Starting someone in BIFL

Submitted by SamuelsSteel t3_1275yfe in BuyItForLife

Someone made a post about their Parker Jotter and it made me think of something.

If I wanted to buy someone for someone made of some quality that they could carry for life, maintain, and enjoy, I don’t think you could do better than a pen.

I can’t think of a more cost effective option to give to someone as a proxy for the whole BIFL concept.

People always say they will lose a pen, and I always say “buy a decent one and you won’t”. Maybe they’ll be one day come back and say “hey remember that pen? You got a pencil like that?”

A simple pen can start a trend for a person.

20 bucks can still go a long way.

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IndianaFartJockey t1_jee7xvd wrote

A good quality everyday item like a good belt, keychain, glasses case, Zippo lighter...something for the daily reminder. I guess whatever the person touches often.

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psimian t1_jefuoz6 wrote

Small BIFL items are highly dependent on the individual. I own a couple nice pens that I have had since I was a kid. I never use them just because I rarely need a pen and therefore don't carry one with me. If you almost never use a pen, a disposable Bic is BIFL (I've got one or two that are well over 10 years old and still going)

For me, that item is a Lever card multi tool (TSA safe wallet card). I mostly use it as an emergency screwdriver, staple remover, and size reference when taking pictures of things.

The key is that it has to be something they need on a daily basis, and the BIFL version needs to perform better and more reliably than the disposable version (lighters come to mind here; a disposable that that has been sitting in a drawer for 2 years will still work just fine, but a Zippo will be bone dry)

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Foreign-Cookie-2871 t1_jee895s wrote

The BIFL pen they gifted me is... useless for me. I appreciate the concept, but it's a ballpoint and I write exclusively in gel / water resistant ink. So a pen is a good thing to gift, but you might need to first know what people use to write with.

Also, the pen they gifted me is a Parker, but it writes worse than most BICs I ever used (from the day they gifted it to me). IDK how they managed this.

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zombienudist t1_jefe9ae wrote

I was just going to say that in my post. For people that care they likely have what they like. For those that don't they will think an expensive pen is a strange thing to get. There is so much variations in something like that this that anyone that writes a lot will have figured this out. Someone who write a lot will likely have tried different options. SO they have already figured out what they like. Someone with minimal understadning thinks a pen is a pen. They don't understand different ink types or that it is very specific as what I like you won't and vice versa.

That all being said I grabbed a parker jotter with a gel refill in it and it writes really nice. I ended up putting it in my Rotring 600 for a bit to test it out. But again this is where personal preference comes in. My wife didn't like it as she likes a finer pen and I don't. I am a fan of something like the Pentel Energel in feel and thickness and the 0.7mm version of the parker jotter gel feels and looks a lot like that if you have used one.

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