Some people have hobbies, and if you take two different people they’ll have two different hobbies, unless you’re at a model train show or something of that nature. There’s some primal, animalistic instinct in our minds to obtain and hoarde different things, be it Magic cards, rare books, postage stamps, the heads of dead woodland creatures, whatever.
And some people collect fountain pens.
My collection isn’t quite a collection, per say. My father collects Revolutionary Russain stamps, in particular he has a definitive collection of stamps issued by the last great White general, Gen. Alexi Wrangel. By comparison, my collection is best described as, “post-ballpoint utilitarian,” which is to say, “cheap pens from 1970 onward.”
I’ve read an interesting post from the alt.collecting.pens newsgroup, written by Sam, the nice lady from Pendemonium I give all my money to. She wrote that, when pen collectors first began to link up over the Internet, the main concern was the historical value of the pens, and actually using those pens was a novelty. She added that she has pens that she writes with, but those aren’t part of her collection, they’re just pens to write with.
At this stage in my enthusiasm, I have only working pens. I can understand that some pens are just not meant to be written with. If I had a mint condition Suchansuch I couldn’t bring myself to write with it, I’d follow conventional wisdom and perform a sacodectomy (The rubber sac inside vintage pens degradesand releases sulphuric gasses, discoloring the pen material).
I can appreciate that. However, I have no desire at this stage to purchase a pen that doesn’t work. I want to write with my pens.
The downside to collecting functional fountain pens is your collection of ink. This is a hidden collection. there are no ink shows (outside of trade conventions, if they exist). The fountain pen ink industry is barely a blackhead on the back of the ink and dye industry worldwide. Yet you can build model rockets, but you can’t launch them without engines. If you want to write with your fountain pens, you need ink. And that is where the real addiction is. I am, of course, looking at Noodler’s and Private Reserve.
Each ink brand is unique. Some are thicker, some are thinner, some are more vibrant, and some, like Noodler’s, are “bulletproof,” it can withstand bleach, carpet cleaner, UV light, sun bleaching, and anything else that would otherwise degrade ink before the paper itself rots away.
Can it get more exciting than that? Of course, it just isn’t the colors of inks you use in ballpoints. There is, on my desk, right now, Noodler’s Black, Widowmaker Red, Ottoman Azure, Purple, and Marine Green. Each pen has a color devoted to it.
That is where the real addiction is. With over a dozen manufacturers of ink, each ink has a unique blend of viscosity, saturation, dye concentration, and so on. There is a nearly uncontrollable urge to have a specific ink color dedicated to each particular pen, and which ink brings more debate than anything else in the pen world. If you ask two people if Parker’s or Sheaffers were better, you’d be told they both have their good points. If you ask two people if Quink of Penman ink is better, you will get a fiery red debate.
As I said, I have black, blue, red, green, and purple: the last two colors being rather exotic in the world of ink. Now that I have an extra pen in the mail, I am swallowing the urge to buy a new bottle of ink. What on earth would it be, anyway? Orange? Or one of the “bulletproof” inks from Noodler’s like the Pendemonium-exclusive Legal Lapis?
As a poor college kid, this is an addiction I can fight. For now.
