A Tremendous Loss...all Five Of My Favorite Pens!

[estie1948]

I am very sorry for the loss of your pens. I hope and pray that they will turn up. May be they are hiding between the seats in your car or on the floorboard under the seat. I know. You have searched everywhere plus a few places. All my best wishes . . .

 

-David.

[ac12]

Sorry about your loss.

 

While it is too late, here is my general advice that I give, based on having a gold Cross that was a gift to me stolen from my desk at work.

It hurt because #1 it was a gift, #2 financially, at the time (just out of college) I could not afford to replace that pen. It was an EXPENSIVE pen for a recent college grad. I was upset and MAD for a couple of weeks, and I never really got over that loss.

 

Have 2 sets/pools of pens.

#1 - Is your home pens. These are valuable, expensive, sentimental, etc. Basically, they cannot be replaced, or it would be very expensive to replace them. These pens almost never leave the safety of home. I may use them at home, they just won't leave the house.

 

Examples are; my mother's pens, gift pen from my wife, difficult to replace pens from my collection (actually collection pens is a subset of the home pens, one that is rarely if ever used), etc.

 

#2 - Is your office pens. These are less expensive pens, that if lost, damaged or stolen will not be a serious emotional or financial impact, and can be relatively easily replaced. But because they are office/work pens, they have to be functional and perform their job. IOW they cannot be cheap junk.

 

How you determine what pens to put into the pool of office pens is personal. In my case, it so happens that none of my office pens cost more than $20. This is just by chance how my selected pens came out. The $15 Pilot Metro just happened to be the most expensive in my pool. I can easily see raising this to $50 or more, depending on the finances, situation and the pen that you want to use on a daily basis at work. Like a Lamy Safari, or Lamy Studio, or Parker 51, or Sheaffer Prelude, or Lamy 2000, or whatever pen you would like to put into YOUR pool of office pens. And the pool is not stagnent. I could choose to add a Parker 45 or 51 or Lamy cp1 to the pool of office pens. You just accept that these pens are "at risk."

 

#3 - Is your special occasion pen. This is a category where you might break the rules of #1. But you know you are doing this.

 

Examples: signing a BIG contract at work, the wedding of your child, etc.

[David_W]

That's some really wise advice, ac12.

 

I only have five fountain pens at present, but I regard them as being in your three groups.

 

 

My home pens are my Parker 25s. They're not especially valuable, but they have travelled with me for many years, including many years of school and university. One is engraved as a gift from my parents. I would be devastated to lose or break them. If I wanted a 25 as a briefcase pen, I'd buy another.

 

My everyday carry pens are my pair of Lamy Accent fountain pens and my Lamy Accent "4 pen" multipen/pencil. There are not the current high end Accent pens with gold nibs, but the older and cheaper steel nib models. They are comfortable, practical and robust pens that are not exactly cheap, but I could afford to replace them with something similar and they have no great sentimental value.

 

My special occasion pen is my Yard-O-Led Viceroy Grand. This is a beautiful pen to use, but it's a very expensive pen I can't afford to replace. It needs using with some care because any silver can be easily marked and this pen needs to be used unposted (with the associated risks of rolling the unposted pen off the desk, also losing/damaging the cap). I will carry this pen on some occasions, but I don't carry it routinely.

 

 

My split suggests that more fragile or fussy pens might fall into the "home pens" even if they have no particular financial or sentimental value. For me, a pen I carry with me all the time has to be reliable, robust and practical.

 

If I used vintage pens, I would probably put rarer pens into the "home pens" group on the basis that the pen would be difficult to replace.

[FayeV]

I am so sorry for your loss, and hope that you evntually find them at church or grocery store.

[Chrontius]

My sympathies - my Parker 45 took a three month vacation on my grandfather's desk, and I was becoming positively neurotic looking for it.

 

May whatever spirits inhabit the local lost-and-found take mercy on you.

 

Edit: Ask the priest to see if he'll ask if anybody has found your beauties? There's a good chance that if they were left at the church, they could find their way back to you that way.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Chrontius

[xTwiinKy]

I highly recommend looking at it on both sides of the coin. You've cleaned house and you can start fresh.

When I lost my L2K ... I immediately realized how much I loved that pen and bought a new one at full retail! I never appreciated it well before when I had it.

Edited April 23, 2014 by xTwiinKy

[Chrissy]

I feel your pain and am so sorry for your loss.

 

I hope it isn't impossible that they are merely tucked away somewhere and have been misplaced rather than lost forever. I hope that you come across them.

 

I'm forever putting things in places where i can never find them. It's probably an age related thing with me.

 

Fingers crossed for you.

[Jeje3325]

Ouch!

This must hurt, I'm really sorry for your loss.

 

Hope you find them hiding somewhere

[Silvire]

Sorry for your loss.

 

You've inspired me to relook my pen case offerings.

 

I always go out with a 4-pen case and a 3-pen case.

They house:

TWSBI 580 Rose Gold

Namiki Falcon

Sailor Sapporo

Sailor Pro Gear Black Velvet Edition

Waterman V3

Waterman Lady Patricia

Wahl-Eversharp mechanical pencil

 

I think the value of all these pens far exceeds USD 700...

 

Time to re-evaluate what to bring out and what not to....

[Edwaroth]

Never give up hope...I know this is quite different but six months after I lost a key ring with house and car keys, they turned up at a coffee house in the lost and found. I place I'd checked periodically at previous times. Don't ever stop looking!

[mhguda]

With all the well wishing and good advice, this is probably redundant...

I too feel your pain, and hope they turn up, in an unexpected place, or simply the last place you look.

But I have to ask: did you put at least a contact telephone number, and maybe your name, in the case with them? If they were misplaced outside of your own space and they turned up, people might easier take steps to return your babies to you if this information was staring them in the face...

Anyway, if you are like me at all, the case may even be hidden, underneath all those other necessary things, in your purse - mine is more properly characterized as a shoulder bag, and it's big. A pen wrap has repeatedly hidden in there and only turned up after emptying the magic bag.

With all these good vibrations going around on your behalf, I'm thinking your pens will be returned to you!

[Blue_Moon]

I'm so sorry. I do hope they turn up.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

That's a sorrowful story. I hope you find out the pens are not lost, but if not then I hope that you're able to get over the loss, I'd have a very hard time doing so.

 

I first started using fountain pens in grammar school, so I took them out then and in later schools. These were all very inexpensive pens and I thought nothing of having them in school.

 

I wouldn't take any of my modern, 21^st Century, acquisitions out of the house for years. Eventually I settled on taking a Parker Vector out. I was able to keep the pen from getting lost/stolen/broken.

 

Now I walk out with a Sheaffer Javelin in one shirt pocket and a Thai manufactured pen that I received with a damaged nib but got working again in the other. I would still be very bothered if I lost one or both of them, but I have enough backup pens now that I can replace them.

 

I'm sorry to hear that the five pens you've lost were the only ones you have. I really sympathize.

 

[knarflj]

Oh, how sad! I hope that they turn up somewhere you haven't looked yet - or that whoever found them is trying to figure out how to find you.

[Sinistral1]

I agree with those who say "don't give up yet" - faith works!

 

My 12 pen case is staying home today and a 4 pen case from eBay has my name on it. And, my name and phone number are going into all my cases. Your loss will be my lesson.

[_Stormin_]

A terrible thing to read. I had to attach a tiny card with my contact info and "Reward If Found" under the flap on my EDC case due to a similar thing happening to a friend. Fountain pens are not terribly common in every day use, and so I would hope that someone finding the case would simply like the reward more than they would like to take my pens and write with them...

 

Never give up looking. If they have a lost and found at any of the places you visited I would leave contact info and even a pic of the pens/case if you can print one off at home. You never know, you might get fortunate and have a good Samaritan turn them in.

[OcalaFlGuy]

My 12 pen case is staying home today and a 4 pen case from eBay has my name on it. And, my name and phone number are going into all my cases. Your loss will be my lesson.

 

 

A terrible thing to read. I had to attach a tiny card with my contact info and "Reward If Found" under the flap on my EDC case due to a similar thing happening to a friend. Fountain pens are not terribly common in every day use, and so I would hope that someone finding the case would simply like the reward more than they would like to take my pens and write with them...

 

 

Amen! and Amen!

 

 

Jaelk, I sure hope you get your pens back. I felt your pain once, The One time I didn't know where my case and pens was for about 30 seconds. Then my phone rang from the person who had found them.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

[enricof]

I understand your feeling.

 

I'm quite exposed to this kind of risk, because a travel for job each and every day and I like to have some nice inked pens with me, just in case.

I must try to remember your bad luck next time I prepare my bag for a business trip (see here)

[Sallent]

Welcome to the club. In the last 8 years as a FP user, I have either lost or damaged beyond repair approximately $1,500 in fountain pens. It's never easy

[jaelkthompson]

Sorry about your loss.

 

While it is too late, here is my general advice that I give, based on having a gold Cross that was a gift to me stolen from my desk at work.

It hurt because #1 it was a gift, #2 financially, at the time (just out of college) I could not afford to replace that pen. It was an EXPENSIVE pen for a recent college grad. I was upset and MAD for a couple of weeks, and I never really got over that loss.

 

Have 2 sets/pools of pens.

#1 - Is your home pens. These are valuable, expensive, sentimental, etc. Basically, they cannot be replaced, or it would be very expensive to replace them. These pens almost never leave the safety of home. I may use them at home, they just won't leave the house.

 

Examples are; my mother's pens, gift pen from my wife, difficult to replace pens from my collection (actually collection pens is a subset of the home pens, one that is rarely if ever used), etc.

 

#2 - Is your office pens. These are less expensive pens, that if lost, damaged or stolen will not be a serious emotional or financial impact, and can be relatively easily replaced. But because they are office/work pens, they have to be functional and perform their job. IOW they cannot be cheap junk.

 

How you determine what pens to put into the pool of office pens is personal. In my case, it so happens that none of my office pens cost more than $20. This is just by chance how my selected pens came out. The $15 Pilot Metro just happened to be the most expensive in my pool. I can easily see raising this to $50 or more, depending on the finances, situation and the pen that you want to use on a daily basis at work. Like a Lamy Safari, or Lamy Studio, or Parker 51, or Sheaffer Prelude, or Lamy 2000, or whatever pen you would like to put into YOUR pool of office pens. And the pool is not stagnent. I could choose to add a Parker 45 or 51 or Lamy cp1 to the pool of office pens. You just accept that these pens are "at risk."

 

#3 - Is your special occasion pen. This is a category where you might break the rules of #1. But you know you are doing this.

 

Examples: signing a BIG contract at work, the wedding of your child, etc.

 

This is an awesome suggestion, and one that I will definitely put into place when I rebuild my collection!

 

It just so happens too that I lost a gold Cross pen during my first of year of college. It too was a gift, from my mom, and it had a gorgeous rose etching on the band. I don't know what possessed me bring it to class and actually use it, and actually WALK away from my desk with it sitting on top of my notebook!!! I've been a moron for a looooooong time, so this pain is familiar. Apparently, I need to suffer the reminder at least once every 10 to 15 years. So, now, I'll be good until about 2024. I hope that by then I haven't indeed graduated to owning any Delta's, Mont Blanc's or Nakayas. If I do, I hope that I will have the good sense to leave them at home.