Collecting fountain pens

[tzinc]

Other than just collecting for the sake of collecting with no intention of writing with them how do you people organize their collections.
I have essentially started collecting pens I like using (in different forms I like  certain material or colour, etc.) but in order to justify my collection I feel like I have to use the pens.

I understand some people create a rotation so they can use their pens. I don't have that many so I thought maybe have a different colour ink in each so I can justify having the pens?

[Paul-in-SF]

1 hour ago, tzinc said:

in order to justify my collection I feel like I have to use the pens.

 

Can you talk more about this? I don't understand it. 

 

I buy whatever pens I feel I can afford, and as long as I can continue to pay my bills and contribute to charities I like, I don't feel badly about it. I buy them for a variety of reasons, more than I can probably list, including relatively silly reasons like completing a set of colors of a specific model (that one is for vintage only). I am frankly indulging myself, in a way that would probably shock my parents if they were still around, because I have far more pens than I can ever use and I still keep buying (although much less frequently than I used to). I feel fortunate that I am able to do so. I get a lot of pleasure out of it.

[tzinc]

I said that some people are just collectors they don't feel they have to use the pens but I do. I know there are other collectors who don't feel the need to use the product they collect for example pipes. They don't feel they have to smoke the pipes they collect but I do lol. Some have so many pipes they can't even put them into a rotation.

[Penguincollector]

I will have anywhere from 3 to 7 pens inked at once with different inks. I store them in  zippered canvas pen bags when clean, the kind that look like a notebook but have loops  for pens and insulated fabric in between the sides . I have them organized by region and brand, American and European oens  grouped together, and Asian pens are together. I always have a few really inexpensive pens for when I leave the house, and my nice oe s stay home unless I’m attending a pen club meeting or buying something related to the pen, like a nib or converter just to double check. I try to rotate through my collection, using each pen for one fill or cartridge, then cleaning and storing it. I don’t have any that I don’t use, but I do have some that I use less frequently due to age and wear. 

[fabri00]

6 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

 

Can you talk more about this? I don't understand it. 

 

I buy whatever pens I feel I can afford, and as long as I can continue to pay my bills and contribute to charities I like, I don't feel badly about it. I buy them for a variety of reasons, more than I can probably list, including relatively silly reasons like completing a set of colors of a specific model (that one is for vintage only). I am frankly indulging myself, in a way that would probably shock my parents if they were still around, because I have far more pens than I can ever use and I still keep buying (although much less frequently than I used to). I feel fortunate that I am able to do so. I get a lot of pleasure out of it.

 

+1, since about 35 years.......

[Paul-in-SF]

11 hours ago, tzinc said:

I said that some people are just collectors they don't feel they have to use the pens but I do.

 

Yes I got that much, perhaps I could have been more clear about the part I don't understand. It is this: why do you feel you have to use all your pens? And how often do you feel you have to use each pen to justify having it? 

 

Of course, you are entitled to feel the way you feel, but I am curious. I tried to share how I feel about the issue, which I often refer to as having Too Many Pens©, and which seemed to be part of what you were asking for. 

[inkstainedruth]

@tzinc-- I'm in complete agreement with you.  The only pens that I don't ink up are ones (mostly vintage) that I haven't gotten repaired yet.  I have been trying to flush out pens over the past few days, because I've gotten to the point that the stash of pens in rotation has gotten completely unmanageable, though: I got three pens repaired at the Ohio Pen Show in November, a fourth one given a good flushing out (I haven't tried that one yet), and two others that couldn't be repaired at the show, which went home with the repair person.  And also ended up buying several bottles of ink recently (either at OPS or online to pad out orders from online retailers to get free shipping), plus winning another one in the raffle at the Pittsburgh Pelikan Hub in November.  I'm trying to decide now what pens to fill (or refill) for the upcoming week, which includes a trip east to visit family and do pen/ink shopping (or at least window shopping) in NYC.

I am not what has been referred to as a "C-worder" (which is basically someone who collects just for the sake of collecting; or will buy two identical pens, one to use and one to keep for posterity... ).  But I don't have that kind of discretionary income.  I do have duplicates of pens I like (new and vintage alike) in different colors or with different nib widths, or both.  But I also am a cheapskate, and a lot of the pens I own are vintage or semi-vintage ones I got at estate sales or in antiques shops for great prices.  And to me, they're PENS.  They're tools, designed to be used.  Besides -- what fun is it otherwise? 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Wahl]

 @tzincI will use some of the pens in my collection, but not all of them.

 

It´s your collection, you can do anything you want with it, and don´t have to justify anything to anybody.

