How Many Pens Do You Have Inked At Any One Time?

[Rhincodon]

With my purchases from the SF show inked up, I have... 13 (?!?!?!) inked. Normally it's about 8 or 9, so I will be making some choices once things are written dry.

[DWR]

Gosh...too many. Do yall find it difficult to pick just a few to ink?? Ive got probably 15-20 inked up and will use 4-5 over the course of a week at work and to journal. However...about once a week Ill take them all and doodle something.

[A Smug Dill]

@DWR, once upon a time my obsession was with the fountain pens themselves as objects of beauty, and I bought a few (of what I consider) nice ones, and some of them stay unused but spend most of the time on display in a box.

 

However, lately my fascination is with the variety in inks, as well as specific features (filling mechanisms, cap seals, ease of complete disassembly from nib and feed to the components of the converter, etc.) of different pens, so I additionally bought plenty of cheap pens such as the Wing Sung 3008, Platinum Plaisir and Sailor Lecoule. The intent was not to let those cheap pens lay idle or stay un-inked; they are there to facilitate testing or writing with the plethora of inks at a moment's notice, without my having to pull out a dip pen or dig for a particular ink bottle from my stash of sixty or so.

[inkstainedruth]

If you're doing it by percentage of pens inked vs. total owned, it *generally* ranges between about 3-1/3% and about 10%, not counting the (rather dead at this point) Preppies set up as rollerballs (and the brush pens set up with highlighter inks -- at least one of which appears to be growing something along the line of my husband's best man's reported "science experiment" in his fridge one summer... ).

I'm trying to work back down to a more manageable # again (i.e., closer to the 4% range). Mind you, I'm just factoring in the pens that still need repairs as part of the total number owned. And if I make it to the Commonwealth Pen Show (and certainly when I got to Ohio Pen Show), the number -- and percentage -- of inked pens is likely to go up as I *get* things repaired, unless I find some real bargains (in which case the percentages may stay pretty much the same... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[minddance]

5pelikans, 6twsbis, 3kaweco, 6sailors, 2platinum, 8pilot, 2faber castell, 6wingsung pistons (698 & 3008), 1 lamy2000f. 7Preppy. 40+ pens.

Edited September 4, 2018 by minddance

[Qoan]

Percentage is around 5% and 20% at any given moment, most commonly on the upper side.

[Bexinthecity247]

At the moment - I think 6 because I'm writing in three different notebooks with three different stories and this helps me to keep them separate. The others were because I was playing with my new pens/and ink

[ethernautrix]

Given my recent re-categorization, with some pens re-labeled as either Memento or Sell, I have six users, so that's 100% inked.

 

(I don't count the Preppies and such like. I've never counted those. In my perspective, they're in the ballpoint and gel pen category, probably cos I'm not super careful with them. But of the dozen or so "Preppies" (mostly Preppies, but including a Kakuno, a Pelikan Happy, a coupla free Charlies, and whatnot, almost all of them are inked. I pretty much forget about those until I want to use a particular not-daily ink.)

[A Smug Dill]

@ethernautrix, why wouldn't you count the Platinum Preppy pens as fountain pens, but instead categorise them as ballpoint and gel pens, when neither the price of a pen nor the cost per N pages of writing with it (refillable or not) is an inherent attribute of either category? Are you saying that fountain pen is synonymous with pens I cherish to you, that you wouldn't treat either carelessly or as disposable, and does price have anything to do with it?

 

I have a Cross Townsend 10K Gold Filled/Rolled Gold rollerball pen that I just don't like, respect or care about, and so I used to just stick in alongside cheap pens in a coffee mug on my desk at the office; then it ended up in the bottom of my dad's kitchen drawer for scribbling shopping lists, etc. Would that be in the ballpoint and gel pen category by your reckoning, in spite of it having been more expensive then most of my cherished fountain pens individually when new?

 

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to criticise your way of categorisation, but I'm genuinely trying to understand the logical attributes/rules underpinning it with which no doubt you're consistent.

Edited September 5, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[ethernautrix]

@A Smug Dill,

 

Cost and materials and frequency of use. The Preppies fit the cost and <i>aesthetic </i> category of ballpoints and gel pens. I don't lump my Montblanc Agatha Christie ballpoint with "ballpoints and gel pens." So, the distinction is in the adjective "fine," which is silent.

