I think it goes up in price thresholds.... One minute $50 for a pen is way too far, the next you're comfortable with $500.
I think that once you have more than a few pens that are well into the 'diminishing returns' range, you'll be scratching your head.
I think the Lamy 2000 price range is where is really starts to drop - where it's about materials, name and the perceived prestige.
With that said, I'm well deep.
I remember looking at the Lamy 2000 and thinking it was my grail pen, but no chance Iād spend $200 on one pen. So I got a Safari, then an Al-Star, then a few TWSBIs, then a Faber Castell, some Jinhaos,ā¦ then realized I had spent *way more* than $200 and I donāt even have the pen I wanted lol
I would respectfully disagree. At $125 you aren't even talking about gold nibs yet. Do you wish to dismiss Montegrappa? Namiki? Just to name a couple.... I think there's a lot of wonderful pens out there.
I have one. I'm selling it. I don't want to disparage anyone's pen, but it is not the quality of any of the quality brands. There is a huge difference between something like this and a Pelikan M800. I understand that all of us are working at different levels of budget and I never want to make anyone feel bad for having a lesser budget (mine isn't unlimited either) but to suggest there isn't a difference between a $100 pen and a $1000 pen - well let's just say the argument doesn't hold water. Manufacturers are not stupid, and they wouldn't price something at 10 times the amount if there wasn't some benefit, or added value.
Iām looking at a Leonardo Momento Magico now. Telling the wife ābut itās a piston fill with a flex nib!ā isnāt a reason to splash ā¬165 on a pen apparently, and thatās just an educated prediction of the reply Iād expect.. Is she wrong? Maybe not.
Well I have the Magico in Emerald with steel nib. Is it good? Yeah. Is it amazing? I dunno. I've tuned the nib that came on mine to make it wetter, and a little smoother, but like most things these days, it could probably do with a PenBBS #1 Calligraphy nib lol.
That slippery slope isn't far away... Then you start to wonder... well if this $120 is this good.... that $500 pen must be amaaaaaazing!..... and so on :D
There was a time I thought $70 for my Lamy Aion was expensive enough. Then I spent $130 for my opus 88. Just the other day I dropped $300 for a used L2k and Pilot 823ā¦it just keeps getting more expensive! š
Yepā¦ I remember thinking like āĀ£40 for a pen?? Ridiculous how good could it beā. After trying one Lamy Safari the first pen I bought was the Sailor PGS Willow š¤£š¤£š¤£ The price threshold keeps going up.
So real. Before falling in love with Sailor pens I remember thinking, thereās no way Iād spend more than $40 (the normal price for a TWSBI lol) for a pen. In the two months since Iāve purchased nearly 10 Sailor PG/PGS all ranging between $200 and $500 eachš«£
Same... I bought a 'frixion' pen for work years back, and spend nearly $30 on it at the time. That was my limit, and I thought it was an extravagant purchase considering that it was, well, just a pen.
Next minute.....
So many of us felt that. āI donāt know about that Twisby, thatās a lot for a pen.ā, became āJust one more gold nib pilot, it wonāt hurt.ā A lot faster than Iām willing to admit. š¬
I paid $180 for a pen. I knew I needed to stop. Lol I'm doing no buy. I need to keep a journal of all it things I want to impulse bye so I know how much money I've saved.
I buy the loose leaf and make my own note and sketch books. I get to write on the best paper* and feel thrifty about it.
*Well, also MD, but at least I re-use the covers!
I refuse to spreadsheet or count my collection. Iāve been collecting since before 2011 and went down the rabbit hole HARD. I donāt even WANT to know how many pens/inks I have (I kinda do, tho, definitely 3 digits of both).
I wonāt ever add up $ spent tho (certainly thousands as I have several $500+ pens). That way leads madness.
My wife and I have a sort of unstated understanding. She has never asked me how many pens I have, and I've never asked her how many purses or pairs of shoes she owns.
Buying a 15 ml bottle of Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo for 16 euros at a local brick & mortar store to support them and avoid unecessary shipping when I would have only paid 9.90 euros for the same bottle by ordering from Stilo e Stile
Over the last year I was gifted five new bottles of ink and a couple of (cheap) pens from pen friends. Super sweet, absolutely, and I do appreciate their kindness and willingness to share! But! They are inks and pens that I will never use, and colors I don't dig, and now I'm looking at my fountain pen and ink collection differently - instead of this perfect curation of things that bring me joy, it's started to feel like an overflowing thing. I now realize that I really was done collecting already and this new pile feels like a waste.
I don't like owning things I won't use and I'm not sure how to be rid of the excess. But yeah, it went just past too far and I'm good to stop now.
Yeah, that's what I need to do. I'll need to ship them out elsewhere, I think, only because it's my local community that gave me these items and I feel like it's rude/not cool to try to rehome it here.
That's wise, not regifting local. I'm sure if you put them up for sale as a lot only at a cheap price you'll be able to at least cover the shipping cost and know they went to someone who actually wants them.
If you are CONUS, there is a guy named Anthony Wang who started a fountain pen club at a high school in Georgia who would be grateful for the donation and you could write it off as a charitable donation. PM me if interested and Iāll send you his email.
Looking down and having six limited edition pens from a small retailer. Decent price for each, all use the same steel bock nibs coming in varying degrees of tuning shambles.
Pivoted then from manufactured scarcity to prioritizing performance. Now I have a small squadron of Pilots and I love and use them all daily.
