You Know You've Exceeded The Fountain Pen Limit When....

[oregano]

When you start turning to collecting ballpoints.

 

This is so true!! I dislike ballpoints and have actually thought of getting some. That's when you know you have enough pens imo.

[Bibliophage]

 

This is so true!! I dislike ballpoints and have actually thought of getting some. That's when you know you have enough pens imo.

I have a jar of Jotters and NoNonsense ball points. Plus the solid brass Cialis and Viagra pens. I'm good.

 

Now, I just put bids on a lot of stuff on E-Bay.. so I haven't exceeded the limit yet

[jbphotographs]

I started out this morning searching for recommendations on pen storage/display cases and happened upon this thread. Have laughed out loud numerous times, said yeah, I've done that (again numerous times) and am not much farther along in a decision on a case. Love all of your comments pen peeps. Thanks for sharing. Now...back to pen case shopping

[Addertooth]

As I have now discovered... all the pen cases I ordered recently were insufficient for all my pens. When you lose track of how many pens you have, and don't have enough cases, even after ordering a bunch of them.

 

You may have exceeded your fountain pen limit. I thought I only had 60-80 pens.

[inkstainedruth]

What size storage unit? 5x5x8, or 10x10x10

 

Got one of those small three drawer cabinets from IKEA (still not assembled) and then when we went down to Monticello last summer we stopped in a big antiques mall in the area and I got a 2 drawer spool case (not in the best of condition, but the price was better than for any of the ones I've seen before or since). Right now THAT's in the hallway....

The IKEA cabinet was better configured than the similarly sized file cabinet, but doesn't have casters. And the only way we can put casters on is to add pieces of wood under the lowest drawer, because we're afraid of splitting the particle board side walls. One of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" -- things.... Because even if we do get the casters put on, it will no longer fit under the little Arts & Crafts style writing desk I bought a few years ago in an antiques mall in eastern Indiana.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: I also (in the meantime) got a 6th 24-pen zipper case from Rockler, and another flocked pen tray from a vendor at this year's Commonwealth Pen Show.

Edited December 24, 2019 by inkstainedruth

[melissa59]

I will have exceeded my fountain pen limit when I run out of space to store my fountain pens. I don't see that happening any time soon. I am a slow accumulator.

 

When my ex-husband passed away, I inherited his IKEA Galant drawer cabinet similar to this one: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/galant-drawer-unit-on-casters-white-stained-oak-veneer-80365152/

 

I put a sheet of flocked pen tray in the top drawer. My ink bottles (all six), tray of sample vials and cleaning supplies are in the middle drawer. The bottom drawer is where I stash my empty pen boxes. I find it to be perfect for a modest collect such as mine.

 

Below is a photo of my pen drawer. Missing are my newest acquisitions, a Sailor and Pelikan. Also missing are the Apple Green and Black Safari pens, which I hope are just misplaced instead of lost.

Please don't judge me for the ballpoints. They are sentimental.

 

 

[bbs]

.... you ink every pen you buy immediately, then realise you have 60+ pens inked, dating back to 18 months ago .....

 

Writing it down here makes it seem soooo much worse, too.

[WLSpec]

... never mind the better, >$50 pens you have been too busy to get around to inking, flushing/prepping or even just unboxing, but ...

 

... these cheaper pens are taking up space in your drawer, never inked, and you don't have any idea if you will use them, what to use them for, or who to give them to:

 

Oh man, I'm jealous

[NumberSix]

. . .you write with a different pen about every third line in your journal, even though it looks unreadable with so many colors, just to get in a little bit of writing each day for all your inked pens

[melissa59]

... never mind the better, >$50 pens you have been too busy to get around to inking, flushing/prepping or even just unboxing, but ...

 

... these cheaper pens are taking up space in your drawer, never inked, and you don't have any idea if you will use them, what to use them for, or who to give them to:

 

What is that bright purple pen at the top of the photo?

