Published on: 06/03/2024
A guide to importing Chinese fountain pens, focusing only on Indian fountain pen enthusiasts.
Though it may be helpful to enthusiasts from other countries as well, but it may not be worth the hassle. Just buy from AliExpress (not you, my Indian reader)!
DISCLAIMER: None of the links here are affiliate links. I don't earn any commission if you buy. If you are still interested in supporting me, then do so by buying me a coffee by clicking the support button at the bottom of this post.
Please buy anything at your own risk. If you lose your money, I won't be responsible.
From this juncture, only proceed further if you’re really intrigued by Chinese fountain pens, have patience, and are a little better at using the internet than browsing Facebook.
Having said that, I am writing this guide primarily because I get a lot of queries on DM, and I end up replying to all, as I want to help. But now, I am tired of answering the same questions repetitively. So, this is my attempt at an exhaustive guide to importing Chinese fountain pens. If you can’t understand any of these, consider it a lack of my communication skills and believe me, you won’t understand even if you DM me with queries. So kindly stop DMing me for links, how much, what about customs, etc. Here is an attempt to put in all the information you need.
If you have more money and less time, buy from Etsy/ebay.
ebay: The search won’t work in the usual way. Need to open incognito mode and access ebay. Now, don’t log in to your account, duh! Set the delivery pin code of anything from the US, say, for example, 10001. Now, the search will work. Most sellers have excluded India from shipping options. Some still ship. It will be mentioned in the listing. Always choose Standard Shipping, but if there’s only one shipping option i. e. Economy Shipping, then message the seller and confirm the shipping option. If it’s Yanwen Express or China Post Registered Air Mail, proceed with the purchase. The key here is to confirm whether the tracking is End-to-end. Economy shipping is sometimes only till it reaches India. Somehow, such parcels have never reached me, but ebay has always refunded in full. I find ebay support to be customer-friendly. I have never lost money here.
Etsy: This is currently the simplest and most reliable option to buy Chinese pens. But also the costliest. Here are the links to some popular stores:
PENBBSOfficialStore (aka Beini)
sun.calligraphy Do check out @sun.calligraphy. Not Chinese, but a Vietnamese-based Insta store. Mods Chinese pens to do some flexing.
PastelCactusCafe Again, it is not Chinese but a Thailand-based store. Have some NOS Pilot steel nib fountain pens, including the Birdie.
Now, if you’re interested in buying like the Chinese enthusiasts do, let’s dive into Taobao/Tmall. Both are the same, except that on Tmall, we find exclusive brand stores, while on Taobao, we find primarily mixed content stores and individual sellers.
Pre-requisites:
Device: A PC
VPN: Windscribe or Proton or anything else. These two have free subscriptions.
Google Translate plugin installed in Chrome browser.
Further, we can classify it into two broad segments: Browsing and Buying. The latter part is rather easy. Browsing gets a little tricky.
Browsing:
Beginner’s method: Using Pandabuy or Superbuy. There are many proxy services, but when it comes to browsing, Pandabuy and Sugargoo are good. Connect to a VPN, log in to Pandabuy, and paste any of the Taobao/Tmall store links listed below in the search bar (select Store instead of Product in the drop-down menu on the left of the search bar). Don't forget to favourite the stores or products for easy browsing in the future. While on a particular product page, one can click the images in the product description to translate the text in the images. If we want to search using Chinese keywords, Superbuy works better than Pandabuy.
Advance method: Using the Taobao app on an Android device. Have to download from third-party websites. Install the app and make an account. Google Translate app will help. Take screenshots and translate the screenshots using the Google Translate app. Never ever make an account or log in to the Taobao account using a VPN or any other device. They will instantly block the account. And there’s no option to recover it. Once the account is set, we can browse using Chinese keywords, favourite the stores and products, and also communicate with the stores to ask for clarifications on a particular product.
Buying:
Buy through proxy services of your choice: Pandabuy, Superbuy, CSSBuy, Basetao, Sugargoo, etc. I have used Pandabuy and Superbuy both. I prefer Superbuy. The selection of a Proxy should be based on the shipping option. Each service has a shipping calculator. Be careful with liquids: Silicone oil, inks, and cartridges. Superbuy is more flexible in this regard than Pandabuy. Not that liquid shipping is not allowed, just that the shipping options are expensive.
A tip: Always prefer downsizing the parcel, that is, discarding huge pen boxes and getting only the pens shipped.
Another tip: One can buy from as many different stores as one wishes to and get all shipped at once. But one needs to optimise, as saving on shipping costs can end up paying way more to customs.