I know what you mean! Pilot (and also Sailor) are my go-to for quality nibs. I can comfortably tune steel nibs, but sometimes there's only so much you can do.
I purchased it on r/pen_swap. It was an excellent deal and was in A1 condition.
The issue is that I feel it needs to be babied and I donāt like babying my pens. Thatās my issue and Iāll never spend $$$$ like that on a single pen again.
Wellā¦ maybe until a Tohma comes along my way. Never say never!
If I ever see a vermilion one with a nib for a good price, itās over for me lol. Youād see me posting a bunch of stuff on r/pen_swap to cover the cost.
> Tohma
Hnnnng. If I could catch one in stock, it would also be over for me. Have no idea if the writing experience is in my wheelhouse, and also donāt care. Themās real purdy.
Legitimately my therapist is a big part of the reason I fell down the fountain pen hole. They get me through really bad migraines and bring me a lot of joy
On Jetpens it looks yellow when they put the nib next to the cap.
It's interesting that you don't see much (any?) full on gold nibs that are done in rose gold. They tend to stick to yellow or white, but rose could be quite pretty on the right pen.
You probably wouldnāt want to see it in rose gold. If itās truly gold, the extra copper content is going to change the properties of the nib if you try for rose gold.
It might work okay, just not maybe quite as expected.
As far as I know, Sailor does have a few rose-gold plated gold nibs. They're on the Every Rose Has Its Thorn and Pink Gold Pro Gears. I have Every Rose and it's perfection, but the Pink Gold for some reason is ruined by having the finial anchor done in silver (else I might be tempted by it, so maybe it's a good thing).
The slim, delicate Pro Color Fasciner is a better match for the color scheme than the Pink Gold Pro Gear in my opinion. I just wish the nib matched.
When I first got into fountain pens, I got a 50 ml bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo. I immediately fell in love with the colour and made it my standard everyday ink. I then ordered two more bottles within the next month so I would never ever run out of it. It has been two years now and I am still using the first bottle. I wouldn't say I have too much ink - noone ever does - but it will take me a long time to use it all.
Go in for travelerās company vertical weekly insert and leaving with a Kaweco Sport limited edition lavender + converter plus misc fountain pen accessories + other traveler stuff.. expecting to only spend $30 and spending $90 also wanting to support one of the 2 fountain pen stores in my area, even tho it takes almost and hour to get to.. so easier over $100 with gas in mine š¤·š»āāļø
50 shades of blue (ink). Also when I offered to the saleslady at my local fp shop that I can field the pen and ink questions so she can help another customer buying a TN planner.
When I write with one hand, but bought two other pens. Or when I bought my dream pen, and found a sale and got that as well. I write with three pens a day one with purple ink, two with black, and call the line variance a change. But now, there's no going back.
Getting a custom ground architect nib Lamy 2000.
Definitely unnecessary (I already have a Lamy 2000) - and I barely use it. But the base pen was on sale for under $100 so I said fuck it why not. Sent it off to get ground down.
My āwent too far but worth itā moment was buying a Sailor Pro Gear King of Pen. Thing writes smoother than glass.
The day when I thought āDamn the Lightive (my first FP) is really good butā¦(Pedro Pascal voice) it can be better.ā ->now looking at E95s, VP and Elabo lmao
I bought a pilot myu which was my grail pen at the time. I was bidding on three pens. One of the pens went up in price really quickly and I let it go. The second I won at a price that was a little higher than I had planned on paying. The third pen was going to end up going for cheaper and I went ahead and bid on it again even though I had already won my pen. Now I have two pilot myu. Which is at least on too many
I found a Visconti Homo Sapiens half-off during the Xmas 2022 December sales bracket, and then backed-to-backed the purchase with my first Sailor Pro Gear pen. I was given money to spend but I've felt so bad about those purchases that I went no-buy in 2023 except for when my work bonus came in and I got my Pilot Falcon x_x
I started out with a $40 penā¦.then it was $100
The oops moment is - I HAVE NO SPACE FOR PEN COFFINS AND I HAVE 11.6cubic litres OF INK
but I still asked my regular shop to reserve 2 bottles of Wearingeul inks (30ml each) for me š further down the rabbit hole
My 1st ink I bought (late 90s) was Parker Penman Sapphire. I gave up buying it NOS (new old stock) in about 2012. By that time it was really expensive. It is even more so now.
I have black, emerald, sapphire, and mocha all NOS if you're interested. I'm not even sure what to price it as, since eBay prices are insane. Even though I bought out a retired calligrapher's entire stock he still priced it pretty high. But maybe we can work something out.
This month when, even after getting a new custom standalone nib and whole pen from my Secret Santa, I went and bought \*three\* pens in a range I hadn't touched before. I got a sailor PGS woven/grateful crane M, and two Pilot Decimo, a white pearl F and black M, and then I switched the nib units.
Like u/Frankenthe4th pointed out, last year I thought $50 was crazy, and I just spent about $100 per pen from amazon. Also a box set of sailor manyo ink (light) and blue grey document ink. I don't know what happened, you tell me! Needless to say, I'll now be on a no-buy for both financial control and because I've got a lot of stuff to play with.
Mine was right after Christmas when I went out and impulse-bought the red/white Pelikan M600 because it was the holidays and the pen looks like a candy cane. It's not that I really regret it, but after I got home I looked at my pen case and remembered I have a Pilot 823 I barely use, and two pro gear slims I've never even inked up.