[tzinc]

Well lol just to myself. I am only talking about me and how I think.

As for the colours idea I notice my pens run out of ink when I am at work and I don't keep a inkwell there so a back up pen in the colour I use let's me add another one lol.

 

Another interesting thing is how one collects is it all 1 pen say a Vanishing Point, or 1 Brand say MB, and then do you do Vintage or non-Vintage or both...one of every iconic brand.... colours of the pens themselves etc etc etc so many possibilities

Edited December 26, 2022 by tzinc

[Bo Bo Olson]

I started out with a self bought brand new '71/2 P-75...I used it seldom over the next 3-4 decades.

Then I inherited some pens, and the rug was pulled out from under my feet.

 

As a noobie....before I knew of nibs, widths etc, I thought 10-12  pens would be more than enough.

When I was a three ink noobie, I thought the same about 10-12 inks.

 

Paper's???? sigh cubed...The sooner one gets into paper the better. Paper is the dance floor your nib dances on with your ink.

 

It is too bad the heirs of Sandy1 didn't understand what a treasure she had given us. They cut off her internet pictures....that showed that the nib width; on various papers made an ink look so different one wouldn't think it was the same ink....just a different paper and nib width.

 

I've got to go through her work and pick the 8-10 good to better affordable papers she used over the 15 years she was our Com's Ink Guru. The basic gotta have papers.

 

If one goes Stub and CI alternating from EF to BB in nail.....there is some 35 different nib widths and flexes one 'must' have to have the basic nibs.................with planning one can get great balanced pens........or pretty ones, seldom both.

 

I now have over 100 inks, a hundred pens, and 40 papers.... 1/2 I might use next year or might not.....and there are 10-15 papers I could use, if my wallet didn't have me in an arm-bar. That took me 15 years....and I recommend from my mistakes, for every three inks you buy buy a ream or a 100 sheet box of good to better paper.

Never put the good paper in a printer.

 

Advice,

Don't join the Pen of the Week in the Mail Club...nor the Pen of the Month.

Pen of the Quarter allows you to learn more about nibs, balance and how respected what ever pen that strikes your interest is.

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

23 hours ago, tzinc said:

Another interesting thing is how one collects is it all 1 pen say a Vanishing Point, or 1 Brand say MB, and then do you do Vintage or non-Vintage or both...one of every iconic brand.... colours of the pens themselves etc etc etc so many possibilities

If I buy a pen that writes well, and fits my hand well (isn't too big or heavy, for instance -- and I have smallish hands, so a lot of brands/models that people rave about on PFN I go, "Yeah, whatever") I'm likely to buy another one in a different color and/or with a different nib width so I can tell them apart in the zippered pen cases that I've long since outgrown (I originally had one with a tag for "new" and one with a tag marked "vintage" and then had to buy more, and then tried to organize them by brand and that largely failed as well).  I don't have a lot of really expensive pens and for me half the fun is finding pens in the wild for good to great deals.  So I have a lot of brands (this site is FULL of enablers) and a lot of models, and tend to go "Oooh, SHINY!"  And shiny can be a model I like in a different color (but I don't do the Pokemon "gotta get 'em all" thing, so if it's an SE model in a color I DON'T like I'm not wasting my money).  Or it could be a nifty fill system (a number of years ago someone posted a link to an old TV ad for Sheaffer PFMs -- "Buy one for your husband for Christmas -- you KNOW he wants one" and that part of the ad just made me go "Ewww" but then they showed how the Snorkel style filler system worked and I said "Oh, KEWL!" -- and now I just bought two more (both in I think the orginal boxes) at an estate sale company's warehouse sale last month for great prices -- which means I can then afford to pay someone to check them out and get them working if they need it.  Or, in one case, actually SHINY (a Morrison gold-filled filigree overlay ring top that was in working condition at a table at the first pen show I went to -- because it was pretty and the seller said it was working) and it turned out to have a lovely semi-flex stub nib on it.  But also has a nasty habit of unscrewing itself from the cap while on the lanyard, so that one no longer leaves the house....  And then a couple of years ago I manage to get a sterling silver filigree overlay Morrison as well (because, well, sterling silver...). But "shiny" can also mean cheap and silly and fun -- like the Parker Vector which was from a series for the "Shrek" movies with Puss in Boots on the barrel (when I saw that I was going "OMG -- I must HAVE that pen!") and it was an eBay seller in Europe I'd had good interactions with in the past and a good price as well.