[A Smug Dill]

What is that bright purple pen at the top of the photo?

 

It's an Opus 88 Picnic, which appears to have been discontinued (in that colour) looking at the manufacturer's site. I picked that up for €40 or thereabouts from Fontoplumo while it was on special.

 

I've since inked it with J.Herbin Rose Cyclamen, which is almost a perfect match in colour.

 

I also have the Picnic in turquoise, and I liked the pen enough to buy one in apple green for my wife. The brown one is actually probably the nicest looking, but that's the one we haven't bought (yet) because I haven't seen it offered at that price; and for the lowest price at which I can get one of those, I'd probably go for a Opus 88 Koloro instead (just to have something different to try, not that I'm particularly attracted to ebonite as a material).

[A Smug Dill]

It's an Opus 88 Picnic,_...‹snip›... I've since inked it with J.Herbin Rose Cyclamen, which is almost a perfect match in colour.

Here: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/331106-dont-just-tell-us-about-the-pen-youre-using-show-us-2018-2019/?p=4276210

[Southerngent]

When no one in your life is sending you on a guilt trip but you feel guilty anyway.

[A Smug Dill]

I'd even forgotten what some of the pens in the photo above are, let alone when or why I bought them. I was mulling over into which pens I should transplant the italic nibs of different widths I harvested from a Pilot Enso Plumix set, and only after a while did I recall I have a Wing Sung 698 (but had to search through my email to confirm). It took even longer for me (and also required searching) to recall that I have three PenBBS 494 that I never used; I didn't remember what they are, much less that I bought them precisely because I wanted to put Pilot Penmanship and Plumix nibs in them.

[inkstainedruth]

It's been a while since I read this thread. And the storage issue has gotten worse -- I bought an antique dental cabinet on Craigslist with my government stimulus check, while the IKEA cabinet has never been completely assembled, and I have no idea where to put the antique spool cabinet I bought last summer in Virginia. And of course I now have to buy replacement knobs for the drawers (I did find small ones for the doors in the hutch part) -- not to mention the right size and type of screws. And primer and enamel for the metal drawer interiors, and then once the drawers are reinstalled, I'll need to order a bunch of pen trays....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Estycollector]

So, all my pens fit into an antique pink and gold trim coffee cup that reads, "forget me not". When I can no longer stick a pen into the cup I will know I have enough.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

When you start turning to collecting ballpoints.

 

 

 

This is so true!! I dislike ballpoints and have actually thought of getting some. That's when you know you have enough pens imo.

 

I haven't turned to collecting ballpoints, but I already had an impressive number of Parker Jotters and Fisher Space pens. I mean, not impressive by the standards of my fountain pen collection, but still rather more than your typical ballpoint user would have.

 

And I did buy quite a few mechanical pencils, said "that's enough", and started accumulating wood pencils.

 

[EDIT] The wooden pencils actually are a bit different, since they are disposable writing/drawing instruments of a sort, and I just want to have an adequate stock for my purposes. Granted, I may be overstocked by now. Maybe it's more like being overstocked on ink.

 

I did finally buy two more fountain pens this year, after not getting any for maybe a year and a half. If I recognized hard limits, I would have exceeded them by now.

Edited July 25, 2020 by ISW_Kaputnik

[MBDostoevsky]

I realised that I have exceeded the limit long time ago

I ignored that realisation earlier than when I realised

 

there are some pens that I don't think I will ever use but will still keep them...

[PAKMAN]

When you realize that the pen you are writing with has not been added to the database (after reading this topic!) and stop and open the database and it makes 111 fountain pens and 39 associated BP/MP and 82 bottles of ink which fill up two lawyers cabinets with stuff stacked on top and a rough value in pens of $36k. Yikes!

[MuddyWaters]

@asmugdill You could open a fountain pen and stationary store.

 

@sirgilbert357 I can feel the hot water you're in from here.