Here is some collective quotes from my my replies from FPN. It has been everywhere, but gradually tell the story and forming a full picture. Instead of start another article, I gathered them here.
In General
It will save time just to list independent (100% in-house, including gold nib) fountain pen brands with own facilities: JH, HD, and Hero. Meanwhile, they also OEM for other global foreign brands who shall remain nameless here. There are also many other facilities doing own brands+OEM at the same time, but rarely known to the West on Ali or Etsy, which I wouldn't list here. Still very good pen though.
The rest, all design houses. Two PC in garage, one drawing running on bootleg CAD, OEM the production to a group PEN FACTORIES (who is also the makers of fake MB) and leave the rest to Instagram marketing guru and cyber influencer.
It's easier and quick money to tell stories and posting fancy pictures on social media, rather than running a dusty smoggy pen factory with 200+ people on payrolls.
I respect and buy mostly from the later.
PenBBS
If you believed in free speech and open friendly discussion about product quality, FPN and Reddit are the only two places.
In some forum, quality discussion of either pens or ink under forum name, were strictly forbidden and end up immediate banning account. Totally authoritarian. That forum should rename itself to: Fountain Pen North Korea.
Admok
Despite the seemingly popularity of Admok on social media, my attitude towards this 100% copy-cat new brand remains unchanged from Day 1: avoid it.
@niuben just mentioned a recent dispute from Admok, which caused a bit fuss among pen enthurists in China. The management and attitude towards customer of Admok is in a state of absolute SH(bleep)IT. Regarding design work, there is none from Admok. So, what is the value of Admok?
HD for its crowded design elements on barrel and LIR (Low Ink Refill);
JH for its monster converter under $10;
MJ for its occasional tribute to some timeless classic otherwise you never afford, but definitely long term fair with MB146.
What is Admok for? knock off replacement parts of Pelikan? If all China pens companies operated in the same way as Admok, pen industry of China is going back to hell, again.
Exactly. sometimes the reputation of one brand/ product totally reverses, compared with China domestic and overseas. This is common.
I was so into some hand craft mechanical pencil from Japan. Then some very knowledgeable local gentleman on this forum revealed more facts of the maker, which helped me understand the heat in depth: It was a game between middle school students.
https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/377072-demo-admok-j400-models/#comment-4711770
Selmy 尚迈
Omg, i thought Selmy 尚迈 wouldn't survive up 1 or 2 years, now it's made its way overseas.
Selmy first appeared in the second half of 2021, and immediately into the dispute of "dodgy ebonite", which it claimed to be "same Germany ebonite provider". The scent, surface texture was completely different from other "German ebonite" used on existing brands on the market.
rm of urushi process, Selmy early models, after 2-3 years in storage, have reported with "severe bubble surface" where the ink contacts. If Namiki process and formula could be replicated from browsing internet, I would suggest Selmy browsing any content of ASML or Nvidia from internet.
What's also be noted of Selmy, is the propaganda. In all social media platforms in Chinese language, 99.99% positive feedback in the comment section. Any disagreement would be scolded as "anti patriotist, traitor as Starmer, far left". WTF. So what kind of nationalism is that to straight copy the drawing from a country used to invade China? Who is the real traitor that ashames its motherland again by copycat?
Your specific model online at USD340 in PRC, with current 0 purchase record.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/1h8woyr/comment/m106d8v/
Asvine
First to time I heard of assvine was in Nov 2022, through YouTube paid influencer.
I still haven't bought my first.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/1h99ctt/comment/m0zrybr/
Hero
The history of this company should be of a book length, that it could easily go on for 3 days. The story of Hero is a thumbnail of the modern China history really, and Hero never missed any pages of it. The very "original" Hero was taken over from private hands and went through Socialist Reform by 1958. it was under state hands since then. So it was not that much of "originality" of it since 1958. What happened during 2000's was part of the SOE (State-owned enterprise reform, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv5cgbnk.27?seq=1)
One obsoleted but still accessible company site: http://salepen.com (starting from 2002)
Junlai
1947 - Wing Sung founded in Shanghai
2003 - original Hero was bankrupted and taken over by a state run fund, thereby founded the Hero Group. Wing Sung Branding and stock was under control of Hero Group in the approximate same time.
2004 - Shanghai Green Stationery Co., Ltd was founded.
2012 - Hero Group sold 14 trucks of new old stock to Shanghai Green.
2013 - Shanghai Green Stationary registered the trade name of "JunL 君来 (straight English translation: King Decent, or Gentleman Decent“. Shanghai Green also bought the first 5 year license of using the "Wing Sung 6 series" brand from Hero.
2015 - Shanghai Green started online sales, selling new old stock from Hero Group.
2018 - Shanghai Green renewed the license of "Wing Sung 6 series" for another ten years to 2028.
It was a decision from Hero Group that the "Wing Sung 6 Series" license will not be renewed in due course. Heming therefore is planning a gradual replacing of own brand "JunL" with "Wing Sung". The "Wing Sung" components will still run while stock lasts.
https://shanghaiknifedude.blogspot.com/2024/04/review-junlai-wing-sung-630.html
I forgot my FPN account and this is the website I said about Hero http://salepen.com/(old but not so )
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link.
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