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The Pain Of Letting Go


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It was similarly hard for me to start selling pens at first, but then it came easier and easier. Any pen I wasn't using at least semi regularly and didn't adore went to the chopping block. I've bought and sold probably close to 100 pens, I now have 11. Collecting can be a bit of a neurosis. It's important to remember that pens are for writing and that they are just useless pretty things if left unused. It can be very liberating to downsize. I only regretted selling one pen, an m805, and I replaced it. No biggie.

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I regret selling Visconti Rembrandt, Platinum 3776, Montblanc 146, Sailor Pro Gear Slim, Sailor 1911L Naginata Togi... But sometimes its for the better. I sold my Lamy Dialog 3, because I was annoyed you can't see how much ink is left in the converter. But I missed it so I bought it again, and discovered design has been improved and ink window added where the converter is.

Inked: Sailor King Pro Gear, Sailor Nagasawa Proske, Sailor 1911 Standard, Parker Sonnet Chiselled Carbon, Parker 51, Pilot Custom Heritage 92, Platinum Preppy

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I dumped a lot of books in the chairy shop years back. It was liberating and now I don't horde books. There are some I'll keep, but most of them I'll read and pass on. I do the same with Cds and DVDs. I usually have an annual clear out - have I used it this year, would I miss it when it's gone?

 

I threw out all my cheap Chinese pens. One of them leaked a load of ink over the carpet and I decided that the generally poor build quality was too much to put up with and threw them all out.

 

I'm currently keeping tabs on the quality pens I'm using and I suspect I will reduce my no. of pens down to five or six. I may go to the London Pens show and see if I can offload some of them there.

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I sold all my Vacumatics last year; nice pens but none of them had an interesting nib. I'm going to bring some pens to the LA Show and try to sell them because I have too many pens.

I'm finally at a point where I can sell the pens that simply aren't my favorites.

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I find it hard to sell pens I don't like, because it seems unworthy to sell something I think is junk to some poor sucker. This includes Sonnets, Carenes, many other pens that dry up or seem inferior. I never use them, why suck somebody else in?

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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I find it hard to sell pens I don't like, because it seems unworthy to sell something I think is junk to some poor sucker. This includes Sonnets, Carenes, many other pens that dry up or seem inferior. I never use them, why suck somebody else in?

 

You know its funny I bought a few of those 'sucker pens', for not too bad a price. I learnt the feel of pens, and could not bring myself to suck others and did not want to bother with advertisement and shipping for a little bit of cash so I pulled them all apart and tried mixing feeds and nibs, bent the nibs, basically tested and learnt , just played around. After a few hours and real dirty hands I dumped them into the bin. Either that or they sat in the drawer.

Now I am ready for another set of pens, I too am addicted and find it hard to let go. But when I find those right pens, the inferior ones can go.

 

Also letting go of stuff in the house has health benefits, atleast for me it has. Its always good to just let go of stuff. I would like to break my sons playstation one day...soon.

Edited by Mrpink
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I find it hard to sell pens I don't like, because it seems unworthy to sell something I think is junk to some poor sucker. This includes Sonnets, Carenes, many other pens that dry up or seem inferior. I never use them, why suck somebody else in?

 

I have the same problem. Which is why I still have the Parker "Urban from Hell". I don't even feel good about doing a PiF on that.

I know that at some point in the future, I will do a purge -- but I'm not to that point yet.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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No, decided not to tease the animals......selling pens must come....

Making a list will hurt....especially when the easy ten are listed.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I have the same problem. Which is why I still have the Parker "Urban from Hell". I don't even feel good about doing a PiF on that.

I know that at some point in the future, I will do a purge -- but I'm not to that point yet.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Oh, I have a Parker Urban ball pen. Horrible balance. What were they thinking when they made those things, and why are they still in production. Awful, awful pens. The Frontier was far superior.

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I suppose I could sell the pens I don't like, but it wouldn't be worth the effort to sell them for as little as they are really worth.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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I suppose I could sell the pens I don't like, but it wouldn't be worth the effort to sell them for as little as they are really worth.

 

Pass them around, if I were close I would like to try them out and just pass them on like a 'charity' or 'donation' thing. Just a suggestion, thats what happens - wont sell because they arent worthit and dont want to keep them in the drawer neither. Put them up for adoption to someone who will appreciate them. Charity is a blessed action, its actually a gain and not a loss when one gives to charity.

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Pass them around, if I were close I would like to try them out and just pass them on like a 'charity' or 'donation' thing. Just a suggestion, thats what happens - wont sell because they arent worthit and dont want to keep them in the drawer neither. Put them up for adoption to someone who will appreciate them. Charity is a blessed action, its actually a gain and not a loss when one gives to charity.

 

Yea, it would be nice but... to whom ?.

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All I can say is, it gets easier. The more you let go, the more you realize... I didn't need that. And then you're left with what you really enjoy using or the ones with lovely sentimental associations.

 

I've let go of grail pens, and I haven't looked back.

_________________

etherX in To Miasto

Fleekair <--French accent.

