Last year the Fisher Space Pens were all the rage. An amazing pen, that writes in the cold, in heat, upside down, even under water. Only problem: it’s $20…

Seeing as how my favorite batch of pens were purchased 20 for $2.50, paying $20 for a pen is quite a stretch for me. On top of that, I had heard some people grumble that it isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be, as far as being a pen is concerned.

So I head over to the local UC Davis bookstore and buy not the pen, but the $5 ink replacement for said $20 pen. One empty 13 cent pen, a bit of scotch tape, and some exacto knife-fo later, I have a $5.13 pen which writes the same as the $20 Fisher Space Pen.

My feeling

I’m glad I didn’t spend $20 on it. It is a rather nice pen, but even after getting the ink cartridge warmed up after a few days, it doesn’t write as dark as I like. I’m just too much of a fan of the heavy black gel ink pens to like something this sophisticated. It is not worth $20, but was a very entertaining way to spend 20 minutes and $5 is acceptable. Supposedly, since the ink is pressurized, it does do well writing on surfaces other than paper, which I have yet to try out.