Hero 336 - a cheap fountain pen

Lately I have been having a fountain pen fetish. I keep looking at fountain pens in shops and on the internet. So it is with great surprise that I found the Hero 336 available at Mustafa Centre's stationary department for $1.20 SGD from this site. Who can resist this price! I promptly went and got one. When i got to Mustafa I looked around for the stationary department which was on the 4th floor. I headed up and wondered where was I going to find a $1.20 fountain pen? Was it going to be displayed along side the expensive stuff in the display cases or was it just displayed outside like any cheap pen? I was told there there were not too many pens left and the next time it would come in was in 10 to 15 days time.

This pen is made by the Shanghai Hero pen company, from what I can find out this pen was released during 1968 (2 years after the Cultural Revolution when Mao Ze Dong took power) a good 40 years ago and it's still being produced today. It was a low cost pen for the masses in China.

The pen was reviewed using the guidelines found at the Fountain Pen Network

Hero 336 - Cheap cheap

The Cap

Hero 336 with cap posted

The Nib

1. First Impressions (7/10) – It's a bit heavier than what I imagined it would weigh as the whole pen looks very plasticky. But what caught my eye was the gold cap and the price of $1.20 SGD/Singapore Dollar for a fountain pen.
2. Appearance & Design (7/10) – The Hero 336 follows a Parker 51 kind of design. The pen cap is gold in color and the pen body is in plastic. The filling sac inside is made of semi transparent plastic and is covered with a metal body. The nib itself is hooded like the Parker 51.
3. Weight & Dimensions (7/10) – The pen is about 12cm and with the cap posted 15cm. The pen feels more balanced if the cap was posted while writing. The pen does feels abit light for me when i write and i do tend to prefer a heavier pen.
4. Nib & Performance (6/10) – This pen writes with a fine/extra fine tip. It is not stated anywhere what size the tip is other than it's made of iridium. Filled it with Pelikan Black and Noodler's Eel Blue. The nib is quite scratchy and very hard. There were some postings on the internet that they used it as a dart in school!. It writes dryly, tried it ion normal printing paper and in my journal (A journal bought from Ikea) dosen't soak through at all. The nib size is small enough for me to do my morning paper's sudoku on my way to work.
5. Filling System (7/10) - It uses a non removable Aerometric filling system that means you can't use carts with it. It takes probably about 10 squeezes to fill the pen. And with the sac being transparent, you can see how much ink is left in the pen. Nothing wrong of it as it gets the job done.
6. Cost & Value (8/10) – I brought it from Mustafa Centre in Singapore when I bought it there weren't that many left but when i visited about a week later they seem to have refilled the stock. So i guess that the supply is quite constant. The price is $1.20 SGD or about 0.83 USD.
7. Conclusion (Final score, 5/6) - For 1.20 SGD it's great value for money and great as a knock about pen for use in daily work. They nib is abit scratchy, although i do hope some constant use would make it smoother in the long run.