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Cross Bailey Fountain Pen

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
On a purely impulse buy, I picked up this pen from Office Depot, half off sale for $20.00. I would not have considered it at full price. Amazon sells it for $30.00. As the Amazon reviews state, it has an issue of the cap not staying posted while writing, but is quite secure when capped. Chinese made, medium nib, writes a bit wet with the single cartridge provided. Does not come with a converter but one is available and I ordered one. I believe that this pen may have been discontinued as only the ball point version is shown on Cross's website. Anyone use one of these?
 
Hey Nortac. Mine doesn't like to stay posted, either. As a general rule I don't post anyway unless the cap screws on. The first pen I ever bought was the cross Bailey. Staples, full retail. 47.00 dollars plus tax. I thought I was out of my mind. Mine writes wet as well but I like that. I like that it's metal, and for the price you can't beat the smoothness of the medium nib
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
Other than the cap not staying posted, this is so far a well behaved pen. The medium nib seems to be a bit wet, at least with the supplied ink cart. I write small and at work on cheap laser printer paper, so not the best combo. I look forward to using nicer inks with it when the converter arrives.
 
Other than the cap not staying posted, this is so far a well behaved pen. The medium nib seems to be a bit wet, at least with the supplied ink cart. I write small and at work on cheap laser printer paper, so not the best combo. I look forward to using nicer inks with it when the converter arrives.

This was my first FP, too, but I also write small and use cheap paper at work, so this pen did not get a lot of use and ended up getting PIFed. I still found it to be a nice hefty beginner pen, readily available, at a decent price.
 
I have a few Sheaffers and an Esterbrook (still needs repair) that I got when dad passed. I also have grandpa's Esterbrook from way back and a Noodler's I bought myself. Then there are the cross pens. I own 4 including the Bailey and find them to be very good pens and a great value for the $ spent. If you go on YouTube and look for Cross pen reviews, you will find a number of reviews that are positive for Cross products. If memory serves, the consensus is that there are better pens but the performance to price ratio is hard to beat. Oddly enough, lately I've been using dip pens more and more.
 
As the Amazon reviews state, it has an issue of the cap not staying posted while writing, but is quite secure when capped.

I know this post is ancient, but I have a Cross Bailey fp and had the same problem with getting the cap to post without slipping off. I've found that with a little pressure, and a twist, it should stay in place just fine.
 
Yea I have the same issue. So I just leave it off. I also got a Cross Aventura for $20 and it doesn't have that problem. The cap stays on tight. But the Aventura is a plastic pen and the Bailey is metal and much heavier.
 
I just bought one of these as my second fountain pen, without knowing the RRP or what would be a reasonable price - it's a nice pen, but did I ever overpay.
 
I just bought one of these as my second fountain pen, without knowing the RRP or what would be a reasonable price - it's a nice pen, but did I ever overpay.

My local Staples still has these on sale, sitting in a free standing cardboard display for $20....along with some similarly boxed Sheaffer pen sets. I guess they are clearing out inventory.
 
My local Staples still has these on sale, sitting in a free standing cardboard display for $20....along with some similarly boxed Sheaffer pen sets. I guess they are clearing out inventory.

I bought one there myself in April, just because I didn't have any Cross pens, and for that price I was curious. The alleged "list" price is around $55, which would be too much, but for $20 (and a bit more if you want one of their proprietary converters, which Staples did not seem to carry) it seemed worth a shot. Mine was scratchy at first; under the louple it was obvious that the tines were out of alignmnet. After fixing that and doing a little smoothing, it became a very smooth wet writer, but as others mention above, a bit on the broad side with a "medium" nib. The cap will seem to stay posted securely for a while, but can abruptly release itself. Not actually a bad pen, not one that I'll use much.
 
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