Tips On How Not To Lose Your Pen.

[imadeadend]

Don't put your pen pouch in a jacket pocket and carry said jacket folded over your arm. Now always carried in a zipped pocket of bag.

 

Sounds like you speak from experience! What did you lose?

[rbadger332]

I keep my pens in my pants/shirt pocket when not in use, and when at home, on my desk with my phone, watch, and wallet. THat way I always pick it up on the way out. At work, they are on my desk (all of my co-workers won't use them because they are afraid) or in it's case, in my pocket.

[snowblink]

Don't put your pen pouch in a jacket pocket and carry said jacket folded over your arm. Now always carried in a zipped pocket of bag.

 

Sounds like you speak from experience! What did you lose?

 

Pelikan M400 White Tortoise and a Pentel P200 0.5mm in a Cross 2-pen case. Expensive lesson.

[Gcouch]

Made the mistake of leaving my Waterman hemisphere in an unzippered pocket of my bomber... not sure where it went now :bonk: I was looking for a Lamy 203 leatehr pen case, but I don't know what I want now. Thankfully it wasn't a really expensive pen and it was really beat up ( 4 years of high school use puts a ton of wear on it)

[dickydotcom]

I now always carry my pens in cases. Usually a couple of two pen cases so 4 pens in all.

Additionally I use a large leather messenger bag and the pen cases go in a zipped pocket when not in use.

 

I would also second the view, don't buy anything you can't afford to lose.

But also say if you do most of your writing away from home and you don't take you good pens with you then you have wasted your money. You could have been writing with them.

 

Dick D

[WaskiSquirrel]

I keep the pen in my shirt pocket. I use it, and then I put it back in my shirt pocket. I have a second (nice Parker ballpoint) pen that I loan to others, but I keep track of it.

 

I'm the guy who can actually use up even a cheap disposable ballpoint because I don't lose pens.

[Quarzac]

I personally clip mine to my pants pocket every time I leave a room, be it my dorm or a classroom. I have also adapted my triple check from phone, keys, wallet to phone + pens, keys, wallet. I lost my first refillable pen (a Pilot 78G) at the beginning of this semester- at this point, I figure I must have missed my pocket or something. It was a crushing loss, even though it was a cheap pen, and I have been really paranoid about keeping track of my pens since.

 

Losing a pen: only once.

[Trebster]

Pen goes in case inside same purse pocket every single time. Keep cap in hand if lending to someone. NEVER leave it on your desk. NEVER leave it sitting unattended. Treat it like any other object that costs a month's income.

 

People forget that the kind of fountain pens that got kept a lifetime weren't cheap to begin with.

 

And for pity's sake, keep your pen away from the uninitiated who think all pens are cheap disposables and can be stolen and trashed at will.

 

What Ghost Plane said: Never leave it on your desk and never leave it sitting unattended. No good reason to repeat these two fine observations (though I did; they're important!). It was the last statement about the "uninitiated" that brings me to a minor refinement: the uninitiated can be a threat to pens you don't have yet. Take time to make sure the guys in the mail room know who you are. And where you are.

 

Once in a distant universe next door I needed my freshly ordered Parker 51 delivered to my office, rather than to my home. Package arrived at the campus without incident. But there was some confusion about where I might be found, owing to some office swaps. J. Random MailRoomGuy opened the package (who knows why) and found an uninked Parker 51. Decided the pen didn't work and chucked it.

 

J. Random MailRoomGuy and his buds searched the garbage much of the following day, but the Parker 51 was never rediscovered.

 

Technically that's not a lost pen if I never actually had it, hey?

[Bo Bo Olson]

If you have a shirt pocket, get some one to sew it so there is one or two pen pockets. That prevents it from falling out.

 

Pickpockets would have a harder time too.

 

Back in the day of one pen, one man....it was a mark of class to have your name engraved in it with gold lettering. Folks got that for important birthdays, retirement.

 

Of course today, where lots of folks sell pens, and pay 10% less for a blasphemy @#$%^& engraved pen, you have to make a choice engrave pens that will be yours to the grave, or risk theft.

[requiescat]

I was wondering what everyone's views are on keeping precious pens from being lost.

 

 

My current solution is "don't take it out of the house". Going out of the house is the sacred task of my brave and intrepid Preppies.

I have never lost a pen *outside* the house--I am good about returning them to their pen case or a particular jacket front pocket.

 

The only pen I have ever lost was a Preppy *inside* my house. To this day I still have no idea where the dang thing got off to.

 

For longer trips, I'm probably going to stick to carrying my Nemosine Singularity by itself anyway--as an eyedropper conversion it writes forever, it's easily replaced, and it is genuinely one of my favorite pens (writes well and feels comfortable).

[pennut]

Never take a pen you value highly on a trip. Most of the time I try to take a pen such as a Phileas on trips because it would not be the end of the world if I lost it but I value the pen enough to try and not lose it. So far, none have been lost.

[Jimmy Joe]

J. Random MailRoomGuy opened the package (who knows why) and found an uninked Parker 51. Decided the pen didn't work and chucked it.

Wait. So MailRoomGuy opened someone else's mail and threw the contents away, but all that happened to him was he had to look for the contents? I'd think that would be grounds for immediate dismissal.

[BT-7274]

J. Random MailRoomGuy opened the package (who knows why) and found an uninked Parker 51. Decided the pen didn't work and chucked it.

Wait. So MailRoomGuy opened someone else's mail and threw the contents away, but all that happened to him was he had to look for the contents? I'd think that would be grounds for immediate dismissal.

 

Amen to that. I've had enough things stolen/misplaced/opened mid-transit, including a set of rather nice IEMs. Teaches you to ship registered and insured.