And because I scope out antiques shops and estate sales listings, sometimes I just find pens that are sort of oddball but which appeal to me, like what I think is a Senator "Windsor" (a second tier level German company) which I found in a box of most ballpoints at an estate sale company's warehouse sale a few months ago, for a buck.  I mean seriously -- a piston filler for a DOLLAR?  Of COURSE I'm going to grab that at that price....  Ditto for what I thought at first was a Parker 45, until I got home and realized the clip was wrong -- so I looked more carefully and it said both "Eversharp" and had the Parker logo on the cap.  I really need to try that pen out sometime.  I think I paid a buck for it AND a Sheaffer school pen (yes, combined) at that estate sale....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Arkanabar]

Each of us has our likes, dislikes, and so on.  This board is populated mostly by users, but that hardly prevents any of us from having pens we don't use.  I rarely use those that I'm not willing to take to work as a nurse.  I often have one or two inked at my desk at any one time, out of a couple dozen that I own but won't take to work.

But I definitely understand your thinking.  If I'm going to have pens, they ought to write, and I ought to use them.  My original thinking was that I was going to have at least one exemplar of each type of filling system.  Then I discovered that I really don't like most sac filled pens, and vastly prefer piston fillers, syringe fillers, and c/c pens with piston converters.  And I haven't been bothered enough about my lack of a vac-fill to go and actually do anything about it, even though I am no longer desperately poor and definitely have the resources to get one should I so choose.

My goal now is to get pens that I really, really like to write with.  So I have four Pelikan M2xx (all in F, cos I like Pelikan's steel F nibs).  And I have three FPR Himalayas, but stick with the most reliable of the three.  And I have several Jinhao 51As, which I regard as consumable pens to take to work and jot things down. (I am on my second of four, which inherited the role originally given to a ten-pack of Hero 616s). And several costly gifts from my wife and her family that I just might have buried with me.  And an FPR Tanoshii Urushi Art Pen (Blue Dragon) because it was so pretty, and it would match the silver dragon version I got for my wife for our anniversary.  And I sometimes look at these pens and sigh and ask myself why I didn't become a CPA instead of an RN, because then I could use these lovely pens at work.  But then there are all the administrative desk jockey jobs out there for RNs as well, like utilization review and MDS and education coordinator and nurse navigator and so on... but which are usually not given to nurses who have yet to renew their license for the first time.

And I love Ruth's bargain-hunting stories of amazing finds in antique shops and estate sales, while realizing I'm never going to spend time browsing things like that.

Anyway, the point of collecting pens is to please yourself and make yourself happy.  If that includes accommodating various hangups, then do that.  The only wrong way to collect pens is in a way that makes you unhappy -- be it from overspending, cluttering, fretting about appreciation or loss, whatever.  If no aspect of your collecting activities makes you unhappy, you're doing it right.

[langere]

I am alive while I have pens to use.

 

That is actually how I thought about it after my heart attack.  It kept me alive, thinking I still had pens to use that I hadn't inked yet.

 

Since then, I have accumulated a number of new (to me - some are vintage and used) fountain pens that I intend to use before I kick the bucket.  I am systematically going through the newly acquired pens, which will take me years, to try all of the new types of pens, nibs, filling systems, and plastics/metals, etc. to get new experiences with my pens.

 

It is a wonderful exercise, which keeps me alive.

 

Erick

[tzinc]

Other collecting ideas:

-Get pens to match inks you like

-Have back up pens with same ink ready to go when your main pen runs out so you need more pens

-Only use 1 type of ink - say Blue-Blacks - but different ones in your pens

[vicpen123]

I write so little these (retired) days that one fill lasts me for several weeks.

 

To manage a rotation for my usage would be silly. I find cleaning a chore so I generally use the same pen (Parson's Essential) and the same ink (Quink Black). Satisfies my need for ease and convenience.

 

So my small number of pens are there for my interest and enjoyment only, not for use. Mostly I enjoy the lovely designs, the clever and interesting variations on the theme of delivering wet ink to the surface of the paper, the ingenuity of the multiple filling systems and the craftsmanship of the manufactured pen.

 

Do they all write well? Who cares so long as they engage with me. Love them all.

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

On 12/26/2022 at 10:12 PM, langere said:

I am alive while I have pens to use.

 

That is actually how I thought about it after my heart attack.  It kept me alive, thinking I still had pens to use that I hadn't inked yet.

 

Since then, I have accumulated a number of new (to me - some are vintage and used) fountain pens that I intend to use before I kick the bucket.  I am systematically going through the newly acquired pens, which will take me years, to try all of the new types of pens, nibs, filling systems, and plastics/metals, etc. to get new experiences with my pens.

 

It is a wonderful exercise, which keeps me alive.

 

Erick

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth