No New Pens in 2022

[InesF]

On 1/2/2022 at 6:30 PM, brokenclay said:

If you feel the same, please join me in celebrating not buying any more pens, but enjoying the ones we have, ...

Yes, please allow me to join your noble club!

Will you grab my hand and hold me back in case I become weak?

 

Overcoming the temptation to add <this cute and lovely, unique and nice> fountain pen to the collection is much lower in 2022, as I bought a lot in 2021 and feel satisfied since some month. The situation is totally different when it comes to inks - I'm still searching for ... hmm ... for what? ... for the one, the only one precious, unknown to me now and still missing. 😎 

[brokenclay]

46 minutes ago, InesF said:

Yes, please allow me to join your noble club!

Will you grab my hand and hold me back in case I become weak?

Happy to help! I ask myself when I'm tempted if I already have something similar, and maybe I should ink that up and re-acquaint myself with its joys.

[brokenclay]

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

I'm forcing myself to do the opposite.  Later this month I will be PiFing about a half-dozen fountain pens, carts, pipettes, and other items.

Well done, someone (or someones) will be very happy!

[amberleadavis]

Several times today I started to write out an answer so that I could post it and each time work kept getting in the way. So now it's the end of the day or the beginning of a new one and I still don't have time to write a reply which I guess means I don't have time to buy a new pen. Which is a wonderful first world problem.

[JulieParadise]

8 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

[...] and I still don't have time to write a reply which I guess means I don't have time to buy a new pen[...]

, yet.

 

I might add. And I also wish to express my feeling regarding this thread's title: "No new pens in 2022" sounds like a threat to me and I shudder in horror every time it pops up.

 

Not that I have anything planned or any whishes for a specific pen I want to acquire, but the last two years have shown me what a luxury it is to have the funds to act = buy once a nice pen comes my way. So, maybe this year no pen might catch my desire, or maybe ten, and it all will be okay. I am very happy and fine with what I have, but I am not going to let an opportunity pass when it appears, like last year when someone sold a green Pelikan M400 for only 40 € over at a German pen forum, just because the nib was slightly bent, which I could sort out within minutes. So ... I am not looking to buy but not saying no when something almost falls into my lap either. 😉 

[brokenclay]

6 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

I might add. And I also wish to express my feeling regarding this thread's title: "No new pens in 2022" sounds like a threat to me and I shudder in horror every time it pops up.

 

That was certainly not my intention! Forgive me!

 

6 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

Not that I have anything planned or any whishes for a specific pen I want to acquire, but the last two years have shown me what a luxury it is to have the funds to act = buy once a nice pen comes my way. So, maybe this year no pen might catch my desire, or maybe ten, and it all will be okay. I am very happy and fine with what I have, but I am not going to let an opportunity pass when it appears, like last year when someone sold a green Pelikan M400 for only 40 € over at a German pen forum, just because the nib was slightly bent, which I could sort out within minutes. So ... I am not looking to buy but not saying no when something almost falls into my lap either.

 

This attitude sounds perfect to me. I am trying to free myself from the doom scrolling equivalent of pen shopping: the anxious, dopamine-seeking hunt for the next hit, when I already have a bunch of lovely pens just begging to be used. If I were to come across a pen such as you describe, I'd be inclined to buy as well.

[senzen]

I'd vowed to stop buying more pens during 2021; five pens later, with two more on the way, here we are. They have all been very nice and even a couple of grail pens at small or very reasonable prices, but still... The biggest break has been having all the inks I like and finding them the right pens. So it's more  "abandon all hope" than words of wisdom, I'm afraid.

[halffriedchicken]

What is helpful for me when I have an urge to buy a new pen is to admire the pens I already have. Sometimes I will ink up my pens and write with them and often that's enough for me to not want another pen because I ask myself "Will I really like that new pen more than this one?" Another thing I do is to give myself a set number of refills that I should ink up the latest purchase before looking to buy the next one. This gives me a period of time to appreciate the pens I have before looking to buy the next shiny one.

 

I usually buy pens or ink to reward myself and splurge maybe once or twice a year, or if I find a really good deal on used pens.

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, senzen said:

I'd vowed to stop buying more pens during 2021; five pens later, with two more on the way, here we are.

 

There's also the question of whether buying a pen for someone else, especially if it does not even physically past through your hands, counts. Due to the high cost of shipping, when even domestic postage of anything other than a ‘letter’ is non-trivial, on multiple occasions in 2021 I have found it more advantageous to just order a new pen or bottle of ink online, and have the retailer send it sent directly to a friend (especially if ‘free’ shipping was on offer), instead of packing and sending him/her what I have here. (Alas, that meant I'm still ‘stuck’ with the pens I was intending to give away.)

[brokenclay]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

There's also the question of whether buying a pen for someone else, especially if it does not even physically past through your hands, counts.