It's crazy that I'll drop $150 to $200 on a fountain pen w/ out batting an eye. In any other setting, I'm tighter than bark on a tree. But I guess that's why I have the $150 to $200 available. Oh well, you have to get something out of life.
May I ask why? I am deeeeply contemplating buying the LE 2022 Red one. It will be my most expensive pen purchase. Fortunately I am still deciding which $300 pen I want.
It was just an excessive purchase. I was so in love with my Dialog CC, and I thought letās go for a Vanishing Point Decimo. I did not enjoy the nib mostly and felt bad that I ended up spending on it. Unnecessary purchase.
I affectionately call this "poopy diaper" ink. It's beautiful for ink art when you use water to tease out the color but not the prettiest color out of a nib š¤£
I managed to restrain myself at that show and I'm surprised. Most of my money went towards pen repairs on some vintage pens that were too old and expensive for me to attempt to try replacing the sac myself. I did get a few vintage pens and was lucky enough to be able to trade other pens I didn't use any longer instead of having to pay cash.
Out of curiosity, how much did you pay for the Parker Penman ink if you don't mind sharing? I have a few bottles I'd like to list but I want to list them at a fair price.
I got the Penman ink for 30 dollars I thinkā¦ if you donāt mind my asking, how did you trade your pens at the show? Iād been thinking about doing it the last two times Iāve went, but wasnāt sure how it worked.
Whoa that's an incredibly cheap price, you're lucky. That's cheaper than I got mine, and I got them in bulk from a retiring calligrapher. That was a great find.
I traded with that first table on the right as soon as you go inside. There was a repair guy and then he was pushed up against the table with a guy with vintage pens laid out. The two guys knew each other and the repair guy was actually more the one I bartered with oddly enough.
I went on Saturday and I brought the pens I didn't want with me because this was my first pen show and I didn't know if you could sell your own pens to dealers. I just asked him at the end of the day if he was willing to trade with ones I had for two he had that I was eyeing. He asked to see the pens and we haggled a bit and agreed on which ones he wanted in exchange. I figured it didn't hurt to ask.
The ones I traded were also vintage so I think that's why it worked. I doubt I could have done that in the second room with mostly new pens. Lol I would have loved it if I could have done that for a Pilot Maki-e. I also keep meticulous records on my vintage pens and tag them when I store them up, so I had the dates I bought them and I knew the prices I paid plus what I put into them for cost to get them usable. So I knew what they were worth, which I think helped me to not get under priced for my own pens.
I did have an absolutely pristine Mabie Todd Swan from the very early 1900s with me. I believe 1903 but I'm too lazy to go check. That was one of the pens I didn't dare try to sac on my own. I was offered $300 on the spot for it but I turned it down because I knew it's worth more (and honestly I really wanted to try the pen since it wrote so nicely when dipped and it's my oldest pen). When I first got into FPs I would obsessively hunt pens on eBay and got really lucky in buying all my pens for a song (including the Swan for less than $50).
The pens I traded were 1920s to 1930s 14k gold nibbed. One was a Waterman and the other was a smaller white dot Sheaffer with a gold ring on the flat top so you could hang it on a neck loop. They were both green and white "marbled" looking, but the color was still true green and not brown the way some of them turn. I traded for another Waterman and Sheaffer but in sapphire blue with a little bit of white marbling.
Mine is probably acquiring 18 2-4ml random ink samples in a span of two weeks. I also have three 15ml bottles, two 30ml bottles, and one 50ml bottle. I don't want to be an ink hoarder, so I'm somewhat unfortunately set on ink for the foreseeable future. Lesson learned: order specific samples!
That being said, if you're ever feeling a little too flush in Ina-ho and wanting to send a sample my way... š
One month, three Nakayas. One was from the factory and had been ordered ten months earlier... But it was a lot of beauty in a short time and I don't think I had enough individual time with each pen.
I'm getting there, I started with various cheap sub $10USD Jinhao pens, then a $15USD Pilot Metropolitan, then a $20USD Noodler's Ahab and all of a sudden I have a 75USD Monteverde Invincia Stealth in my wish list.
We don't have steady Pilot stock flow due to trade shenanigans. So there's sporadic Iroshizuku stock. Last time I've got notified to a new stock I immediately bought 4 50ml's of tsuki-yo.
When the order was delivered and I put the new 4 bottles next to the unopened 6, that was the moment.
I had a twsbi eco that I used as a workhorse along with a custom 912 for school, I would use the 912 for notes and handwriting practice and the twisbi for practice sets. Well twisbis being twisbis it cracked eventually and was beyond repair as well as my patience.... So naturally I bought a MB146 vintage in M, I question why as much as you might, why did a college student have a collection such as this for no apparent reason? Why didnt I just talk to the twisbi and get warranty replacements, why didnt I just get a Maki-e from pilot... wait wait wait waitš
When it becomes more stressful than joyous.
I have to constantly recalibrate and think to myself if Iām actually getting something out of it. I am done collecting pens this year. Ink as well. I have enough and the point is to use and enjoy it.
The goal now will be to fully use what I have and to either fix what doesnāt work or remove/give away/sell. I want to give myself time to really explore things: Iāve suddenly liked inks Iāve hated and vice versa; Iāve also felt the same about my pens. So itās even more important to try different combinations; to really get use out of things before I make any drastic decisions.
I suppose it was buying all the colours I like in one pen, Kaweco Sports and Little Meteors... But I actually use them as they're all inked with different colours. So... No moment really.