 

As for not losing good pens...Get them (deeply)engraved with your name. Easiest way to tell that it's your pen is to have your full name, maybe even signature engraved on the barrel.

[ThreeForMe]

I keep the pen in my shirt pocket. I use it, and then I put it back in my shirt pocket. I have a second (nice Parker ballpoint) pen that I loan to others, but I keep track of it.

 

I'm the guy who can actually use up even a cheap disposable ballpoint because I don't lose pens.

 

I do the same and carry a Cross Century II ballpoint pen. I sometimes need a ballpoint for triplicate forms, rather than sign/date three times. I never hand over any fountain pen I am carrying unless it is to another avowed FP enthusiast. Everyone else gets the ballpoint.

[seffrican]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread, but I'd like to point up something that seems implicit in a lot of the answers. It seems like a lot of people carry numerous fountain pens. To me, that seems to increase the risk of loss, and possibly the consequential loss as well. So I would like to re-summarise that advice:

 

1. Don't carry something that you can't easily replace. I'd also advise taking a fairly robust pen so that damage from use and co-workers is less likely. It's even less likely if you never hand over the pen.

 

2. Don't carry more pens than you need to. A single fountain pen with a good fill will last you a lot of pages, just fill it each day. If you have a cartridge/converter pen, carry spare cartridges, they are light and cheap and clean. A disposable ballpoint can serve as the emergency backup and the pen you lend out to others.

 

3. Keep the pen on you, never leave it lying around, just the way you wouldn't leave your keys or wallet lying around. And to that I'd add that I frequently have a pen that isn't too hard to replace, but that my notebook is normally filled with valuable and hard to replace information. I keep the pen and notebook together in a pocket.

 

Whenever I see a heartbreaking story about someone dropping their irreplaceable vintage Omas (or something) and seeing a taxi drive over it as it lies in the rain, I think to myself that they could have carried a Lamy Safari or a Jinhao 159 and kept their Omas (or something) safe on the writing desk at home.

[Chazzy91]

I personally clip mine to my pants pocket every time I leave a room, be it my dorm or a classroom. I have also adapted my triple check from phone, keys, wallet to phone + pens, keys, wallet. I lost my first refillable pen (a Pilot 78G) at the beginning of this semester- at this point, I figure I must have missed my pocket or something. It was a crushing loss, even though it was a cheap pen, and I have been really paranoid about keeping track of my pens since.

 

Losing a pen: only once.

I know this post is old, but I thought I'd add my bit. I am with Quarzac. My student budget dictates I put a high value on my small FP collection. Checklist inlcudes phone, keys, wallet, knife, and pen, generally accompanied with a quick tap of my hand on each of the items as I name it. I usually carry my pen on a lanyard about my neck and tucked behind a zip up hoodie since most of my shirts don't have pockets. This lets me feel the weight of the pen against my chest while being tucked inside the hoodie keeps it from clanging into water fountains when I bend over to take a sip.

[OcalaFlGuy]

Made the mistake of leaving my Waterman hemisphere in an unzippered pocket of my bomber... not sure where it went now I was looking for a Lamy 203 leatehr pen case, but I don't know what I want now. Thankfully it wasn't a really expensive pen and it was really beat up ( 4 years of high school use puts a ton of wear on it)

 

The pen you used throughout high school?

 

I've got $20 that says One Day, you'll really like to have That pen back.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

[OcalaFlGuy]

Never take a pen you value highly on a trip. Most of the time I try to take a pen such as a Phileas on trips because it would not be the end of the world if I lost it but I value the pen enough to try and not lose it. So far, none have been lost.

 

You know what this means don't you?

 

Apparently you take good enough care of even your cheaper pens that since you've lost none of them, you could have also taken your nicest pens, enjoyed them More and Still Have them.

 

Don't thank me, I'm here to help.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

[RGH]

I would also second the view, don't buy anything you can't afford to lose.

But also say if you do most of your writing away from home and you don't take you good pens with you then you have wasted your money. You could have been writing with them.

 

Dick D

 

 

 

You know what this means don't you?

 

Apparently you take good enough care of even your cheaper pens that since you've lost none of them, you could have also taken your nicest pens, enjoyed them More and Still Have them.

 

Don't thank me, I'm here to help.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

 

I'm the guy that manages to lose everything. Phones ... keys ... notebooks (grrr...) ... But I don't think I've ever lost a fountain pen (maybe a Vector back in High School). I do tha majority of writing out of the house. So what's point of having a pen if you don;t actually use it.

 

Actually I tell a lie, I have just realised I have lost a nice Montegrappa 300, BUT I know it's in the house somewhere (I was moving out of my office to put a new floor in). In fact maybe I'll spend today looking for it.

[warblerick]

The only FP I have ever lost (then only temporarily) was a Stipula Passaporto, which slipped out of a pants pocket and was hiding under the seat cushion of my reclining easy chair. I only noticed it missing the next day and after a brief but frantic search, remembered when I had it last and it turned up. Since then, I carry any FP that goes in a pocket in a leather case. The leather helps keep it in place in a pants pocket. I also have a very fine small Boker folding knife which never goes in my pocket unless it is in its case, for the same reason; too easy to slip out and lose.

 

Unless it is clipped to a shirt pocket, my pens always travel in leather cases, either a single case or a triple case. I almost never leave home without one (or three) but then the case goes into my satchel and that gets buckled when I am out and about. And I never limit my pens travels to just my cheap TWSBI's or Lamy's. I mostly travel with my best pens.

 

But then again, I am not one to lose things, generally speaking. I can probably count on both hands the number of precious things I have lost in my lifetime. On the other hand, when I do lose something, I usually fret about it for weeks.