What info do you catalog?

[betsypreston]

Do you catalog your pen collection?

What information do you save?

[jbb]

I do not keep any data on my pen collection -- knowing might inhibit buying.

I do however keep an Excel spreed sheet on snail mail and I've sent over 1300 letters since 2006.

[tandaina]

I don't. My collection lives in a cabinet so is highly visible. When I have resold pens I've occasionally wondered how much I originally paid but oh well.

[Jeph]

I don't either. I do this for fun so I don't want any chores. Plus I really don't want to know. And, much more importantly, I don't want my wife to know.

[BikerBabe]

Jeph: Have you ever tried turning your wife into a fountain pen collector as well? ;)

[GING GING]

I wonder if there is an app that can be put to use for cataloging pens????

[Jeph]

Jeph: Have you ever tried turning your wife into a fountain pen collector as well? ;)

I have given her 2, restored her deceased brother's FP and presented it to her, and even bought her a purple one with purple cartridges when we were at the Pelikan factory. She says "Oh, that's nice!" and then they lay on the table forgotten. I even had her help me pick out "my" purple ink. She dutifully helped and then dismissed it from her mind. At least she has stopped rolling her eyes at me. She watched me cleaning a pen yesterday for 6 hours with my magnifying lenses over my reading glasses under bright light using Q-tips while muttering profanity and did not even say a word. She even does not complain as much about the non-stop stream of packages arriving at the door. I call THAT progress.

To stay on topic, I DID start an excel spreadsheet when I first started. It almost immediately became a chore and my requirements kept expanding to the point that I was spending more time on the spreadsheet than I was on the pens. That was when I broke the chains of recordkeeping and set myself free to enjoy the hobby.

I did get yelled at just this Saturday that I had no idea how many pens I owned, much less what they are and if anythiing ever happened there would be no way to figure out what I had lost. That statement is true, but most of the special ones have posts here as a record. The rest are mostly junk.

[Chi Town]

I catalog; all my pens! and all my inks as well as my entire Fountain Pen Book Library that consists of 38 books. Yes it's a lot of work as i maintain it between 3 computer's, but ohhh well, it is very important to me!

[top pen]

I call it a pen inventory and I only keep a few things on record however it is still useful

Here is a screen shot

Safety simply refers to how likely I am to sell it on.

[fpquest]

I keep all my pens inventoried in Evernote. I also keep an ink history for each pen (although I go through phases where I don't do this) and try to note especially good or bad matches. I find Evernote easier because it's everywhere and the free-form text is quicker to update, at least for me. I keep the following info when it applies:

Pen Info
Manufacturer:
Model:
Vintage Year:
Color:
Pen Material:
Filling System:
Cartridge Type:
Notes:

Nib Info
Nib Size:
Nib Material:
Notes:

Financial Info
Date Acquired:
Price:
Vendor:

[GING GING]

I keep all my pens inventoried in Evernote. I also keep an ink history for each pen (although I go through phases where I don't do this) and try to note especially good or bad matches. I find Evernote easier because it's everywhere and the free-form text is quicker to update, at least for me. I keep the following info when it applies:

Pen Info
Manufacturer:
Model:
Vintage Year:
Color:
Pen Material:
Filling System:
Cartridge Type:
Notes:

Nib Info
Nib Size:
Nib Material:
Notes:

Financial Info
Date Acquired:
Price:
Vendor:
Thanx, FPQUEST.

[Kaputnik]

I've got a spreadsheet of my pens that was originally just supposed to keep track of what ink each had in it. When I empty one, I change the ink column to a strikeout font until it's inked again. I added columns for the country of manufacture and the price, so it's a de facto catalog of the collection.

And there's another spreadsheet for how much I've spent on this crazyness. Anything pen related that I buy, pens, inks, parts, accessories, "FP friendly" notebooks or paper goes on there. I know what I've spent and it's about time to take a break.

[orfew]

I keep a list of all of my pens for insurance purposes. I typically record the name of the brand and model or model no. I also record the nib size. I do not bother with value as this is easy enough to look up when needed. I also have photographs of all of my pens on photo bucket. this makes it easy to access my photos, again for insurance purposes.