What kind of FP Collector, User or Both are you?

[bunnspecial]

Over the past year, as I've become increasingly drawn to to vintage pens, I've also become somewhat more of a collector.

 

So yes, just because I have a 3-band Vacumatic Standard in black that doesn't also mean I don't need one in burgundy, or I don't need an Oversize with an oblique nib(don't have one of those yet) just because I have a flex fine and a firm fine...

 

With that said, I make it a point to write with everything, and enjoy writing with my pens of any age. I do have two beautiful water-clear Vacumatics sitting here now(emerald and azure) that may test my rule, but a fill of Quink shouldn't hurt them.

 

[peterg]

Collector, repairer, user and totally disorganised

[Carguy]

39 minutes ago, peterg said:

Collector, repairer, user and totally disorganised

I amend my answer to this! 👆🏻

[Detman101]

I've collected about 10 pens in my journey to finding one that works for me.
Now that I have found "The one", it is all that I use on a daily basis.
I, honestly, have no need for the others...but I keep them because I may need a backup or gift for someone.
One is a vintage "Mabie-Todd Swan" eyedropper and part of my "Collectors Items" that sit in the vault with my vintage coins, jewelry and heirlooms.

[PAKMAN]

I guess I'm both. I always have pens inked and in use, but also have a few pens that have never and may never get inked. With over 100 pens I have a few themed mini collections, multiple Vacs, flighter Parkers, OS Sheaffers, M-800 Pelikans, etc.

[wspohn]

I am definitely both.

 

On one hand, I will ink and use anything I own except for a few antiques that I would be reluctant to risk for regular use.  OTOH, I do have collections of particular pens (a few dozen different Parker 75s is a good example) where I have acquired a pen simply because it is one I don't already own, like a rare pattern, or sometimes just because it has an unusual or rare nib or material.

[The Mustard]

I am definitely a user and also most certainly a collector.  Ever since I was a child I have pursued collections.  I knocked my front teeth out playing cricket when I was eight, unfortunately they were my second teeth and required three operations.  The year was 1980 and National Garages were running a promotion where you received free smurfs if you bought petrol on their forecourts - there was one such garage next to my consultant and I harangued my parents to stop their to fill up so that I could collect them all. I collected mustard pots as well as I was a strange child and liked condiments, people would gift me mustard from around the world when they went on holiday and I had a huge collection including some quite exotic pots from faraway places.

 

Fountain pens, and in particular the modern Montblanc Collections have similarly tempted me and I have enjoyed building a collection of them - Writers, POA and Characters as well as a few others.  Tjis has also combined my love the thrill of searching for a 'bargain' and I have enjoyed negotiating with those exiting their collections.  Good friends have been made along the way, but as much as that I enjoy writing with almost all of the pens that I have bought and indeed the voyage of discovery within the world of inks.  I haven't been quite brave enough to ink a couple of the more expensive pens that I have purchased but no doubt I will succumb as they are too beautiful to remain in a box and should be used in my opinion.  

 

The fountain market is soft at the moment and I doubt that I will recoup the investment but i will probably only sell the pens if things go wrong financially, this hobby has been enormously good fun and I suspect will continue to be so.

 

 

[kulnet]

I am a user. Without a question. My pens are meant to be used.

[N1003U]

It all started so innocently.

 

I had dabbled with a couple of my parents' fountain pens on occasion as a child (carefully, as I had been instructed), but with taste and experience more appropriate to pencils and ballpoints, and a school system that had abandoned fountain pens as a teaching tool, the fountain pen experience didn't really appeal to me. I never really took FPs seriously. Too fussy. Too much attention to detail required. Was writing precision required? Then the order of the day was a 0.3mm or 0.5mm mechanical pencil. Otherwise, any disposable ballpoint that was cheap and available would do.

