the Lamy pen).

      • Any suggestion where to get Lamy nibs? (The cheapest place that ships to Aus.)

        • +1

          Milligram, when they're having one of their regular 20% off all Lamy sales. Some say the flat $9.90 shipping is a dealbreaker, but if you're in Melbourne go to their retail shop in the city or pad your order out to $60+ and get free shipping (not hard when you throw in a couple of inks, too).

  • +3

    If anyone is interested in purchasing some ink.
    https://www.seitz-kreuznach.de/en/office/ink/search/diamine-…

    Good stuff at a good price. Free shipping over 15 euros and lots of colours to play with. ~10 days delivery.

    • Good inks. Just to warn new fountain pen users that majority of the inks are water soluble and WILL run or even disappear if hit by water. There are permanent inks but these all generally are higher maintenance - Noodlers permanent (cellulose reactive dye), Sailor/Platinum nano pigment inks (pigment deposits in paper) and iron gall inks (forms iron salts that deposit in paper).

      • Be careful of using iron gall in modern fountain pens, it can (at best) clog up the feed or (at worst) corrode it, rendering your pen useless. At least with these Wing Sung pens the price means that wouldn't be the end of the world. But, if it was your $750 Sailor 1911 or your $30,000 Caran d'Ache Astrograph, then you'd definitely want to be wary. (Yep, that pen is $30k - you do get two for the price, though.)

        • Yup, happened to one of my pens.
          If you leave it out for too long, too often or if the cap doesn't seal well. It somewhat forms crude/crusts around and inside the pen. Not too happy with that.

        • Modern iron galls are generally less concentrated than in the old days. I've only use the KWZ IG inks which have different colours. My go to for my work, which requires permanent inks, is Sailor Kiwa Guro, nice lubricated feel. Expensive though.

          • @Pesty: I haven't used that one myself, although I did road-test it at The Pen Shoppe in Brisbane. I was impressed with how quick-drying it was. Agreed that it's rather pricey, however I've got several other Sailor inks and I'd say they're as good as the Pilor Iroshizuku, so you definitely get what you pay for.

    • Great advice. Thank you.

  • "It's not original - there are no logo or Wing Sung signs" from one reviewer. I think the original is meant to have the model number engraved onto the metal.

    I guess I'll try it anyway.

  • +1

    I haven't touched fountain pen in like 2 years.

    Time to break out my collection of Iroshizuku!

  • There we go, Xmas present for a friend sorted :-)

  • Thanks bought some. Could anyone also please recommend good pencils for school kids with reasonable price. Thanks

    • +2

      Crayola or bic

    • +8

      What are your requirements for a good pencil and what do you regard as reasonable?

      I would recommend the Mitsubishi 9850 or Mitsubishi 9800 from eBay or Amazon. The 9850 has an eraser, which seem to be a bonus, but I have seen one student so upset that the rubber fell off the end that he tried to hack the end off the pencil. A 9800 might have been a better choice for him. They are more expensive than your ordinary school pencil, but worth it, considering kids use them all year long.

      Palomino Blackwings are better than the 9850, but you would have to love pencils as much as I do to equip your kids with them, especially the Volumes editions;
      https://blackwing602.com/product/blackwing-volumes-subscript…

      https://www.jetpens.com/blog/the-best-wooden-pencils/pt/633

      Pencil reviews and collecting is like going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. It's a great and relatively inexpensive hobby, that leads you to trying out a myriad of erasers and sharpeners.

      These are my go-to erasers;
      https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/faber-cast…

      They work better than the eraser on the 9850.

      As for a quality sharpener, it would be hard to go past;
      https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/caran-d-ac…

      Being a primary teacher, I see pencils in action every day. I often see students and even whole classrooms that seem to have some sort of Bermuda Triangle of pencils going on with pencils disappearing apparently at will, never to be seen again. I appreciate students who take care of their things, so if I am ever approached for a new pencil because someone has "lost" theirs, I ask if anyone would like to trade theirs in for a new pencil. They can then pass on their older pencil to the Bermuda Triangle student. Almost everyone thinks that is a fair approach.

      As the end of the year approaches and your mind turns to what to give to your child's teacher for all their outstanding effort, consider a gift card to OfficeWorks. It will definitely save them from dipping into their own pocket. As I heard one teacher recently quip, "If you've lost your glue ask your parents for some more. I'm not OfficeWorks."

      P.S. I have also wanted to try these but haven't yet. They are supposed to be very durable;
      https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/staedtler-…

      • Thanks for your valuable comment

  • +1

    Great to see such an interest in fountain pens here!