As for the customs duty for fountain pens, it’s ~40% of the declared invoice value or sometimes on the value as estimated by the customs officer. In addition, the shipping company charges a customs clearance fee as per the company policy. For India Post, it has been ₹100 flat.
One last tip: Prices reflected on proxy buying services are not always up to date. The only work around is to check the price on the Taobao app, but that is possible only if you follow the advanced method of browsing listed above. Once checked, manually edit the price of the item in the proxy service and add to cart. This tip can save you a lot of money. Sometimes around 20 to 30%.
Before I share the store links, I would like to repeat that none of the store links here are affiliate links. I don’t earn if you buy. If you found this helpful and want me to continue updating this document, consider buying me a coffee by clicking the support button at the end of this post.
Taobao/Tmall fountain pen stores list:
Shanghai Junlai Buy your Wing Sung pens from here. Official store. From their flagship Wing Sung 600 to many discontinued Wing Sung pens available. Famous Hero's available as well. Got my modified Hero 100 from here.
Wingsung Paili Store Budget Wingsung pens.
Shanghai Jingdian Stationery Co., Ltd. Started with wooden barrels for Hero 100 and ventured into its own label of fountain pens—the now famous Majohn (previously known as Moonman). Hero 100 and many other fountain pens are available as well.
Hongdian Office Flagship Store (Tmall)/ Hongdian (Taobao) Just buy the Hongdian C1 already.
Selmy Affordable and gorgeous Chinese lacquered German ebonite pens.
Hero Office Supplies Flagship Store Get your Hero 100, Year of the Dragon, before it gets OOS.
Asvine The Made in China Conid store.
Admok Admok 800, the Pelikan M800 clone is getting a lot of traction.
Lemon Duofold style piston-filler and long-knife/blade nibs.
Fat Uncle Shop Does some great customizations, including hammered pens and lacquered Jinhao 9056.
PenBBS Tmall PenBBS Taobao Their signature is Blade F nib.
Dianshi Famous for their hatch mechanism retractable fountain pen DS-784.
Oaso Do check-out their self-filling pens and capless retractable fountain pens K016 and K019.
Tramol Tramol (Tmall) Has two wonderful pens. One is a vac-filler with a Bock nib, and another is a clipless ebonite pen.
Auntie's Pen Shop Makes wonderful customized Hero 100's and other interesting in-house pens and nibs.
Lan Bi Tou Famous for Curidas clone, among other pens.
Beifa Tmall / n9 (Beifa sub-brand Tmall) / Beifa 1688.com (Chinese ver. of Alibaba wholesale)
Luoshi Jackie Shroff's Chinese fountain pen brand.
Chren (Tmall) Buy the Chren Sharks desk-sized fountain pen from here.
Kaigelu Kaigelu 316 is their popular pen. The famous Kangaroo logo dual-tone nibs.
Live in you Have a good selection of fountain pens. Many with Schmidt nibs. Somewhat like Benu.
Non-light stationery Famous for their Bamboo design Acrylic fountain pen.
Fuliwen Buy the Fuliwen 015 Wheel of Fortune while it's still available. I regret not buying the Mandarin red one.
Ultem Trust me this store has fountain pens. Infact two, made out of Utem with Schmidt No.5 nibs.
Ink House (Taobao) Ink House (Tmall) Do check-out Ink House Mate: An ABS piston-filler with Bock steel nibs.
Duke Flagship Store Tmall Old Chinese brand. Has a Hero 100-style hooded gold nib pen.
Tangmoon Interesting pens in Acrylic/ Ebonite/ Lacquered and gold nib with ECG slit design (Probably made by Wingsung).
Picasso (Tmall) Old Chinese brand. Tmall flagship store.
EraClean (Tmall) Has good affordable mini Ultrasonic Cleaners. It's the real deal. Probably OEM company for an USC by Xiaomi/ Mijia.
Hobby Stationery Tmall Flagship Store (Brand Name: AIHAO) Nice selection of super budget fountain pens among other stuff.
This is a work in progress—many more store links will be added. Also, I want to make a list of Chinese keywords to search on Superbuy/ Taobao app.
Some famous blogs and reviewers:
Reddit post updated till 2021: Outdated, still some good info.
A Taobao guide on Reddit: A lot of Chinese keywords for searching.
For suggestions on improvement or feedback/complaints, email me at [email protected] or leave a comment below. If you are an Indian reseller, I humbly request you to resell at fair margins.
Thank you for reading!