 

I have all these pens and 20-something (fine) fountain pens, 6 of which are users and one (fine) Mb ballpoint. Luckily, the few other not-fpen fine or almost-fine pens are Mementos.

 

My definitions are dynamic, and this current iteration allows me to focus on using the six users and stop fussing over which of the 15 or so previous users to use with which inks, a time-sucking activity someone else brilliantly called "pencrastination."

[A Smug Dill]

@ethernautrix Oh, I understand what you described as ‘pencrastination’ alright. It drives my fiancée insane when she sees me staring for hours at the large spreadsheet matching my pens to my inks in both the current state and the supposedly better or more sensible/logical future state, making adjustments here and there. (The future state takes into account pens and inks on order but have yet to arrive, and some such.)

 

The 26 new inks I picked up today from the shop is really going to upset my apple cart with regard to that. Maybe I need a few more pens now…

[musicman123]

I always keep at least two of my EDC pens inked:

 

Visconti Homo sapiens Bronze Age (either an F or B nib depending on my mood and ink)

Pilot VP Red/Gold (M nib)

 

If I'm playing with new inks, I'll add the something from the rest of my collection in.

[BaronWulfraed]

At present -- five, not counting the Esterbrook Dip-Less desk pen (talk about contrast -- it sits 8" from the corner of my monitor).

 

• Sheaffer Valiant Touchdown Burgundy, 14K Triumph nib
• Sailor 1911L Stormy Sea, 21K Zoom nib (arrived just a few days ago)
• Pilot Falcon Red, 14K SB nib
• Lamy Al-Star, steel M nib (probably needs cleaning and a new cartridge; it rides in a notepad/folio and I forget it is there)
• Platinum President Red Urushi, 18K B nib (another pen I tend to forget about; it rides in a small shoulder bag next to the cases for my reading and computer glasses -- and that is the finest B nib I've encountered, but of the 6 inked, this B is finer than Lamy M, Esterbrook 2668, unknown Sheaffer, and even the Zoom held upside down!)

Edited September 16, 2018 by BaronWulfraed

[displacermoose]

I usually have five—3 to fill the slots in my pen case to be rotated with the one in the loop in my novel notebook and the one tucked into my idea notebook.

 

I also have my work pens—usually three. One is black, one is blue black, and the third is usually some sort of stealth interesting like dark brown or dark purple or grey. I don’t really count those because they are for work. The two wallet pens don’t count either, because while I usually change inks after every fill, the pens (a vanishing and a 95s) are always just there.

 

So five. It only looks like ten to the uninformed.

[langere]

I also have usually three pens inked up. Try to go for different types of pens, different continents, and different colors. Sometimes easier said than other times. Right now I have two red inks, with two red pens. Two German and one Japanese. However, that will change shortly. You can always see what I am using in the "Signature" line below. I usually keep that up to reflect the pens I am using.

 

Erick

[Captspiff]

5-8 depending on how many I have fixed that week.

[1nkulus]

Increased to five from three, temporarily.

[BaronWulfraed]

For some reason I've also add more to the inked list: two Platinum Carbon "quills", Noodler safety (an experiement) and Konrad. I did not ink the two Platinum PTL-5000 Balance (hey -- gold nibs on less than $100!), nor the brush pen (Hmmm, if I count that, then I have to add the other two brush pens with cartridges in them, and the Rotring ArtPen E/EF sketching set)

[azbobcat]

The answer to this question varies between ZERO and THREE. Most of the time it is ONE or TWO, and during holidays THREE.

[amper]

Three TWSBI ECOs (EF, M, 1.1 mm stub) that I carry in my handbag every day, and apparently two others I forgot about: a Platinum Preppy eyedropper in my Mason jar pen cup at my computer desk that needs restarting with a bit of water, and I probably left a cartridge in my Cross Metropolitan that has probably dried up in the Mason jar pen cup at my office.

 

The Cross gets Cross blue-black, everything else is filled with Mrs. Stewart's.

Edited October 11, 2018 by amper