Do you use your best (grail) pens or store them and use the lowly ones?

[svk]

I find that I tend to keep my grail pens well-stored and hardly use them. I go back to some 'lowly'ones that I have in stock. I was curious what you all do?

[OCArt]

Ah yes, another child of depression era parents. My tendency is also to save "for good" and use the others. Silly isn't it. On the flip side I get so much pleasure from my Chinese pens, partly for the bargain they are and partly because they've come a long way and now make some fabulous pens. I particularly like pens by Majohn, Asvine, and the Jinhao upper models. They usually write well out of the box and at most need a tiny nib adjustment.

[jchch1950]

Some of the Grail pens get used when I know where they are going to be used and can be carried safely. Note-taking in a library is ok, but conference places and park benches are not. 

[Beechwood]

4 hours ago, OCArt said:

Ah yes, another child of depression era parents. My tendency is also to save "for good" and use the others. Silly isn't it. On the flip side I get so much pleasure from my Chinese pens, partly for the bargain they are and partly because they've come a long way and now make some fabulous pens. I particularly like pens by Majohn, Asvine, and the Jinhao upper models. They usually write well out of the box and at most need a tiny nib adjustment.

 

 

I know just what you mean, I saw my first 149 as a very young man in a store window, fell in love but the price was more than I earned in a week, I really wanted one, I had Parker 51/61s at the time but that MB had a lot of appeal.

 

I have  been lucky enough to have had some 149s in my life and used them daily in my job, I have just two, one was a gift from the staff when I sold my business with a condition that no employee would be asked to leave by the new owners for at least two years, another 149 comes out and inked to recreate that store window moment from all those years ago.

[Al-fresco]

Interesting question - I'm in the "no point buying something unless you intend to use it" camp.  So if a pen writes, I'll use it, and if I stop using it then it's destined for a new home.   I'm more cautious about taking pens out of the house though.  I do tend to favour cheaper pens for that.  The most expensive pen I've lost while travelling was a Diplomat Aero - easily replaced but a lesson learned. 

[InkyProf]

I have pens I haven't used, but none, so far, that I wouldn't use. Price makes no difference to me in this respect, and when I encounter pens that are so grail-y, at least in price, that they make me think twice about whether I'd feel comfortable using them, this hesitation tends to dampen my enthusiasm. (However, like @Al-fresco, I distinguish between pens I'll use at my desk and pens I'll also put into a bag and carry to campus. Mostly that turns out to be a distinction between vintage and non-vintage, more than between expensive and inexpensive, though not entirely.)

 

I would be reluctant to use a pen that was rare, uninked, and which still had chalk marks, stickers, tags, etc., mainly because, as a user, I'd want that stuff out of the way -- but that's also why I don't tend to buy pens like that: I don't personally value those things.

 

I would also be reluctant to use what I would call an "association pen" (I don't know what they're really called in this hobby, I'm borrowing the term from the antiquarian book world), one whose previous ownership or provenance was part of its significance (which might or might not also mean its market value: that's also not what motivates me). If anything was going to get me to pay a premium, it would be provenance, not chalk marks; and since that would make the pen genuinely irreplaceable, I'd probably keep it behind a velvet rope, yeah.

 

(All this makes me think that there might be a spectrum of different ways of being a hybrid collector-user, depending on whether the collector impulse is more a matter of process, collecting, or end result, a collection. I'm more a "process" collector, I think: what differentiates me from being just a user is my interest in learning the history of pens, their production details, their variations, their cultural significance, etc., and the pleasure I get from that learning is inseparable from the pleasure of the chase: shopping is research is shopping is research, and so on. The actual collection is important, but it's also just a byproduct of the collecting activity; it will change as I do, until I'm gone, and then it will be dispersed.)

 

[Mechanical]

I'm in the camp of "if it is too expensive to use, then it is too expensive for me to buy."  I use everything on a regular rotation.

 

 

[USG]

I'm not a collector, I'm a pen, paper and ink enthusiast. 

All my pens are inked.  😁

[Beechwood]

This is one of those discussions that splits opinion and has been going on for years. Ten years ago I had 300+ pens from 1920 through 2000 but used just a couple on a daily basis. I could have used the 300 in rotation but ars longa, vita brevis. 

 

If I had just five pens then the decision might have been different

[inkstainedruth]

The only pens I don't/haven't used are ones that haven't been repaired yet, or that I haven't gotten the correct converters for....  

As for "grail" pens?  My choice of those is mostly a non-issue because of the price tags I've seen on any of them... .  If I COULD afford them, though?  You bet I'd use them (although possibly ONLY at home).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Detman101]

I don't use my vintage Swan pen because it's just too small.
It flexes perfectly, the Ebonite feels astoundingly great.
But it's just too small!
Its like trying to write with a crayon.
I just can't...
So In the "Valuable Heirloom" safe it sits...filled with water.

-DM  

[Ceilidh]

I use them. It's what I bought them for.

[Mark from Yorkshire]

I use every fountain pen that I own, that is their intended purpose. That being said like others have stated there are those I won’t take out of the house.

[lamarax]

9 hours ago, Mechanical said:

I'm in the camp of "if it is too expensive to use, then it is too expensive for me to buy."  I use everything on a regular rotation.

 

I was about to write my piece, but @Mechanical said it all in one phrase.

[Lam1]

I use all my pens, with one exception. The exception is not my most expensive pen, rather it is a pen of whose model I already had 20+ pens and when it arrived I put it away to ink it another day, but never got to it. So, now (5 or 6 years later) I don't see the point and will sell it at some point.

 

I also carry all my pens, again with one exception. And the exception is because the pen is too big to fit in any of my cases, so I have to buy a case to carry it. When I get around to do that, it will go to work with me.

 

However I see no problem in people just collecting pens and not using them - to each their own. For this reason, if I get my hands on a rare vintage pen that is uninked and/or stickered, I don't keep them. When it comes to vintage I prefer the ones that have been used.

[Ceramicist]

I use my grail pen-- the Bayard Red Ripple with silver dragonfly clip. We also use our good china and flatware daily. My philosophy is that we are special enough to use and enjoy our nicest things on a daily basis. Why wait as that day may never come.

[lamarax]

There's a difference between 'using a pen' and using it to 'your heart's content'  

[lamarax]

51 minutes ago, Ceramicist said:

I use my grail pen-- the Bayard Red Ripple with silver dragonfly clip. We also use our good china and flatware daily. My philosophy is that we are special enough to use and enjoy our nicest things on a daily basis. Why wait as that day may never come.

 

Here's the problem; "grail" pens cease to be "grail" once you've acquired them   

[Penguincollector]

  I have used or plan to use all of my pens, even the rare ones. I have turned down NOS antiques before because I felt that certain pens were better secondhand for me, because I use them. 
 

  I do understand the tendency to use the less expensive or rare things in your collection- I think it’s my default setting sometimes. I had a habit of always trying to use up a meh ink, or a notebook paper that I didn’t like as much as others. After the pandemic- I realized that this is mid life, I should enjoy things now, why wait? 

[svk]

Here's the problem; "grail" pens cease to be "grail" once you've acquired them   

• Interesting. Desire, acquire, AND THEN use, or keep and sell later?