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Check out the decluttering threads in Chatter. My Dad's rule was that anything he hadn't used in the last 12 months was offered for sale at the subdivision-wide annual summer garage sale.

 

And bear in mind that we are here to love people and use things. Treating people like things is always evil, and as Granny Weatherwax says, how evil nearly always starts. And loving things can cause you to value them more than people. Never do that, even (particularly) when the person in question is yourself.

Edited by Arkanabar
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I've decided to bite the bullet. I decided around lunch time today, posted a couple of classified's and already I'm getting jittery.

 

I'm a natural hoarder, so holding on to something I don't use or don't use very much isn't something that bothers me normally. However, I have felt that owning too many fountain pens (please don't ask how many, it's a shameful number) is probably not a good thing. Someone planted the seed that it is possible to live with ten pens you really love. I still find this an utterly ridiculous notion, but did eventually concede that I could live with a few less. They asked me to think about what it was I really liked in a fountain pen and whittle it down that way. I put all such nonsense out of my mind.

 

Then it came back; that niggling thought that I was holding on to something I wasn't adoring that someone else might own and adore. I began to put down on paper what I liked. So I came to the decision that I enjoy fines, extra fines and stub/italics the most. The next step was to go back through the records and look through the pens to see what I hadn't used since I bought them (that feels like a terrible admission) and what I hadn't used in the last year. So now I have me a list, and this evening I bit the bullet.

 

Now this is all by way of intro really, because what really makes me jittery about this is that I keep reading people saying they regret selling such and such a pen. That is something I really hope to avoid doing. Maybe I'm just being too clingy on my pens, but I would appreciate some advice that might help me avoid that pit fall of selling something I later decide was a bad decision to sell.

 

It can't be a more shameful number than mine. I have already sold or given away more pens than most people own.

 

But this post is interesting AND helpful; thanks. I will try to write out what I like in a pen and what's a dealbreaker. Then maybe I can let some more go. There was a particular model I had my eye on for years, but I ended up returning it because I just couldn't write well with it.

 

For me, even if I didn't love a pen, if it's something not easily replaceable, or can fit in the glass jar which houses my Oddities, I would still keep it. Like the first wood-bodied pen someone turned for me.

My latest ebook.   And not just for Halloween!
 

My other pen is a Montblanc.

 

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I usually sell because I'm looking to fund another purchase. The last round of pens I sold went to funding the Danitrio Fellowship Pen. I sold some pens that I considered 'grail' pens in search of a holier grail. Sometimes I regret selling some of them, but, I look at the Fellowship pen, think of the excitement around it, the forum buzz, the time spent with those from the SF Pen Posse when I was regularly traveling to Foster City, CA, and I find I no longer miss the sold pens. I'm not implying that I needed to have a Fellowship pen in order for the Posse to accept me (they really are a great bunch of people -- and I've really shown how poor I am at maintaining connections in real life), but, what I'm trying to say is the experiences are more important than the things.

 

So, you might regret, and that is fine, but, you also might find that the idea you were able to make someone happy that they now have a new pen they can enjoy, a pen that may have taken them much longer to budget for if they needed to pay retail.

 

French

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One thing I have noticed and not all will agree but I think it is harder for women to let go of items. Not saying it is all cases but generally I found this - I could be totally wrong as I have not clarified it with a female but I can throw something out but my wife will protest against any household item. Now I protest before something comes into the house to save the trouble later. Could be an individual thing too. But obviously I dont like the kitchen items like my wife does...

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Well, we are not quite diametrically opposite to that :) but the differences I think may be informative. My wife is generally against any new thing, including in the kitchen, but she hangs on to many things associated with past experiences. The fact I enjoy doing stuff, and cooking is one of those, means I am constantly and probably excessively keen on new or improved ways of doing things with greater precision. That is not to say I am a gadgeteer -- we do not even own a microwave oven because neither of us thinks it contributes to cooking, so [idiosyncratic] standards apply. Before I get too far off the thread, my endeavour is to say difficulty letting go appears to me to be related mainly to individual interests and personalities.

 

Six months ago I posted on this thread that I was in acquisition phase. In the last month or so I have managed to dispose of three pens and have a fourth for sale. This is part of tidying the frayed edges arising from my hoovering up of pens to date. I had another on sale but when someone showed interest I realised I wanted to keep it so took the ad down as soon as they decided against. I suspect further sales will come only from finding I do not use or enjoy some of the remainder, something which I have now developed a process to track.

X

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Mrpink, on 09 Dec 2016 - 13:51, said:

One thing I have noticed and not all will agree but I think it is harder for women to let go of items. Not saying it is all cases but generally I found this - I could be totally wrong as I have not clarified it with a female but I can throw something out but my wife will protest against any household item. Now I protest before something comes into the house to save the trouble later. Could be an individual thing too. But obviously I dont like the kitchen items like my wife does...

I could as easily say that in my female experience, the opposite is true. But I see no need to continue the sexism.

 

Regarding getting rid of pens, you can always buy them back if you really want to.

Edited by Shaggy
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