As I mentioned last week, I’ve recently rediscovered the Pilot Varsity as my go-to purse pen.
The other day, I noticed something about the pen that I hadn’t realized before: it stinks! I don’t know if my own Varsity is just showing its age, or if it’s got something to do with the very haphazard way that I’ve stored it over the years. But when, while running errands, I took it out to jot a note on my hand, I got closer to the nib than I ever had before, and took a whiff.
On the order of smells, I would rank it somewhere below my husband’s hockey bag — certainly the scent carries less far — but somewhere above standard-issue body odor. The scent of smelly feet comes to mind. It’s not pleasant! I don’t know if I’m ready to call it a deal-breaker when there’s still so much else about the Varsity that I like. But none of my other fountain pens smell, nor any of my bottles of ink, and they’ve been living in the same environment (and were stored in the same boxes in the same crappy storage facility during our post-Sandy homeless period), so… I’m flummoxed.
Has this happened to anyone else?
I’ve never had that happen either! Maybe somehow it collected mold or your ink went bad?
Just smelled of my Pilot Varsities… the smell a little bit chemical-y but not bad!