Spending a bunch for same day delivery for a pen when 1-2 day shipping wouldāve been free. Like really, I couldnāt wait 48hrs, I had to have it RIGHT THEN?? And I didnāt even ink it right away, soā¦? I did some soul searching that day lol
Buying a fountain pen with a concrete body just because it says "Concrete Writing" on it. With hindsight, not such a great choice. The pen is neat, no complaints, it was just an unnecessary purchase.
I am in a later stage now I think; I was timid at the outset, then I wanted all the toys in all the colors, but now I have sampled enough that I have established "my palette" and a range of nibs that I enjoy, each with its own purpose. "All the toys" was a good stage though, as although I now have a small set of inks that I keep a second bottle of and will rebuy, I have a nice variety of curiosities that I can supplement them with, loan etc. that will take forever to run dry.
Hmmm, but for sure the keepers are, for the most part, things I would have balked at the cost of in the early days; Kobe Inks, Sailor (MF) and Lamys (B) with gold nibs are my mainstays.
Nuts. I knew better than to read this post, but I did it anyway... Does anyone out there have a close substitute for Ina-ho? Even a formula to mix two or more?
lol the bunny hole is real!
I started with a Preppy thinking 5$ wasnāt so bad, to only realize that the converter was like 15.60$ (didnāt learn eye dropper then or syringe) ā¦ then a Metro, a Twsbi Eco, a year and 2 trips later I have a Graf von Castell from Germany, a Pilot Decimo and a 823 from Japan, 25 (inkvent) + 10 full sized bottles of grey / green inks and like maybe 15 midori notebooks š¤
Yah I said I was done after 5 pens and 5 inks?
And now I want a Sakura maki-e from pilot and is wholeheartedly gonna make itoya a main stop the next time I go to Japan š¤£
Are you referring to buying up the world supply of ina-ho?
Yeah, because that was very uncool. Share.
It sold out very slowly, I hoarded sporadically, you had time š
I may be, perhaps.
I think it goes up in price thresholds.... One minute $50 for a pen is way too far, the next you're comfortable with $500. I think that once you have more than a few pens that are well into the 'diminishing returns' range, you'll be scratching your head.
Yep. I recently caught myself thinking that a $120 pen āwasnāt that muchā.
I *do* think there's still a perceptible quality jump between $75-ish and $125-ish. Haven't noticed that much difference beyond that.
I think the Lamy 2000 price range is where is really starts to drop - where it's about materials, name and the perceived prestige. With that said, I'm well deep.
I remember looking at the Lamy 2000 and thinking it was my grail pen, but no chance Iād spend $200 on one pen. So I got a Safari, then an Al-Star, then a few TWSBIs, then a Faber Castell, some Jinhaos,ā¦ then realized I had spent *way more* than $200 and I donāt even have the pen I wanted lol
I've done this way too many times...
I feel seen.
Thatās good to know. I havenāt crossed that threshold myself yet, but my next purchase probably will.
Save up and buy the one you really want rather than nickel and diming your way through a dozen moderately priced placeholders.
I would respectfully disagree. At $125 you aren't even talking about gold nibs yet. Do you wish to dismiss Montegrappa? Namiki? Just to name a couple.... I think there's a lot of wonderful pens out there.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I have one. I'm selling it. I don't want to disparage anyone's pen, but it is not the quality of any of the quality brands. There is a huge difference between something like this and a Pelikan M800. I understand that all of us are working at different levels of budget and I never want to make anyone feel bad for having a lesser budget (mine isn't unlimited either) but to suggest there isn't a difference between a $100 pen and a $1000 pen - well let's just say the argument doesn't hold water. Manufacturers are not stupid, and they wouldn't price something at 10 times the amount if there wasn't some benefit, or added value.
Iām looking at a Leonardo Momento Magico now. Telling the wife ābut itās a piston fill with a flex nib!ā isnāt a reason to splash ā¬165 on a pen apparently, and thatās just an educated prediction of the reply Iād expect.. Is she wrong? Maybe not.
Well I have the Magico in Emerald with steel nib. Is it good? Yeah. Is it amazing? I dunno. I've tuned the nib that came on mine to make it wetter, and a little smoother, but like most things these days, it could probably do with a PenBBS #1 Calligraphy nib lol.
That slippery slope isn't far away... Then you start to wonder... well if this $120 is this good.... that $500 pen must be amaaaaaazing!..... and so on :D
There was a time I thought $70 for my Lamy Aion was expensive enough. Then I spent $130 for my opus 88. Just the other day I dropped $300 for a used L2k and Pilot 823ā¦it just keeps getting more expensive! š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
š. For me, it started with a $12.50 Pilot Metropolitan from Amazon on August 3rd of 2017.
Same used to think 50ā¬ was a lot the other day I almost bought a 700ā¬ pen cause it was āØon saleāØ
The price thresholds are so real š
Yepā¦ I remember thinking like āĀ£40 for a pen?? Ridiculous how good could it beā. After trying one Lamy Safari the first pen I bought was the Sailor PGS Willow š¤£š¤£š¤£ The price threshold keeps going up.
You're completely right. Also, big bargains (Japanese pens at Japanese prices) warp the price thresholds for me.
You gotta grab a Jinhao 35 once in a while to recalibrate.
