Pen Storage Ideas

[mke]

Please show us how you store your pens - commercial solutions or DIY, both are welcome.

I am in need of something and I am now brainstorming ideas.

 

edit: Please also talk a little bit about changes you made to the hardware (box) - like what you used as liners... Any hint will certainly help many people who read this thread in the future.

Edited March 5, 2020 by mke

[RubenDh]

Cigar boxes are nice and you can often score ones for free. The inserts can be bought or you can do as I did: just folding hard paper.

 

[Pimdtaun86]

  On 3/5/2020 at 8:38 PM, RubenDh said:

Cigar boxes are nice and you can often score ones for free. The inserts can be bought or you can do as I did: just folding hard paper.

 

What a BEAUTIFUL box, and a beautiful collection of pens to go with it. Really wonderful picture, thanks for sharing!

[Runnin_Ute]

I have done the same thing. I have three different boxes. All hold around 12 pens. I know one holds 12, one 13 and I forget how many the third holds. My guess is about the same.

[mke]

Cigar boxes look beautiful - now I need to find one which holds 100+ 😁

[Argee]

a hundred pens you say?

 

 

this one is vintage but you can get modern wooden toolboxes like it at Harbor Freight, just without the fold out trays up top.

[max dog]

I purchased this 50 pen box over the holidays on ebay that cost $88 USD. I remember just a few years ago, large capacity wooden pen chests costing 5 to 10 times more. Quality is OK and fairly good fit and finish for the price I think. It's great you can now find more affordable large capacity wooden pen box on EBAY.

 

Here is the ebay listing picture, and pictures of my box below it. Has a nice wood finish, and holds all my 50 fountain pens very well now in one place.

 

EBAY listing picture

 

Pictures of what I received. Does the job well storing all my pens safely in one place.

[sansenri]

  On 3/5/2020 at 8:38 PM, RubenDh said:

Cigar boxes are nice and you can often score ones for free. The inserts can be bought or you can do as I did: just folding hard paper.

 

Nice collection Ruben! I know your Etruria, but is the second to left a Tibaldi?

[A Smug Dill]

  On 3/5/2020 at 8:27 PM, mke said:

Please show us how you store your pens - commercial solutions or DIY, both are welcome.

• https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/342540-ferocase-pan-gora-45-pen-display-case/

  (Ferocase also makes a 151-pen version of the display case)

• https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/326713-pen-display-drawers/?p=4177952

  (See also @judo's and @shawnee's solutions in that thread)

• https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/347474-think-before-you-buy-6-layer-78-pens-display-box/?p=4224025

  (No photo in that thread, just my commentary but I've given a link to eBay search results, which I've just checked and it still works)

[Paul-in-SF]

I really don't want to display my pens particularly, but I do want to store them neatly and compactly and relatively safe from being knocked around. I didn't want a case where the top lifts, that just means (to me) that you can't put anything on top of the case. So I picked these drawers that are usually sold as artist's pastel or marker storage. The drawers are 1/2" deep (except for the deeper one at the bottom, which is 1") and the case is just under 16" wide. The drawers can be taken out completely for easy re-organization. The cases come in 2-drawer to 6-drawer configurations, and are available on Amazon. The 3-drawer is the one with the deeper drawer, the others all come with the shallower drawers. You can stack these units, as I have done. You can put things on top of them without any problem.

 

I have fitted the drawers with the flocked plastic pen tray liners you can get from gopens.com. With careful trimming, you can fit 5 slots in each of the wider sections of the drawers, and two slots in the center narrow section,. I just have the liners friction fit, they didn't need to be glued or anything. You can trim those pen trays with scissors or a knife. Or theoretically you can remove those dividers (they supposedly aren't structural, but I haven't tried it) and then have one pen tray with 22 slots across in the drawer.

 

These tray liners are suitable for pens of medium to small girth, larger/girthier pens really don't fit well in the tray liners (the drawers are deep enough for almost any pen). I am still waiting to hear back from Pendora about the wider-slot tray liners they sell. I don't know how many of those will fit in a drawer, probably 14 to 18. The bottom two drawers are reserved for larger pens.

 

I have 8 drawers here which just about holds all my current pens, with a few slots left over for new acquisitions. All in a very compact space. This solution is not perfect, but it suits me pretty well.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Paul-in-SF

[A Smug Dill]

@Paul-in-SF, neat!

 

Unfortunately "we" (or just that I) don't have ready and affordable access to those items (or close substitutes) here in Australia through Amazon or eBay. Even when a retailer/seller overseas is prepared to ship a large wooden box to me, understandably they'd want to charge shipping fees that outweigh (so to speak) the price of the box.

 

@mke is in Japan, and I remember looking on Rakuten (Global Market, and Ichiba) and seeing a number of alternatives to the Ferocase boxes that simply weren't viable for me to order for delivery to Australia. Wancher made some that's finished with urushi, and there was another prominent name that kept appearing... found it. Toyooka. It makes a pen storage box that houses 100 pens. No glass/flip top, just five drawers. It also makes a full cabinet with eight drawers including two deeper ones, but if I'm not mistaken, the top six shallower drawers only has 72 generously proportioned pen slots. I think several of the products are made by Toyooka Craft specifically for Kingdom Note.

Edited March 6, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[Paul-in-SF]

I remember looking with longing at those Toyooka boxes online, they are beautiful and lush and rather large, but most of all expensive. I just don't have room (or budget) for those, but otherwise they meet all my desirable criteria. The pen storage is certainly way superior. Maybe in another life...

[mke]

@max dog

Unfortunately, the seller is not able to answer questions - this is what the Ebay system says. Too bad, not possible to ask if he could send it to Japan. They send to US and Canada, they write.

But thank you for showing.

 

@Paul-in-SF

That is a very acceptable solution and Amazon sends it to Japan. I will look into that. Especially, if you keep us updated with the liners.

 

And this is the Toyooka pen box which I would like to have if I would spend $600

They even make big cabinets:

[mke]

For those who want to see the Toyooka HP.

[A Smug Dill]

  On 3/6/2020 at 11:34 AM, mke said:

And this is the Toyooka pen box which I would like to have if I would spend $600

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen it for ¥44,000 inclusive of consumption tax and free delivery.

[mke]

> I'm pretty sure I've seen it for ¥44,000 inclusive of consumption tax and free delivery.

Prices are different depending on the wood - and the seller, of course.

[fudefan]

100 yen option from Seria:

 

[A Smug Dill]

  On 3/6/2020 at 1:41 PM, mke said:

Prices are different depending on the wood - and the seller, of course.

 

Notwithstanding that the wood in the inline image you used appears much redder, from my searches that photo is still of the 100-pen storage case Toyooka Craft makes for Kingdom Note, which KN sells directly and on Rakuten Ichiba for ¥44,000 inclusive of tax. If Toyooka Craft has made other models in exactly the same design, but with a different type of wood, for a different stationery shop or department store, my Google-fu fails me and I can't find any mention of it online.

 

Edit: Deleted spurious extra zero in the price

Edited March 8, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[85AKbN]

  On 3/5/2020 at 8:38 PM, RubenDh said:

Cigar boxes are nice...

 

They work for me also.

[mke]

Cigar boxes - or Urushi boxes as I use - work well if you only have a few pens. However, my few pens have grown into a few too many. So the solutions from Paul or from Toyooka might solve my problem.

 

Here is my penbox - details:

 

 

Edited March 7, 2020 by mke