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How Many Pens Do You Actually Own?


mke

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Out of curiosity - how many pens do you own.

 

Need some anecdotal evidence that there are many people who have more than I have.

As you know, the boss at home thinks I don't need so many pens. :lticaptd:

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I have about sixteen, and I use all of them. If I am not going to use a pen, I see no reason for having it! C. S.

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at least one for each day of the year ...

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." -Pablo Picasso


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I also use all of my (15) pens - at home, I cycle through them. At work, however, I use only one set of very simple ones - Baoer 3035.

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Only a paltry 8.

"Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts." - Patrick Rothfuss

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I don't know.

 

 

Ahhh... enlightenment... to which I aspire.

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." -Pablo Picasso


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About 50. I'm more of an accumulator than a collector. I've been a sucker for cheap Chinese pens and have about a dozen of them at less than $10 a pen (including shipping). I have a couple of pens costing over $100 (Bexley, Visconti) and 4 or 5 costing just under $100 (Platinum 3776, Waterman Expert). I have tossed out several pens that didn't meet my main criteria for keeping a pen: Is it enjoyable to write with?

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I have quite a lot of fountain pens. But it seems that I always have one pen less than what I should have.

 

n+1

 

:-)

Thanks,

 

Franz

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About 42 atm, although a half dozen or so are unuseable in their current state until I can afford repair.

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When it comes to answering the question posed by the OP, I suspect that I am something of an outlier on this board.

I have almost no disposable income, so I own only 16 fountain pens...

 

...three of which have a damaged nib, a damaged feed, and a feed that starves the nib and is inaccessible (i.e. can never be adjusted), and so those pens have been relegated to a drawer.

There are a further two that only see very rare use as they are a bit too narrow for my ape paws.

Of the remaining eleven, some are duplicated models in different finishes.

 

In 'constant use/rotation' I tend to have two out of the following five inked at any time;

a Parker "51";

a Pelikan M205;

a Parker Urban;

a Parker Frontier (I have three of these);

a LAMY Safari or Vista (I have three of these too).

 

For writing letters to close friends I tend to use a Pelikan P480 F 'Pelikano' inked with Edelstein Topaz.

I bought it solely to test inks by buying short international cartridges as samples, but it has the wettest flow of any pen that I have, which enables the PET to shine.

 

Should I ever have cash to 'play with' again, at the moment there are *only two* more pens that I find myself coveting :-o

This apparent 'self-restraint' is a consequence of long-term poverty; being almost invariably 'priced out of the market' results in the loss of almost all freedom of choice.

Whilst that is highly demoralising, it also makes it *much* easier to draw the line between what one merely *wants* and what one actually *needs*.

The corollary is that one becomes far more inured against the 'siren' voices of Marketing, which has the interesting side-effect of making one feel conscious of being perceptually-separated from the overwhelming majority of people in our society, and therefore something like an Anthropologist who has immersed themself in an alien culture.

 

Of course, neither of the two pens that I currently covet is still in manufacture, and both are *very* expensive (for me) :-(

[#firstworldproblems :-D ]

Edited by Mercian

Foul in clear conditions, but handsome in the fog.

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I currently have 5. After reading this thread I'm starting to feel much better about that number...

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I once counted two hundred and eleven.

 

I use 1 Parker 51, 2 Montblanc 144s, 1 Pelikam M200 anthricite demo, 1 of 6 Lamy Safaris, and some other pens on occasion. There must be at least a hundred I never use.

"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 currently own about 22 pens. They are a mix of less expensive (a few TWSBIs and Metropolitans), midrange (Edisons and a Platinum), and more expensive pens (4 Pelikans and a Pilot Custom 823). I'm happy with my range, and I ink and use a lot of them regularly. I probably have too many inked at any one time, but I write constantly when I work.

 

I do have a ridiculous wishlist right now. There are about 14 pens on it, but I don't expect to buy most of them anytime soon. At this point, I'm also doing a ton more research before buying and for some pens (like my Pelikans) am buying new nibs for them instead of an entire new pen.

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Not as many as I would like. A couple Parker Urbans, a couple Lamys, a TWSBI with no nib collar as they all cracked and I gave up replacing them all the time, and the rest are Pilots and a Platinum - of which I've never had issues with. I have about 5 more Japanese pens on my wishlist right now. Lamy is also my best western fp experience thus far so if anyone has suggestions on others....

 

I'm a connoisseur, not a collector. :)

 

I like that. :thumbup:

 

I don't know.

 

YES!! :lticaptd:

...The history, culture and sophistication; the rich, aesthetic beauty; the indulgent, ritualistic sensations of unscrewing the cap and filling from a bottle of ink; the ambient scratch of the ink-stained nib on fine paper; A noble instrument, descendant from a line of ever-refined tools, and the luster of writing,
with a charge from over several millennia of continuing the art of recording man's life.

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@80.....some 10 need new corks, one needs a nib re-tipped. Living in Germany most are piston pens, surprisingly some 10 or so CC pens....a couple Eastie's and Wearever lever pens.

 

Most are pre-65-50....vintage. These are often semi-flex (26) or maxi-semi-flex (16) of them 16 are oblique.

A few war pens, four five before the war.

A Waterman 52.

 

The next group is semi-vintage at least started at 1997 to '80's. ...15 or so. Most are the old fashioned 'true' regular flex....with a Lamy Persona nail.

 

4-5 modern ones, a Townsend, 605, Woolf, 200.

 

A real nice glass topped two drawer cherry wood pen case, two cigar humidors for storage.

 

That is not of course counting the 20 dip pens...that I should use...instead of let rust. :rolleyes:

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

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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Sshhh, don't ask that question. I have one, maybe two pens. Certainly less than 100.

Best answer yet :-D

Foul in clear conditions, but handsome in the fog.

mini-postcard-exc.png

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