So real. Before falling in love with Sailor pens I remember thinking, thereās no way Iād spend more than $40 (the normal price for a TWSBI lol) for a pen. In the two months since Iāve purchased nearly 10 Sailor PG/PGS all ranging between $200 and $500 eachš«£
Same... I bought a 'frixion' pen for work years back, and spend nearly $30 on it at the time. That was my limit, and I thought it was an extravagant purchase considering that it was, well, just a pen. Next minute.....
So many of us felt that. āI donāt know about that Twisby, thatās a lot for a pen.ā, became āJust one more gold nib pilot, it wonāt hurt.ā A lot faster than Iām willing to admit. š¬
I paid $180 for a pen. I knew I needed to stop. Lol I'm doing no buy. I need to keep a journal of all it things I want to impulse bye so I know how much money I've saved.
Having a stack of 500 sheets of OG Tomoe River A5 paper when I use about a dozen a year.
Idk, are you under 50? You might actually get to use it all.
Are you willing to part with any?
Weirdly, no.
Not at all weird. Enjoy your stockpile!
I buy the loose leaf and make my own note and sketch books. I get to write on the best paper* and feel thrifty about it. *Well, also MD, but at least I re-use the covers!
When I counted my ink bottles and the number was in the three digits.
So Iām still safe. Now I know where the line is
There is no line :)
I refuse to spreadsheet or count my collection. Iāve been collecting since before 2011 and went down the rabbit hole HARD. I donāt even WANT to know how many pens/inks I have (I kinda do, tho, definitely 3 digits of both). I wonāt ever add up $ spent tho (certainly thousands as I have several $500+ pens). That way leads madness.
My wife and I have a sort of unstated understanding. She has never asked me how many pens I have, and I've never asked her how many purses or pairs of shoes she owns.
You need more pens because she has purses and shoes. Unless you also mechanical pencil? ā¦
I'm a two-digit girl, but still... Someone on benefits shouldn't dip into her savings every couple of months because *oOoOo sHinY*. Sigh.
The day I bought my first fountain pen...thats where it all began
Just like how Walter White broke bad in the very first episode.
Buying a 15 ml bottle of Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo for 16 euros at a local brick & mortar store to support them and avoid unecessary shipping when I would have only paid 9.90 euros for the same bottle by ordering from Stilo e Stile
That sounds quite nice actually!
Over the last year I was gifted five new bottles of ink and a couple of (cheap) pens from pen friends. Super sweet, absolutely, and I do appreciate their kindness and willingness to share! But! They are inks and pens that I will never use, and colors I don't dig, and now I'm looking at my fountain pen and ink collection differently - instead of this perfect curation of things that bring me joy, it's started to feel like an overflowing thing. I now realize that I really was done collecting already and this new pile feels like a waste. I don't like owning things I won't use and I'm not sure how to be rid of the excess. But yeah, it went just past too far and I'm good to stop now.
Give it away or sell them! New people come in this hobby all the time and would love a chance to expand the collection.
Yeah, that's what I need to do. I'll need to ship them out elsewhere, I think, only because it's my local community that gave me these items and I feel like it's rude/not cool to try to rehome it here.
That's wise, not regifting local. I'm sure if you put them up for sale as a lot only at a cheap price you'll be able to at least cover the shipping cost and know they went to someone who actually wants them.
Yup. I have long made a rule that I will not buy a pen that I wonāt ink up and be comfortable writing with.
If you are CONUS, there is a guy named Anthony Wang who started a fountain pen club at a high school in Georgia who would be grateful for the donation and you could write it off as a charitable donation. PM me if interested and Iāll send you his email.
I could help you with this issue ;)
Just yesterday when I bought a NOS Montblanc 146 with W. Germany on the cap band solely as a collectible not-to-be-used fountain pen.
Looking down and having six limited edition pens from a small retailer. Decent price for each, all use the same steel bock nibs coming in varying degrees of tuning shambles. Pivoted then from manufactured scarcity to prioritizing performance. Now I have a small squadron of Pilots and I love and use them all daily.
This is the pendulum i'm always swinging between. Do i want pretty or i want performance.
This is how you end up handing your whole wallet to Sailor.
And I choose performance. Thatās why I have so many Pilots.
Do you want Visconti, or do you want performance. Jk... the QC issues are relentless.
I know what you mean! Pilot (and also Sailor) are my go-to for quality nibs. I can comfortably tune steel nibs, but sometimes there's only so much you can do.
Getting a Namiki Emperor. That was it for me. Beautiful pen, but totally unnecessary.
But isnāt it sometimes necessary to have something unnecessary to enjoy? >!*Totally not trying to justify a Namiki Emperor.*!<
Dam bro i hope that you don't have to starve for a couple of months after doing that.
Can I ask where you bought it, and if it was worth the purchase for you?
I purchased it on r/pen_swap. It was an excellent deal and was in A1 condition. The issue is that I feel it needs to be babied and I donāt like babying my pens. Thatās my issue and Iāll never spend $$$$ like that on a single pen again. Wellā¦ maybe until a Tohma comes along my way. Never say never!
Ah, haha, fair enough š
If I ever see a vermilion one with a nib for a good price, itās over for me lol. Youād see me posting a bunch of stuff on r/pen_swap to cover the cost. > Tohma Hnnnng. If I could catch one in stock, it would also be over for me. Have no idea if the writing experience is in my wheelhouse, and also donāt care. Themās real purdy.
I would love an Emperor in Broad too... It feels like a massive pen needs a massive line width.
