Highest reasonable number of inked pens at a time

[TheDiplomat]

Hello everybody! I was wondering, what do you regard as the highest sensible number of inked pens at a time? Where’s the threshold of insanity?

I currently have inked pens at my office, my place and gf’s place... altogether 3 Lamys, 4 Jinhaos, a Diplomat and a Montblanc. Somehow want to ink one more Faber-Castell Ambition to have an inked F nib at my home desk, but that would bring the number up to... 10! 
I’m starting to feel pressure to use them all not to allow them to dry up and I think I end up missing the joy of focusing on my favourites...

What’s your take on that?  

[Karmachanic]

Sensible = 3. Threshold of Insanity = all of them. Up to you to find your happy place.

[TheDiplomat]

Oh wow, 3 is tight! 😅

[Wolverine1]

I keep 5 pens inked at all times. @ lamy Al-Stars, 2 MB 149s and a Sailor 1911 Realo pens are in my rotation currently. The 2 Lamy's are always inked, and  the 2 MB fps and the Sailor fp are used and changed out for different pens. But, I keep  only 5 pens inked. Anymore, I find the pens are not used as much and the ink dries up, meaning I have to waste time soaking and cleaning them up.

[Karmachanic]

Three pens and suitable sleeve/case and you're good to go. If you prefer you can obtain a 6/12/20/40/60 slot case. Or have them spread out over various locations. Many permutations. Your choice.

[TheDiplomat]

Sounds very reasonable. So I’m guessing you rather carry the pens, not keep them at different desks (ex. work, home, etc)

[TheDiplomat]

Just now, Karmachanic said:

That’s what I do  , I mean, store them at different locations. But that led me to 9/10 😂😂

Edited March 18, 2021 by TheDiplomat

[mizgeorge]

12 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

Sensible = 3. Threshold of Insanity = all of them. Up to you to find your happy place.

I'm nowhere near threshold of insanity but at least ten times sensible. I just like being able to just grab the 'right' one, with the right ink for what I'm doing at that moment. I'm considering upping the number to allow for nib variations as well.  I use all of the inked pens at least once every few days, even if just for the pleasure of writing with them.

[A Smug Dill]

11 hours ago, TheDiplomat said:

I’m starting to feel pressure to use them all not to allow them to dry up

 

So use pens with effective cap seals, and take the psychological pressure off yourself. I don't care how much a particular fountain pen cost to acquire, much less which brand name it bears; if it doesn't have an effective cap seal, then I classify it as an inferior pen.

 

11 hours ago, TheDiplomat said:

What’s your take on that?

 

I have three Platinum Preppy pens (in yellow, blue and purple) dedicated to three Sailor STORiA pigment inks and another three for Rubinato dye inks, and eleven Platinum Plaisir pens mostly for Pilot Iroshizuku colours, all sitting in two pen cups to be used only once in a while (and then, only to write a few lines on each occasion). They don't dry out even if left untouched for months on end. Another sixteen Daiso Air-Seal fountain pens, with spring-loaded inner caps similar to what's in the Platinum Preppy, are filled with different iron-gall inks for a year-long ink testing project. Then, (I think) twenty-one Wing Sung 3008 pens for as many different shimmer inks; in spite of not having an inner cap, in my experience they don't dry out within six months either. None of those are intended for everyday writing or frequent use, but simply there on standby ready to dispense those specific ink colours when the need arises or the mood strikes.

 

Then there are the better pens (e.g. Platinum #3776 Century with a UEF nib) dedicated to particular purposes (e.g. writing on envelopes, customs declaration forms and sample vial labels using waterproof ink). The use of any of those pens are not about enjoyment of the writing experience, but simply to fulfil a functional need (that does not necessarily arise often).

 

All in all, I have over 150 of my pens inked, and that's not counting my wife's thirty- or forty-odd. A pen that allows a full fill of ink to dry out in under three months simply has no place among my favourites, even if I don't outright declare them to be defective and not fit for my purposes as far as writing instruments go.

[Wolverine1]

"I keep 5 pens inked at all times. @ lamy Al-Stars, 2 MB 149s and a Sailor 1911 Realo pens are in my rotation currently. The 2 Lamy's are always inked, and  the 2 MB fps and the Sailor fp are used and changed out for different pens. But, I keep  only 5 pens inked. Anymore, I find the pens are not used as much and the ink dries up, meaning I have to waste time soaking and cleaning them up."