For me, buying a gift for someone else (that happens to be a pen) is fine: my goal is to avoid what what I will call (again, just for myself) mindless accumulation prompted by FOMO, or herd movement, or marketing.

[Savit]

7 hours ago, halffriedchicken said:

What is helpful for me when I have an urge to buy a new pen is to admire the pens I already have. Sometimes I will ink up my pens and write with them and often that's enough for me to not want another pen because I ask myself "Will I really like that new pen more than this one?" 

 

I do the same ☺️

 

I buy a new pen when I face a terrible adversity in life that is beyond my control. In 2020 and 2021 unfortunately there were many. My collection of pens reminds me the difficult times that have passed.

 

So I sincerely hope I don't buy any new pens in 2022.

 

In 2021 I gifted around 40 pens to interested friends. I hope to do the same in 2022 to reduce my pen collection. 

[sirgilbert357]

I will join this effort.

 

I had another "hobby" -- watches -- and I joined the "WPAC Thread" (Watch Purchasing Abstinence Club) on the watch forum I frequent -- it was very helpful to be able to talk to other like-minded folks who were willing to talk you down from purchasing. I have cut my watch collection down from 13 to only 6, with one "gym watch" (a really cheap 20 dollar digital that almost doesn't count).

 

I would like to do something similar with my pens -- consolidate and sell some off. But with the classifieds still being broken, I just haven't been motivated. I'm not using eBay and I don't know where else I would sell them. I only have like 3 or 4 I would be willing to get rid of currently. But I'm sure if others looked over my collection, they could point out a few models that seem redundant...

[A Smug Dill]

25 minutes ago, sirgilbert357 said:

But I'm sure if others looked over my collection, they could point out a few models that seem redundant...

 

As writing instruments, they aren't redundant if you're (still) writing with them in the course of your everyday life and routines  , without making a special effort just to see to it that they get some use, for the sake of it or to justify their existence.

 

That's not to say you ought not feel driven to deliberately downsize your collection but, let's face it, few of us truly need to own two or umpteen fountain pens just to put legible and persistent marks on paper by hand. You can probably live without either, or both, your Diplomat Aero in turquoise and your Sailor 1911 Large ‘Stormy Sea’, and not because they have any similarity other than being fountain pens that took your fancy (probably for different reasons). Your three(?) Pelikan piston-fillers, too. How much of your sheer enjoyment from the use of those pens are you prepared to pare away, in the spirit of rationalisation? I mean, at the heart of it, it's not only or really about culling sheer number of pens, but which pieces of your enjoyment of the hobby you think are “not worth the cost” of what you might be able to liquidate and recoup, for motivations and/or needs unrelated to your use of the pens.

 

You'd be choosing to put your personal priorities on something else (for now); so it's not a case of too many pens vying for limited attention or actual utility in everyday applications, thus making for redundancy between themselves.

[peroride]

<finds thread in Activity feed>

 

Ooo, look that sounds like me ...

 

As I finished reading aloud the original post ...

 

Wife: "That's what we all say and then they magically appear! "

 

😂

 

I'll try harder in 2022.

[vicpen123]

Can't make this resolution.

 

For two years I have not been able to attend the Melbourne Pen Show (where I buy most of my pens) due to the viral madness in our society and so have not bought any pens for these two years. I will not buy on ebay and postage from the USA is horrendously expensive.

 

So I have at least two years of looking and buying to catch up on and then I might rest. I any event, for the moment, I have all the pens I want and need so for the time being I am satisfied.

 

But show me something new or different and I will be interested.

[MuddyWaters]

I can say no pens today, but since most pens are bought on impulse, committing beyond that would just be unrealistic. Hopefully I don't buy on impulse this year. 

[Karmachanic]

I like this idea of no new pens.  Means I can focus on vintage  Maybe a 139 in October or so.

[JulieParadise]

5 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

I like this idea of no new pens.  Means I can focus on vintage  Maybe a 139 in October or so.

Har har, nice try! 🤣

[ajoe]

Very interesting thread.

 

I am beginning to think that I should go over to the country club and explain to them why I don't want to be a member.

[inkandseeds]

This is easy.  There isn’t much out there to attract me to buy.  I don’t display my pens.  I am not a “collector”, though at one point in my life I was under the delusion that I might be.  I like to write with my pens.  I am not attracted to fancy pens or expensive pens.  My pens are like my beater truck: dependable, simple, tough, inexpensive but quality, and totally unobtrusive (gets the job done without attracting attention).  When I discuss fountain pens with the few other users I know, it is about the writing experience and not about collecting.  
 

Over the past year or two, I have started to give away pens and inks that I don’t use and think that others may enjoy.  I plan to prune down my possessions and that includes my pens.
 

Plus, why buy more pens when I can live vicariously by reading about the wonderful experiences many of you have buying pens?  Thank you to all of you who post about the pens you buy, pen and ink reviews, your pen experiences and pen shows.  A special thanks to all those who include pictures.  I really do appreciate it.