![\"Types](\"https:\/\/www.yourbestdigs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/typesofpens.jpg\")
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We’ve covered the types of everyday pens you’ll find around the office in our other review of the best office pens<\/a>\u00a0and best gel pens<\/a>, but here’s a detailed breakdown of how pen types compare in more premium designs.<\/p>\n Fountain pens:<\/b> Fountain pens put down a heavy line of water-based ink with barely any pressure on the page. There’s a wide selection of beautiful inks you can refill with, but they bleed and feather on common paper types, and the pens need messy maintenance. Despite these difficulties, the most prestigious pens are still fountain pens.<\/p>\n Rollerball:<\/b> Take the same dye-in-water ink that fountain pens use, then put it in a ball-tip disposable refill, and you’ve got a rollerball pen. This setup is less finicky to write with than a nib, and also much easier to refill. Rollerballs should write effortlessly and can create very fine lines \u2014 and unlike gel pens, the ink dries quickly enough for left-handers. Like a fountain pen, the ink can feather and bleed through some paper, and the ink can leak out of the cartridge when air pressure drops on an airplane. Rollerballs also need a cap to stop them from drying out.<\/p>\n Fineliner or porous-point<\/b>: Like a cross between a felt marker and a rollerball, a fineliner refill for a rollerball pen uses a tough porous plastic material for its tip. The ink is usually the same as in rollerball and fountain pens, but the porous tip puts down just enough for a bold line, with an even quicker dry time. These are often popular among left-handers. Sadly, fineliner refills dry out quickly if you leave the cap off your pen.<\/p>\n Gel:<\/b> A hybrid between the thick ballpoint ink and free-flowing rollerball ink, gel ink uses archival-grade pigment in water-based gel. If you\u2019re looking for smooth-flowing ink with strong colors and sharp, featherless lines, then a gel pen is probably a great choice for you. That said, if you\u2019re left-handed, you should be wary of gel ink \u2014 it smudges more than ballpoint and rollerball ink. We’ve also reviewed a variety of these types of pens to figure out the best gel pens<\/a> for any job.<\/p>\n Ballpoint:<\/b> These no-fuss pens were invented as an everyday replacement for fountain and rollerball pens, and they’re popular for good reason. The oil-based ballpoint ink sticks to paper more than it really dries, but the refills last longer and don’t dry out. A ballpoint\u2019s ink doesn’t flow as quickly or smoothly, so these pens require more pressure when writing and the lines aren’t as bold. Note that the firm pressure required to get ballpoint ink on the page means these pens are much better for filling out carbon-copy forms or checks.<\/p>\n Our tester for this post is a relatively obsessed fountain-pen enthusiast, so he found it tricky to narrow down a manageable list of finalists. Fortunately, he’s married to a lawyer who owns and uses very nice rollerball pens but isn’t as picky about design history or score-keeping.<\/p>\n Over the course of two months our tester double-checked his own preconceived ideas about what makes a pen “executive.” He looked at guides and discussions on boards like the Fountain Pen Forum and sub-reddits like r\/pens. He also looked at all the top recommendations from pen blogs and YouTube channels like “The Well Appointed Desk,” “Figboot on Pens” and “The Pen Addict.”<\/p>\n Here are the qualifiers we came up with when narrowing down the list of contenders:<\/p>\n Suitability as gifts:<\/b> Graduations, promotions and career milestones are great occasions to give a nice pen as a gift, and even the budget-friendly pens we picked come in elegant keepsake packaging. Though most of the top pens we selected can be purchased as fountain pens, we stuck with rollerball and ballpoint options for our list since most gift recipients will have no idea what to do with a fountain pen. Gift-suitability also rules out inexpensive pens that are made specifically to look like better pens.<\/p>\n Real-world performance:<\/b> An executive pen should always write well and feel good in your hand. To that end, we tested the pens on nice Clairfontaine writing paper<\/a>, as well as cheap legal pads, brown kraft paper, receipt paper and glossy cover stock to compare smudging, bleed and feathering.<\/p>\n Refill compatibility: <\/b>The best pen in the world isn’t any good if you run out of ink. To help ensure that you or the person you’re buying for can keep on writing, we checked to see which pens take our favorite refills: the Schneider – Topball 850<\/a>(a standard-size wet-ink rollerball that’s an excellent value), the Uni – Jetstream <\/a> (a standard-size ballpoint refill with smooth-flowing ink), and popular Japanese gel refills like the newer Uni – Signo 307<\/a> ultra-fine-tip gel or the winner from our best “regular” pen review<\/a>, the easy-to-aquire Pilot G2.<\/p>\n Subtle styling<\/b>: An executive pen should look good on a desk or conference-room table. Flashy details have their place, but the safe bet is something minimal and traditional like black with gold trimming.<\/p>\n Discreet opening mechanisms:<\/b> We also prefer twist-open capless pens over anything with a “clicky” nock mechanism, since habitual pen-clicking will get you in trouble during meetings. (Don’t worry, there’s still one classic clicky on the list.) In capped pens, we selected snap-on caps over threaded designs, since it can be awkward stopping to screw a pen cap back on when someone interrupts you while you’re writing.<\/p>\n After our two testers checked dozens of pens against each other, considering all of the above points, we selected the top ten best executive pens and ranked them as follows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After surveying pen collectors and performing our own writing tests, our pick for the best executive pen is the Montblanc – Meisterst\u00fcck, the most iconic pen ever made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":27106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-listicle-nosidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[140,145,113],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCapped pens<\/h3>\n
Capless pens<\/h3>\n
How we selected<\/h2>\n
![\"Gift](\"https:\/\/www.yourbestdigs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/ExecutivePens-gift-boxes-610x407.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Refill](\"https:\/\/www.yourbestdigs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/paper-refill-tests.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOur list<\/h3>\n