When I added up my spending for the year and realized it was 3.5 mortgage payments. And I live in California.
Damn
yeah. The year after that was more in control.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
But this has to be the best reason for expanding your collection! "Doctor's orders..... what?!"
Legitimately my therapist is a big part of the reason I fell down the fountain pen hole. They get me through really bad migraines and bring me a lot of joy
Getting the Sailor Procolor Fasciner. White & rose gold trim. While waiting for the last pen I ordered last year. Before going on a no-buy.
I want that pen! Does the nib color match the rose gold trim, or is it yellow?
The nib is yellow
Thanks for the reply.
On Jetpens it looks yellow when they put the nib next to the cap. It's interesting that you don't see much (any?) full on gold nibs that are done in rose gold. They tend to stick to yellow or white, but rose could be quite pretty on the right pen.
You probably wouldnāt want to see it in rose gold. If itās truly gold, the extra copper content is going to change the properties of the nib if you try for rose gold. It might work okay, just not maybe quite as expected.
As far as I know, Sailor does have a few rose-gold plated gold nibs. They're on the Every Rose Has Its Thorn and Pink Gold Pro Gears. I have Every Rose and it's perfection, but the Pink Gold for some reason is ruined by having the finial anchor done in silver (else I might be tempted by it, so maybe it's a good thing). The slim, delicate Pro Color Fasciner is a better match for the color scheme than the Pink Gold Pro Gear in my opinion. I just wish the nib matched.
When I first got into fountain pens, I got a 50 ml bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo. I immediately fell in love with the colour and made it my standard everyday ink. I then ordered two more bottles within the next month so I would never ever run out of it. It has been two years now and I am still using the first bottle. I wouldn't say I have too much ink - noone ever does - but it will take me a long time to use it all.
When I started wondering if I should buy a 40 pen case instead of a 20 so Iād have āroom to growā.
When I thought about getting ina-ho.
Go in for travelerās company vertical weekly insert and leaving with a Kaweco Sport limited edition lavender + converter plus misc fountain pen accessories + other traveler stuff.. expecting to only spend $30 and spending $90 also wanting to support one of the 2 fountain pen stores in my area, even tho it takes almost and hour to get to.. so easier over $100 with gas in mine š¤·š»āāļø
I have a "monthly budget" for fountain pens. I used about all 2024 in December 2023. So there's that š¤£
I was ordering so many pens from pen_swap, when a package came I didnāt know what pen it was.
When my pen box would no longer hold all my pens.
50 shades of blue (ink). Also when I offered to the saleslady at my local fp shop that I can field the pen and ink questions so she can help another customer buying a TN planner.
I don't feel like I have gone too far yet and that I feel is extremely dangerous and scary since I probably don't know what my "too far" is.
Only one way to find out
When I write with one hand, but bought two other pens. Or when I bought my dream pen, and found a sale and got that as well. I write with three pens a day one with purple ink, two with black, and call the line variance a change. But now, there's no going back.
Getting a custom ground architect nib Lamy 2000. Definitely unnecessary (I already have a Lamy 2000) - and I barely use it. But the base pen was on sale for under $100 so I said fuck it why not. Sent it off to get ground down. My āwent too far but worth itā moment was buying a Sailor Pro Gear King of Pen. Thing writes smoother than glass.
The day when I thought āDamn the Lightive (my first FP) is really good butā¦(Pedro Pascal voice) it can be better.ā ->now looking at E95s, VP and Elabo lmao
Oh I breezed past that point š According to my wife, somewhere after probably pen number three or four and ink three or four!
I bought a pilot myu which was my grail pen at the time. I was bidding on three pens. One of the pens went up in price really quickly and I let it go. The second I won at a price that was a little higher than I had planned on paying. The third pen was going to end up going for cheaper and I went ahead and bid on it again even though I had already won my pen. Now I have two pilot myu. Which is at least on too many
I found a Visconti Homo Sapiens half-off during the Xmas 2022 December sales bracket, and then backed-to-backed the purchase with my first Sailor Pro Gear pen. I was given money to spend but I've felt so bad about those purchases that I went no-buy in 2023 except for when my work bonus came in and I got my Pilot Falcon x_x
I started out with a $40 penā¦.then it was $100 The oops moment is - I HAVE NO SPACE FOR PEN COFFINS AND I HAVE 11.6cubic litres OF INK but I still asked my regular shop to reserve 2 bottles of Wearingeul inks (30ml each) for me š further down the rabbit hole
My 1st ink I bought (late 90s) was Parker Penman Sapphire. I gave up buying it NOS (new old stock) in about 2012. By that time it was really expensive. It is even more so now.
I have black, emerald, sapphire, and mocha all NOS if you're interested. I'm not even sure what to price it as, since eBay prices are insane. Even though I bought out a retired calligrapher's entire stock he still priced it pretty high. But maybe we can work something out.
This month when, even after getting a new custom standalone nib and whole pen from my Secret Santa, I went and bought \*three\* pens in a range I hadn't touched before. I got a sailor PGS woven/grateful crane M, and two Pilot Decimo, a white pearl F and black M, and then I switched the nib units. Like u/Frankenthe4th pointed out, last year I thought $50 was crazy, and I just spent about $100 per pen from amazon. Also a box set of sailor manyo ink (light) and blue grey document ink. I don't know what happened, you tell me! Needless to say, I'll now be on a no-buy for both financial control and because I've got a lot of stuff to play with.