 

Diplomat- I keep my valuable pens at my home office. When I go to work, I usually carry the Lamy Al-Stars or  my Parker 51s or Parker 100 fps. I dont to too much handwriting at work, most of the writing at work is done on my laptop. All the serious handwriting I do is done mostly at home. I have a 10 pen case, which I carry to work, it is filled with the fps I am carrying for the day and a couple of machined Karas Kustom pens and Tactile Turn pens, those are my ballpoint and gel pens.

[Ron Z]

I have a 12 pen case that is usually full, with a couple few others outside.  Every so often I say "I have to clean out some pens, so I flush and spin a bunch, and then put them away.  Somehow the number of inked pens slowly rises again over a week or two as either a clients pen, or something on one of the pen boards or Ebay gets me to thinking about a pen that I own.  I end up filling it, and then in short order I've got 15 or so inked again.

 

SO, the reasonable number of pens to have filled at any give time is like the number of bicycles that one should own = N+1, where N is the number currently filled, and the next one the itch that you have to scratch by filling another.

[tde44x]

I keep trying to keep the number down but it always ends up at between 8 and 10. 

 

I use 4 all the time for writing (fiction). 2 for journaling. 2 for editing. The others have shimmer inks loaded for special/personal writing.

[PAKMAN]

I have had up to 5 but 2-3 makes more sense for me. Pens dry out from not enough use or take too long to empty if I have too many filled at once.

[KLscribbler]

This is a fun topic! The answer will most likely vary greatly depending on personal differences in daily routines and amount of writing usually done each day.

That said, my personal habit in "normal" times (pre-pandemic/pre-WFH) was to always have 4 pens inked up at any time. Sometimes it goes up to 5, but more than 5 gets to be slightly annoying. The 4 inked pens will almost always be: 1x main writer/work pen, 1x alternate main writer (often a sturdy pen that is suitably pocketable for use on the go), 1x fine nib markup/annotation pen, and 1x "whatever strikes my fancy" fun pen. If there is a 5th pen inked, it may be in any of these usage categories, or it may be a pen I am testing.

The pandemic being the messy time that it is, I'm actually in the awkward state of having 6 pens inked right now, but one of them is an Opus 88 Picnic that is on its last dregs of ink, so in a couple days' time I'll get back down to the realm of sanity again.

[Aysedasi]

I have at least 7-8 filled at any one time.  

[yulie1]

I average about 6 at a time, but have gone up to 8. I do a lot of writing for work and personal use, so the pens are emptied fairly quickly. Right now these consist of a Conid Bulkfiller, Constellation 88, Moonman, Parker 61 and a Sheaffer vac. These are large ink capacity, but they don't get a chance to sit much!

[es9]

I try to keep it at around five or six: one or two for throwing in a bag (TWSBI and/or Esterbrook J), one or two for normal writing (Parker 51 and/or Sheaffer Snorkel), and one or two that I am working on or curious about.  One more has recently joined the mix: a short slender Sheaffer Balance (lever-filler) dedicated to IG ink.  

[Mech-for-i]

usually 3 or 4 ,

[SlowMovingTarget]

32 minutes ago, Mech-for-i said:

usually 3 or 4 ,

I'm hearing Pete Puma say that to Bugs Bunny...

 

But those are my usual numbers. Three or four, or if I'm going wild five. Having five pens inked at once usually happens when I need to use an inkwell, and I don't want to risk skunking the bottle by putting the unused ink back in. Instead, I'll fill a goof-around pen with a syringe (FPR Darjeeling with a Goulet B nib, or a Jinhao x750).

 

I was going to say there's a Redditor "napsforlife" that routinely inks 60+ pens, but that's because she makes fountain pen art. But A Smug Dill seemingly has her beat by a factor of two or three.

[TheDiplomat]

20 minutes ago, SlowMovingTarget said:

 

 

I was going to say there's a Redditor "napsforlife" that routinely inks 60+ pens, but that's because she makes fountain pen art. But A Smug Dill seemingly has her beat by a factor of two or three.

mmmmmmmhmmmmm! 
and on another note: I think my 9/10 is way above average. That’s it, I’m draining and cleaning half of them tomorrow :)