How old are fountain pen enthusiasts?

[MichaelAlanBielat]

I'm 26 and just got into fountain pen writing about a week or two ago. I just traveled and one of my layovers was in Chicago O'Hare airport and I checked out the Montblanc store they have in there. It got me thinking more about the different pens that are out there and also helped me realize that if my handwriting wasn't so atrocious then I could pick up one of these pens myself and make good use of it.

 

I am a photographer by trade and have just started keeping a journal of my journeys and trips around the globe. I am peeved at how horrible it is to try to decypher what I wrote so I made it a point to go back to the fundamentals and learn how to take my time out and write correctly...

 

This forum really helped me to get some basics down and I can't wait until my Namiki's come in so I can really get started!

Edited April 30, 2009 by MichaelAlanBielat

[eilu]

25.

My parents used FPs, but just for signing documents. An uncle had a desk set in his office, I recall playing around with them as a child.

I've been using them on and off since I received my first one (from my dad) after graduating elementary. They weren't used in schools though, but most people I've encountered seemed to have at least passing familiarity with them (in that they know it's an FP). Most of this time the FPs lived on my desk, for use in journaling and drawing (hobby)

Didn't start seriously using them as daily writers until after I graduated college (2008). I wish I started earlier, I had a lot of notes during my internship year!

[JJBlanche]

25 here. Got into fountain pens while still an undergrad, as I thought someone with a focus in writing should have a nice writing instrument (right?). I now have three users (M600, 1745, VP), and can't imagine looking back.

 

I find the VP eminently practical. It makes up for actual and perceived FP deficits.

[blackbug67]

Touchy topic.

I was born in 1950 and used a fountain pen in elementary school (an Esterbrook, which I still have!). I also used ballpoints, roller balls and gel pens as they came along, but always perferred fountain pens.

I think that is understandable.

What about people born into the era of ballpoints? What causes them to develop an understanding and love of quirky, sometimes difficult fountain pens?

My kids are 23,25 and 28 and all look at me with love and pity when I pull out a fountain pen. To them I might as well be driving a Model T Ford instead of a Mustang. Despite my example, none of them have the slightest interest in using anything but a Pilot G2.

Are there many members here my kids ages? I would love to hear how you got the bug.

[/quote

 

I am 63 and when in primary school had to use a dip pen for penmanship class, about once a week. Like most of you I hated the thing. Not long ago I tried the fountain pen again and with the help of FPN members I found enjoyment from writing with it. Now on to children. None of them, ranging from 40 to 28 years old, have ever used one. Maybe someday, we shall see.

[Phototoxin]

23 in 15 days !

[FrankB]

I am not unique. I am also nearly 60 and learned to use a dip pen in primary school. I never did like ball points and always prefered FP's. But it was near the end of the 1980's that this collector virus struck me and it persists to this day.

[Pengrump]

I'm sixty. I've used fountain pens off and on since junior high. My first real, i.e., not cartridge pen, fountain pen was a Pelikan 120 in the late 1970s. Since then I've always had at least one piston filler at the ready.

[ANM]

I'm 65. Like Pengrump, first 'real' pen was a Pelikan 120, still using it. Wrote some checks with it a few hours ago.

[AlexLeGrande]

I'm 62 years old. Began writing in elementary school with a dip pen. A year later we were told that the only acceptable pen was an Esterbrook, with the choice of two nibs that I can't recall. After high school and college years with ballpoints, I returned to those cheap cartridge pens of the 70's, and finally to a Pelikan 200 in the early 80's. Now, I keep buying pens. Cheap Chinese good and bad writers, a couple of Indian ED's, some vintage Americans (lovely Parker 51's, a Vacumatic, a flexy Eversharp Skyliner, some Esterbrooks), Pilots, and others. I bet you can't own just one.

[ZeissIkon]

I'm 49, one of the last Baby Boomers. I learned to write with a pencil, then with a ball point (because that was what students got), but my grandmother used a Sheaffer Cartridge Pen to write letters (and keep score at Scrabble). When I was old enough to have a little of my own money (sixth or seventh grade, call it 1970) I bought one "just like Grandma's" and used it and its successors through the rest of grade school, high school, and into college. Then I got away from it, probably because I was broke most of the time and had trouble hanging onto pens -- and I needed pencils more often than pens in college anyway (engineering courses call for erasing -- lots of erasing), though I did own a Rapidograph drafting pen for a while (and wrote with it, though it required a very strange grip to keep the pen vertical, and really, really disliked cheap paper).