 

Years later, as a student in my last year or so at university (mid-1980s), as I was checking out at the bookstore, and, on a whim, I bought a handful of steeply discounted plastic-tipped disposable fountain pens out of a bin near the cashier (I don't remember the brand, but they were something similar to a modern Pentel Tradio). I think they were marked down to about US$0.79 each or something like that, so it was not a huge investment, under $5 (yet still a notable sum for a poor student in the 1980s, when those new-fangled music CDs cost about $12), but WOW, after years of writing with ballpoints, the joys of using liquid ink out of a capillary nib, the writing pleasure went straight to my head. My lecture notes were never the same after that, and sometimes people would even ask me what kind of pen I had written with. Bold, yet crisp, with some personality in the lines, not at all like standard ballpoint writing. I was hooked. Liquid ink pens were the future for me. I even started splurging for better paper that didn't bleed or feather so much.

 

I didn't know it then, but I had not only become a user, I was on my way to becoming an addict.

 

Soon after that experience in the bookstore, a good friend of mine, who also liked to write and sketch, landed his first real job, and as a reward, bought himself a Montblanc Meisterstück--what today would probably be called a Classique or 145(?) model (remember the 1980s were not exactly a banner decade for the fountain pen industry, especially in the USA, so this was an exotic writing instrument). Compared to all of the super slim Cross Centuries that were rage on the N. American continent among writing instrument connoisseurs and even amongst the Parkers, this Montblanc thing was cool: fat, flashy, and versatile. One could not only write with such a device, one could sketch diagrams, write equations, and draw pictures, all very expressively--and it could be refilled with different ink colors! Of course, as soon I could afford one, I bought one as well. I still have that pen, and I struggle continuously with an ill-fitting slip cap that Montblanc Service never seemed to be able to fix properly. Over time, my accumulation increased, with a a couple other Montblancs, then a Waterman Carène, and a Cross something-or-other that got lost to the ages.

 

Then, in the late 1990s, I crossed paths again (we worked together for a few years) with my old college friend--the one with the Montblanc--who had in the meantime discovered the freshly re-engineered Pelikan Souverän line of pens, and was extolling their virtues to me. By then we were senior engineers, earning more money, so of course, I jumped in and bought an M300 to go into my Franklin Dayplanner, along with a matching ballpoint for jotting and a new M600 for desk duty (which began my love affair with he M600 that exists to this day).

 

So now it's 15 years after that day in the bookstore, at the dawn of the new millennium, my original handful of disposables and a single Montblanc had grown to about a dozen pens, all of which I happily used and enjoyed, and I thought I had reached "Pen Peace."

 

Then, in the 2000s, I moved to Manhattan. Worse, my new office was on only a few blocks, and on the way home, from Art Brown (then still a major pen store). Of course, I stopped in at Art Brown regularly for paper, ink, and of course, to try out, and probably too often, buy pens. Lots of pens. Cheap pens, expensive pens, pens for gifts, pens for any excuse I could come up with. I also discovered the joys of various writing papers. Before I knew it, I had drawers of paper and couple of overflowing pen cases, pens in the office, pens as home.

 

These days, my accumulation, which is heavy in Pelikan, Edison, and Lamy brands, but also includes MB, Cross, Acme, Waterman, Visconti, and a few others, is about 60 or so pens worth tracking, as well as another dozen or so third- or fourth-hand pens I have acquired over the years and, while I try to rotate though and use them all, I am not always successful. There are a few pens in my inventory that I am sure have not seen the light of day for well over a year (maybe two).

 

So, I guess I'll ask: Given all that, what kind of collector, or user, am I?

 

I would argue I am an enthusiastic user, and perhaps addict, of fountain pens. I should probably downsize a bit, but there is still so much more to explore...

[maclink]

I’m loving this thread. 

 

@The Mustard and @N1003U,

Wonderful testimonials. Thanks for sharing.  I can’t seem to get bored reading these since they are personal.  Genuine enthusiasm, expressed and felt, each in their own special way. 

