I owned probably 20-30 Frixons over the years, purchased at various times, and nearly all of them had this problem.
The only constant (beside the human being using them) I can think of is that probably 75% of my writing was in Moleskine-brand journals, and maybe 25% on index cards.
The ink in most of the pens was still visible and hadn't gone "invisible", so I don't think it was working but laying down invisible ink. It felt like the balls in the ballpoints had locked up.
The ink inside the pens could be clearly seen, so I don't think it was invisible. And the ball in the ballpoint clearly felt like it had locked up.
Mine seemed to run out of ink quicker than normal pens, however that might be possible. And they're not exactly cheap either.
This is usually more of an issue when drawing or painting, and many cheap colored pencils for example will simply disappear if you keep them on the fridge too long. I don’t think any normal pen ink has this issue. But then again, this isn’t a normal pen, so…
That said, if they do fade, I’d be surprised if Pilot doesn’t clearly specify this somewhere.
A fantastic use case though is in sewing. Ironing the fabric makes the ink transparent. These pens are far superior to chalk for that reason.
Pilot also updates the formula so a frixion bought today has much better colors than one bought 10 years ago
Yes. Shake them hard to sling the ink towards the tip. That almost always fixes mine.
1. The erasability is excellent. It's just as good as everybody says. If you're old enough to remember "erasable pens" from the 1980s, this is completely different.
2. Pretty good feel. Not quite as smooth as a gel pen, but it's like a nice ballpoint.
3. If you get the Japanese models from Jetpens you can get some really really fine tips, like 0.38mm
4. Great for lefties, little to no smearing. One of the best lefty-friendly pens I've ever tried.
5. I find I write/sketch more freely with these relative to regular pens, because I'm not scared of mistakes.
Con:
1. They seem to dry up really quickly. A few months sitting in my desk drawer, and they lose their ability to write despite being nearly full of ink. I stopped buying them for this reason.
Anybody else experienced this? Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably could have experimented more. Maybe the ball was clogged, and cleaning it with rubbing alcohol could have revived them?