Pen Addicts (not so) Anonymous

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Is it just me?

I have hundreds of pens. Probably a thousand.

All kinds. I have calligraphy and fountain, hi lighters and permanent markers, fat ballpoints and gels, needlepoints and thick felt.

I don’t have particularly nice penmanship, in fact, people who know about such things tease me about how inconsistent it is and how I mix my capitals and lowercase, cursive and block.

But I love to use pens. I love to find new pens with new kinds of points and nibs and ink and flow. I delight in the latest .01 micropoint goodies from Japan, new highlighter colors or erasables, whatever.

The one thing I can’t stand is a boring pen with a boring feel… what most pens are. The standard Bic or whatever. I need something that looks, feels, writes differently. I need to write bold, tiny, color… it’s a sickness.

And I found the perfect place to indulge my sickness: Jetpens!

This also, by the way, goes along with my other paper and office supply fetishes. I’m always checking out the latest notebooks and folders and papers and filing systems.

There’s one thing I found twenty years ago that I cannot imagine life without: my clam clips. I found those things in some little mom&pop office supply in Beverly Hills in 1987, and I have obsessively tracked them down and collected them ever since. For awhile there it was touch and go whether I’d be able to buy them ever again, in the late 90’s, early 2000’s, and I was pretty freaky about making sure every single clip was accounted for. They are all that and a bag of chips. I have about 9 clippers in all three sizes.

So.

Is it just me?

#2

I don’t know that I share your zeal for collecting, I discovered Pilot G-2 pens with a bold point and haven’t looked back. I do want a fountain pen though, I’ve always thought they were kinda neat. Any you can recommend that aren’t too pricey and write with the same thick, blobby (but not too blobby) line as the G-2 bolds?

#3

I have a Schaeffer calligraphy fountain pen that has a nice thick line, and it was pretty cheap.

I liked the G-2 for about 5 minutes, then I got over it. I’m pretty sure the fountain pen writes thicker than that.

#4

I came back from japan with about 40 different pens. The one I always keep going back to is a Pilot G-3 Gel 1.0

#5

Stoid,
My dear kindred spirit.
We must have been separated at birth. I too have a huge collection of pens; not as many as I would like due to cost factors. At work they have pens for us to use but I bring my own. I also love office supplies. Thank you for the link to the awesome pens.

#6

I’m enough of an addict that I make my own. I have many more than I’ll ever use.

#7

I could seriously go crazy buying pens if I let myself. Jetpens is like a sickness for me. It’s like the crack dealer of pens (but its oooonly three dollarsssss…)

Not to lead you on or anything but the Platinum Preppy is a hell of a fountain pen for $3, and you can scrape the name off with your fingernails if it bugs you. :smiley: Lots of ink colors too - I am addicted to the brown.

for another dose of the delicious madness… www.paper-source.com

#8

I am a horrible JetPens addict.

I have boxes of probably thousands of pens in my house, all stored neatly in containers until I use up what I currently have out and replace my stock with the boxed ones.

I have every color in the Hi-Tec-C .04 line, all the Petit1 mini fountain pens, every Slicci color available in .03, two sets of the FriXion iro-enpitsu 24-ct, all of the FriXion .04 fine point colors, I think every color available in the Signo Bit series, all the available colors of the Signo DX .04 line, an Ohto Tasche fountain pen and ballpoint, both in pink barrel, a few Alpha-gels, and I know way more than that, but I don’t have them in front of me to go through and list.

I had a lot of Sakura gel pens, but I gave most of them to my sister.

I also love ultra and extra fine point sharpies. If they didn’t bleed through things, I would use them every day.

Even before JetPens I bought ridiculous amounts of pens from regular stationery stores here. I have little plastic totes full of things I’ve bought from Staples and such. I also have two totes in my kitchen that are ‘community’ pens for use by anyone, because they’re my ‘old’ pens I’m trying to use up. I have so many that some are years old. I still have a bunch of the old discontinued Uni-ball Fusion ones.

Lots of Pens

This is my ‘community’ pen bucket, the aforementioned one. There were twice as many, but I cleared out all the ones that no longer worked or were nearly empty.

#9

I have a bad habit of buying a pen I like, just 'cause I like it. I have too many pens, so I can’t claim I needed a new one.

#10

I have a pen that looks exactly like a 4" long silvery minnow. I hate to throw it away because it’s so beautiful, but it ran out of ink and I can’t seem to find a refill for it. I’ve received three or four beautiful expensive pens for presents over the years, but can’t find a single one.

#11

My dad, for some reason, has collected every pen he’s ever used, even the ones that no longer work. And he loves being given a pen as a gift. And it’s not like they’re fancy. Pretty much all of them have been ball-point.

Okay, some of them are fancy in that they have multiple colors or are bendable or can write anywhere. Or have a light on them. But they’re still all ball-point, which seems odd for a pen enthusiast.

#12

I love pens! I’ve been through a different-colored-ink phase, but my latest favorites are the Aroma Writes with scented ink.

http://brightbluemoon.com/aromawrites.html

#13

I’m particular about pens. They have to be light, and I have to be able to write fast and super-tiny with no smearing or bleed-through or scratching.

My old classic favorite is the Pilot BP-S fine point. Inexpensive, but sweeeeeeeeeeeeet.

#14

I take it you all know Levenger?

http://www.levenger.com/

Nice pens, cool specialty items.

I’ve used their purple ink for years. And they have very interesting clips and such, I’ve also used their Page Points a lot – I suspect they don’t make those anymore, they were too useful a thing – and they have other kinds of clips and journals and etc.

Good pens are a pleasure to use in so many ways and pen mania accompanies my book jones.

#15

I thought I was over it, but I think I feel an expensive fountain pen coming on. I want to look into an ultra-flexible nib fountain pen, even get a customized nib. I have a vintage Waterman, which I love, but I’d like something a little less leaky and without the latex smell. Oh well, at least exotic fountain pens are a lot cheaper than exotic sports cars.

#16

I don’t have hundreds but I use my Waterman and LeBoeuf fountain pens more than I do this keyboard. So I admit it ------- I’m hooked.

#17

Pens? Hell, I love 'em so much I call them ‘writing instruments’.

Nothing like freaking someone out on the phone by saying, “One sec…I need to find a writing instrument…” :cool::D:cool: