Pentode
February 11th, 2016, 08:19 AM
Hello all,
I became a member here, technically, in 2014 but all I did was lurk a bit. After writing my first response to a post yesterday, I figured it was only polite to introduce myself.
I've been using fountain pens on-again-off-again since I was a kid in the '70s. My grandfather owned a printing company/stationary store on lower Broadway in Manhattan from the '50s until sometime in the early '80s, so there were always pens, pencils and office/art supplies of all flavors kicking around my house growing up. Among them were always some Sheaffer No-Nonsense and Parker 45 FPs (the typical stationary store pens of the era) as well as a bunch of Esterbrooks in various states of repair.
I used those through grade school, switched to ball points in high school and college (Jotters from the store, of course!) and started using the old FPs again while traveling for work in the nineties. That time saw me buying a lot of pens as travel souvenirs as well as my first "good" pen; a Pelikan M600, which wrote many, many long letters home.
I don't know that I would call myself a full-blown "collector" as I don't really have any specific goals as far as buying pens go, but I have about two dozen good writers - some vintage and some not - and, since I don't travel much anymore and have less need to write eight-page letters, they mostly get used for day-to-day check writing and to-do lists. I just like using them.
Anyhoo - I ramble. Glad to be here and look forward to participating a little more than I have so far.
-Pentode
I became a member here, technically, in 2014 but all I did was lurk a bit. After writing my first response to a post yesterday, I figured it was only polite to introduce myself.
I've been using fountain pens on-again-off-again since I was a kid in the '70s. My grandfather owned a printing company/stationary store on lower Broadway in Manhattan from the '50s until sometime in the early '80s, so there were always pens, pencils and office/art supplies of all flavors kicking around my house growing up. Among them were always some Sheaffer No-Nonsense and Parker 45 FPs (the typical stationary store pens of the era) as well as a bunch of Esterbrooks in various states of repair.
I used those through grade school, switched to ball points in high school and college (Jotters from the store, of course!) and started using the old FPs again while traveling for work in the nineties. That time saw me buying a lot of pens as travel souvenirs as well as my first "good" pen; a Pelikan M600, which wrote many, many long letters home.
I don't know that I would call myself a full-blown "collector" as I don't really have any specific goals as far as buying pens go, but I have about two dozen good writers - some vintage and some not - and, since I don't travel much anymore and have less need to write eight-page letters, they mostly get used for day-to-day check writing and to-do lists. I just like using them.
Anyhoo - I ramble. Glad to be here and look forward to participating a little more than I have so far.
-Pentode