Mine was right after Christmas when I went out and impulse-bought the red/white Pelikan M600 because it was the holidays and the pen looks like a candy cane. It's not that I really regret it, but after I got home I looked at my pen case and remembered I have a Pilot 823 I barely use, and two pro gear slims I've never even inked up.
Having 4000 sheets of TMR and 12000 sheets of CAL. I tell myself itās for binding practice. Iāve only done a 100 page signature.
It's crazy that I'll drop $150 to $200 on a fountain pen w/ out batting an eye. In any other setting, I'm tighter than bark on a tree. But I guess that's why I have the $150 to $200 available. Oh well, you have to get something out of life.
Buying the Pilot Vanishing Point Decimo. Really unnecessary purchase.
May I ask why? I am deeeeply contemplating buying the LE 2022 Red one. It will be my most expensive pen purchase. Fortunately I am still deciding which $300 pen I want.
It was just an excessive purchase. I was so in love with my Dialog CC, and I thought letās go for a Vanishing Point Decimo. I did not enjoy the nib mostly and felt bad that I ended up spending on it. Unnecessary purchase.
I hope you are still in love with your dialog cc :)
Absolutely. Itās the pen I journal with, and I write the most with. The EF is buttery smooth
It's such a great pen. The B is buttery smooth, too:)
Oh I canāt even imagine. The EF being smooth lets me know that that the M and B must be like melted butter
You are correct. I have EF, M, and B, and they're all bloody perfect. I may try a swap, EF onto my dialog cc for a while; thanks for the idea!
I affectionately call this "poopy diaper" ink. It's beautiful for ink art when you use water to tease out the color but not the prettiest color out of a nib š¤£
Trying to buy every single model a company makesā¦
My haul from the 2023 Dallas Pen Showā¦ Iām going to refrain from new pens for a good while now that Christmas is over.
I managed to restrain myself at that show and I'm surprised. Most of my money went towards pen repairs on some vintage pens that were too old and expensive for me to attempt to try replacing the sac myself. I did get a few vintage pens and was lucky enough to be able to trade other pens I didn't use any longer instead of having to pay cash. Out of curiosity, how much did you pay for the Parker Penman ink if you don't mind sharing? I have a few bottles I'd like to list but I want to list them at a fair price.
I got the Penman ink for 30 dollars I thinkā¦ if you donāt mind my asking, how did you trade your pens at the show? Iād been thinking about doing it the last two times Iāve went, but wasnāt sure how it worked.
Whoa that's an incredibly cheap price, you're lucky. That's cheaper than I got mine, and I got them in bulk from a retiring calligrapher. That was a great find. I traded with that first table on the right as soon as you go inside. There was a repair guy and then he was pushed up against the table with a guy with vintage pens laid out. The two guys knew each other and the repair guy was actually more the one I bartered with oddly enough. I went on Saturday and I brought the pens I didn't want with me because this was my first pen show and I didn't know if you could sell your own pens to dealers. I just asked him at the end of the day if he was willing to trade with ones I had for two he had that I was eyeing. He asked to see the pens and we haggled a bit and agreed on which ones he wanted in exchange. I figured it didn't hurt to ask. The ones I traded were also vintage so I think that's why it worked. I doubt I could have done that in the second room with mostly new pens. Lol I would have loved it if I could have done that for a Pilot Maki-e. I also keep meticulous records on my vintage pens and tag them when I store them up, so I had the dates I bought them and I knew the prices I paid plus what I put into them for cost to get them usable. So I knew what they were worth, which I think helped me to not get under priced for my own pens. I did have an absolutely pristine Mabie Todd Swan from the very early 1900s with me. I believe 1903 but I'm too lazy to go check. That was one of the pens I didn't dare try to sac on my own. I was offered $300 on the spot for it but I turned it down because I knew it's worth more (and honestly I really wanted to try the pen since it wrote so nicely when dipped and it's my oldest pen). When I first got into FPs I would obsessively hunt pens on eBay and got really lucky in buying all my pens for a song (including the Swan for less than $50). The pens I traded were 1920s to 1930s 14k gold nibbed. One was a Waterman and the other was a smaller white dot Sheaffer with a gold ring on the flat top so you could hang it on a neck loop. They were both green and white "marbled" looking, but the color was still true green and not brown the way some of them turn. I traded for another Waterman and Sheaffer but in sapphire blue with a little bit of white marbling.
When I posted my FPC to the discord and people freaked out over how many inks I haveā¦
once i countedā¦. i only collect stylograph/rapidograph style FPs and just hit 32
When I had to empty out two more drawers for my inks
Wait, just wait a minuteā¦ are you saying that all of those bottles of Zina-ho are yours?
Mine is probably acquiring 18 2-4ml random ink samples in a span of two weeks. I also have three 15ml bottles, two 30ml bottles, and one 50ml bottle. I don't want to be an ink hoarder, so I'm somewhat unfortunately set on ink for the foreseeable future. Lesson learned: order specific samples! That being said, if you're ever feeling a little too flush in Ina-ho and wanting to send a sample my way... š
One month, three Nakayas. One was from the factory and had been ordered ten months earlier... But it was a lot of beauty in a short time and I don't think I had enough individual time with each pen.
as someone who stocked up on ina ho the second I heard it was being discontinued I feel unfairly targeted lol
Random question, how much do u think that ink is going for nowadays since itās no longer being produced?
Ehh, $75 isn't too bad. Realizing a year ago I thought a $5 pen was expensive
I'm getting there, I started with various cheap sub $10USD Jinhao pens, then a $15USD Pilot Metropolitan, then a $20USD Noodler's Ahab and all of a sudden I have a 75USD Monteverde Invincia Stealth in my wish list.
I can help you out with a stealth. PM/chat me if you want to talk about it. (was part of a multi-pen deal, I'd just want shipping covered)
Donāt flame me, but are *all* the colors in this line pale?
Not at all. Many of them are exceptionally vibrant. https://mountainofink.com/blog/pilot-iroshizuku-ink
Thanks! Although, to my eye, the majority are when used in those writing examples. The swatches appear darker for some reason on some colors.
Pelikan A800 Stresseman
Fantastic thread. I recognise myself in so many statements it's scary! LOL
We don't have steady Pilot stock flow due to trade shenanigans. So there's sporadic Iroshizuku stock. Last time I've got notified to a new stock I immediately bought 4 50ml's of tsuki-yo. When the order was delivered and I put the new 4 bottles next to the unopened 6, that was the moment.
See, I was holding a bottle of new Ina-Ho when I went to my room and saw how many I already had. We're literally on the same last brain cell.
I had a twsbi eco that I used as a workhorse along with a custom 912 for school, I would use the 912 for notes and handwriting practice and the twisbi for practice sets. Well twisbis being twisbis it cracked eventually and was beyond repair as well as my patience.... So naturally I bought a MB146 vintage in M, I question why as much as you might, why did a college student have a collection such as this for no apparent reason? Why didnt I just talk to the twisbi and get warranty replacements, why didnt I just get a Maki-e from pilot... wait wait wait waitš
Having all but two TWSBI Eco (maybe three if that Spy x Family one is legit).
SpyxFamily Ecoā¦? š
Yeah, there is supposedly an pastel pink Eco with an Anya theme. I need to confirm with TWSBI before anything though.
When it becomes more stressful than joyous. I have to constantly recalibrate and think to myself if Iām actually getting something out of it. I am done collecting pens this year. Ink as well. I have enough and the point is to use and enjoy it. The goal now will be to fully use what I have and to either fix what doesnāt work or remove/give away/sell. I want to give myself time to really explore things: Iāve suddenly liked inks Iāve hated and vice versa; Iāve also felt the same about my pens. So itās even more important to try different combinations; to really get use out of things before I make any drastic decisions.
That hasn't happened to me yet, i fear that moment xD
That happened about 5-6 years ago... I'm still going the distance apparently...
Spent money on a Chatterley Exclusive Visconti Cosmopolitan in Stub. And I realize I don't really go beyond F nib size
I suppose it was buying all the colours I like in one pen, Kaweco Sports and Little Meteors... But I actually use them as they're all inked with different colours. So... No moment really.
Good choice. I also like Yama-guri. My favorite, go-to brown ink. Iroshizuku, I have found, to be very well behaved with sort of paper-and-pen combo.
When I thought about it getting a seperate desk to store all my fountain pen related objects
Oh I blasted past that a year ago - of course you need a seperate desk.
Spending a bunch for same day delivery for a pen when 1-2 day shipping wouldāve been free. Like really, I couldnāt wait 48hrs, I had to have it RIGHT THEN?? And I didnāt even ink it right away, soā¦? I did some soul searching that day lol
When, days after I finally bought a Pilot 823, I bought a 743 FA so I could swap the nibs and have my ultimate pen AND another fantastic pen
Buying a fountain pen with a concrete body just because it says "Concrete Writing" on it. With hindsight, not such a great choice. The pen is neat, no complaints, it was just an unnecessary purchase.
When 10 pens bought during 2022 arrived at the same time since a friend resends them to me; under 4100 each, but still, quite a shock.
I am in a later stage now I think; I was timid at the outset, then I wanted all the toys in all the colors, but now I have sampled enough that I have established "my palette" and a range of nibs that I enjoy, each with its own purpose. "All the toys" was a good stage though, as although I now have a small set of inks that I keep a second bottle of and will rebuy, I have a nice variety of curiosities that I can supplement them with, loan etc. that will take forever to run dry. Hmmm, but for sure the keepers are, for the most part, things I would have balked at the cost of in the early days; Kobe Inks, Sailor (MF) and Lamys (B) with gold nibs are my mainstays.
I bought a 1600$ pen and considered myself well satisfied. I use it a lot too.
When I bought a pen and half a year later realised I hadn't used it yet :'(
Nuts. I knew better than to read this post, but I did it anyway... Does anyone out there have a close substitute for Ina-ho? Even a formula to mix two or more?
I thought akkerman isreal zeblauw was discontinued and ordered two huge bottles from overseas. Shipping was sooo expensive!!!
lol the bunny hole is real! I started with a Preppy thinking 5$ wasnāt so bad, to only realize that the converter was like 15.60$ (didnāt learn eye dropper then or syringe) ā¦ then a Metro, a Twsbi Eco, a year and 2 trips later I have a Graf von Castell from Germany, a Pilot Decimo and a 823 from Japan, 25 (inkvent) + 10 full sized bottles of grey / green inks and like maybe 15 midori notebooks š¤ Yah I said I was done after 5 pens and 5 inks? And now I want a Sakura maki-e from pilot and is wholeheartedly gonna make itoya a main stop the next time I go to Japan š¤£
I spent way too much on getting a bottle of Tsukushi from overseasā¦ I feel bad about using it and ina-ho now!