    If they have same nib (Iridium ef) as the ws 3003 are great, I really like the 3003.

    If you like piston filled, I really enjoy the ws 398, great nib, solid and nice construction for almost 10 times the price (but still a very reasonable priced poison filter, it comes with silicon grease too for maintenance)

    Waterman have great inks for good value, and works great with dry FP too.

    • Piston filler not Poison filter, typo

      • That would have been a fantastic selling point :-)

    • +1

      I think that they are a different wing sung that makes those other pens. There is a young Australian chap on YouTube that has reviewed this pen and that one together and explains the difference.

  • This is the first I have heard of these pens - appears to be a modern take on the bladder fill fountain pen I used in primary school over 40 years ago. I still have that pen (a Parker) - don't use it any more but kept it for sentimental reasons since it was my first pen.

    • " appears to be a modern take on the bladder fill fountain pen"

      I remeber the 'standard' pen set that was the U.K. schoolchild's Xmas present in the early 60's as being a "Platignum" set, consisting of a propelling pencil, ballpoint and a piston plunger pen. Around ~ 65-66 that piston pen was replaced by a cartridge one. "Pelikan" were regarded as the next step up, and usually a bladder fill [pressed from the side of a metal surround under the barrel], then Parkers, the apex being that which filled by turning a knob on the top and pressing 3 times.

      • Thanks for the info. Looks like piston pens actually preceded me and appear to be making a comeback. Good to know.

  • On the webpage they quote a 0.5mm nib which seems to map more to a Lamy Fine nib width. OP, are you saying that this Wing Sung 0.5mm nib performs more like a Lamy EF 0.4mm nib?

    • +1

      Wingsung F are more like western EF, but brands like Kaco use German nibs grinded finer than the same German nib for western pens.
      Japanese grind tend to be finer then Chinese grind.

      I use FP to sketch a lot and find the Chinese ef and m perfect for my style, the f tend to be very inconsistent between brands (a brand f is the M or EF of other brands, too subtle for my intended use)

  • Got 2 thx

  • +2

    TWSBI have set the benchmark for quality Chinese (actually Taiwanese) piston filled fountain pens. They generally retail around $45 to $90 depending on size/form/supplier. Bought a TWSBI myself to see what the fuss was about and must admit I was impressed with quality & build.
    So what about these Wing Sung cheapies? Surely not as good as the premium? Will have to wait and see what US$2 gets you.
    The key it seems is in what other posters have said. How good is the seal on the piston filler? If it’s poor then the pen will be a nuisance & will spill ink everywhere. I suggest not carrying this around with you & especially do not take it on a flight

    • The ws 398 is on par with twsbi(and is 10x the price of these pens), some people says the ws 398 soft ef is even better than twsbi.

      Wingsung pens are manufactured by different subcompany/factories

      The pens marked from $12 up are really totally different from the cheap one, even QA wise

      • Meant ws 698, not 398, damn all these numbering codes

    • +1

      You get what you pay for - cheap feeling nib and piston assembly but it's still a $2 FP. A WS698 or Pilot Metro would be superior in every way, but both sit at $20

      • And once the budget is around $20 there are a lot of good value choices, the Indian brands like Click are very nice too, many with soft nibs can handle a bit of pressure variation too

  • +2

    best place to buy ink for me is uk site "the writing desk" - great selection and prices on ink and cheap shipping to australia - also the pound has recently dropped too and they deduct the VAT for australian orders (dunno about gst)…. to see ex vat prices add to cart and put in your country and postcode

    diamine inks are 8.54 aud for 80 ml
    https://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/ink-refills/fountain-pen-bo…

    the lovely waterman serenity blue 8.59aud for 50ml
    https://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/ink-refills/fountain-pen-bo…

    also their great in house brand 100ml bottles are 8.73aud -
    https://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/ink-refills/fountain-pen-bo…

    as for parker inks - no good - they look great as you are writing but they look watered down and lifeless when they dry on the page - avoid!!

    • +1

      If you're ordering over 70GBP, go with CultPens instead for free shipping. WritingDesk is good too though.

  • +2

    Who would have thought that OzB was a place of so many fountain pen aficionados!

  • I love my TWSBIs, so this would be a great cheap addition to my collection. Thanks!

  • I have received mine and the nib was out of alignment. It felt scratchy. I realigned it and now write very smoothly. I love it so far for the price that I had paid.

  • I am stil waiting to get mine.

    • Mine hasn't arrived as yet :-(

  • Got mine. Great pen so far (particularly given it was $2).

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