[scrivelry]

18 hours ago, Addertooth said:

I am a rehab facility and homeless shelter for pens   

Often the pens start out as un-redeemable husks, begging for one last gasp of life and glory.

 

 

 

Clearly, we were separated at birth.  I only wish I had your mechanical skills.

[N1003U]

35 minutes ago, maclink said:

I’m loving this thread. 

 

@The Mustard and @N1003U,

Wonderful testimonials. Thanks for sharing.  I can’t seem to get bored reading these since they are personal.  Genuine enthusiasm, expressed and felt, each in their own special way. 

Thanks for the kind words, @maclink.

 

As I have said elsewhere, if one does not almost unconditionally enjoy using fountain pens, how can one put up with them?

[Addertooth]

5 minutes ago, scrivelry said:

Clearly, we were separated at birth.  I only wish I had your mechanical skills.

I find that mechanical skills are learned through environment.   Some people had parents who did such things, and learned from them.   Others did not have the opportunity.  It does not mean they don't have the knack, and could be quite good at it. 

[Carguy]

3 minutes ago, Addertooth said:

I find that mechanical skills are learned through environment.   Some people had parents who did such things, and learned from them.   Others did not have the opportunity.  It does not mean they don't have the knack, and could be quite good at it. 

I absolutely did not have the exposure to mechanical skills as my father was NOT mechanical at all. I am capable of repairs in this arena because it definitely interests me

[inkstainedruth]

20 hours ago, Addertooth said:

I am a rehab facility and homeless shelter for pens   

Often the pens start out as un-redeemable husks, begging for one last gasp of life and glory.

There isn't much which cannot be fabricated with a press, mill and a lathe.  Who am I to say no?

 

The unusual 0552 1/2v Thimble Cap picture below only needed a sac, a new nib, and a bit of gold plating to deal with the heavy brassing. 

 

 

 

What a lovely little pen!  Is that a Waterman?  (I don't know all the different Waterman model numbers.)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for typos

[Penman222]

I am a user 100%.  I just have a dozen or so new and vintage higher quality pens, but I use them all, and if they don’t write to my high expectations I sell them immediately.

[KB3K]

2 hours ago, N1003U said:

As I have said elsewhere, if one does not almost unconditionally enjoy using fountain pens, how can one put up with them?

I agree with this. Fountain pens are a bit like having pets. Many people are put off by the care they require and expense of having them, but others would hate life without them.

[Addertooth]

3 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

What a lovely little pen!  Is that a Waterman?  (I don't know all the different Waterman model numbers.)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for typos

Yes, it is a Waterman.   The very unusual thing about this pen is the that last small cap (the thimble) is a friction fit with the inner cap.  The outer cap remains connected to your chain, and the capped pen slides up into the friction-fit "thimble" which is on the chain.  This way, the pen can rest on a desk with a cap on, until you are ready to put it back on the chain.  I don't think many were made/sold.  

[Cipher Factor]

I am definitely a user, not a collector. I do say things like, "my fountain pen collection", though I am more likely to just say "my fountain pens". I'm not a minimalist, though I'm married to one, and with very few exceptions, I don't like having a lot of things I don't use. I don't buy pens if I don't think I'll enjoy writing with them, and that is tricky right now because I'm still new to the hobby and figuring out what I like and don't like. 

 

Ideally, I want each of my pens to have at least one purpose, but I also like keeping each pen to between one and three inks (usually just one). That said, I'm in a fairly uncomfortable "acquiring" phase right now, and looking forward to when it's over and I'll only need to focus on replacing inks and paper, and maybe the occasional pen purchase for a pen I really love or a special occasion. 

[mitto]

I am earnestly pursuing the goal of reaching 10000 TRUE vintage (at least pre 1970s) fountain pens in my possession. And, then, establishing a vintage fountain pen museum. Have no interest in lone BPs or RBs. 

 

So not sure what I am. But yes, I do use a few dozens of my vintage pens.