 

Then I was away from fountain pens for, oh, call it thirty years. I got one again just a few weeks ago, after seeing a series of references to this and that, an Instructable on refilling a Pilot Varsity, various videos on how to fill this and that kind of pen. And suddenly, despite arthritis that makes it painful to write with a ballpoint for more than a word or two at a time, I can write page after page with a fountain pen. Given I can hang onto a ball point long enough to exhaust the ink, I expect I won't be away from fountain pens again until my hands reach the point I can't hold a pen at all...

Edited April 30, 2009 by ZeissIkon

[Chazzozz]

According to my kids...older than dirt.

 

According to the calendar...early 40's.

 

I recall seeing my mother use them when I was kid. I also remember playing with some of her ink when I was about 5 years old and getting into really deeeep poo-poo over it (more to due with the huge stain it left on her desk than with wasting ink...). I'm surprised it didn't set up an unnatural phobia of ink. ;-)

 

I'd never picked up a fountain pen in my life 'til I started working at the local stationers around 19. We sold a variety of fine writing instruments, primarily Sheaffer and Parker, with almost all of them being ballpoints. There were two fountain pens, and it intrigued me how they were so much more expensive than the same models in ballpoint. I was also attracted to the design and shape of the nibs, so shiny and mechanical-looking.

 

I bought myself a Sheaffer Fashion in 1996 and used it on-and-off for years. I didn't buy another one for at least 6 years when I got a Cross Townsend and a good selection of Private Reserve inks. That was it until I joined FPN last year and I'm not ashamed to say that the collection has started to balloon since then.

[brianw06]

56 here

 

Scheaffer school FP's through Elementary and Junior High, Ball points in High School and College. FP briefly in Grad school. Came back to FP's 2 years ago when hand was constantly cramping from writing.

 

Since converting , cramps gone.... large callous on middle finger gone, and enjoying writing again

[reprieve]

I'm 24.

 

Using a fountain pen allows me to connect with the past. My father used a fountain pen when he was a child. My grandparents used fountain pens. My favorite writers and thinkers used fountain pens. Important treaties and important laws were signed with fountain pens.

 

This is what happens when I pick up my pens: I slow down. I enjoy the moment. I think about the world outside of myself, I think about history, I think about ideas, I think about words, and I make an attempt to put together the best sentence that I possibly can.

[countrydirt]

I'm 45. I purchased my first fountain pen in 1989. It has since been lost since I didn't actually use it that much. I only recently came back to fountain pens in a quest to slow down and reconnect with, not my past, but the past of my culture.

 

I still write with mechanical pencils in .5mm. My current Pentel P 205 is remarkably similar to the first Pentel lead holder I received in about 1978. I love writing with it. Most of my notes are taken with it.

 

The FP revival in my life has been fun. I now have 5 letter exchange friends and do most of my note taking with one of my five pens.

 

Oh, and according to demographers, I am practically the last of the baby boomers being born in November of 1963. My wife, born in February of 1964, is of another generation. Who would have thought that 3 months would be so momentous!

[playpen]

Young enough to enjoy them and old enough to pay for them!

[Kelly G]

Just turned 56 a couple of days ago. All in all, a pretty good age; but then again, aren't they all?

[Chris Chalmers]

Nearly 63 - used slate and slate pencil, then pencils - then dip pens - then Platignum fountain pens - had to use for shorthand classes - anyone remember those???

I've always had a fountain pen, and used them all my teen years and from then on! Those were the days when you wrote home to your parents once a week even after you were married and away from home - before every house in Oz had a phone as a regular feature! Now I have too many pens - too much ink and paper - but love visualising my kids dividing up the goodies when I finally sign off..........which must be 40 years time at least!!!

BTW - why isn't there an "old codger" emoticom????

[jpr]

40 years old. Learned to write with an FP in elementary school. Didn't pick one up again til about 9 years ago.

Started collecting and using regularly three months ago. Bought two FP's from the Lamy abc line for my kids.

Love it.

[sumgaikid]

I'll be 52 tomorrow.

 

I took a passing interest in classy books about FP's back in 1993,but didn't really get involved in collecting

until 10 years later and that only in vintage pens. Just last year I started to get serious about 'contemporary"

pens and have 2--both Auroras--to show for it. I now keep my eyes open for both vintage and newer pens.

 

John

[DanS]

I'll be 52 tomorrow.

 

I took a passing interest in classy books about FP's back in 1993,but didn't really get involved in collecting

until 10 years later and that only in vintage pens. Just last year I started to get serious about 'contemporary"

pens and have 2--both Auroras--to show for it. I now keep my eyes open for both vintage and newer pens.

 

John

 

Happy early Birthday

 

As for me, I'm a 20 year old college student. Got into fountain pens when I found my old student Sheaffer fountain pen and decided to search up fountain pens. I found FPN and I've been hooked ever since.