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Re: Which way to go?
I come from woodworking, and the selection and fine tuning of tools is programmed in to me at this point in my life. Pens are just... more tools. But I dork out about my tools, and so too my pens. And, compared to mahogany dye, ink stained fingers are a piffle.
I once discovered that gel pens didn’t bleed like rollerballs on the copier paper forms at work. Ten years later, my work pen is a gold nibbed Pilot running Diamine Registrars - you know, it doesn’t bleed either. I have just purchased my first oblique nib (old Pelikan 120!) and I am treading into vintage bladder fillers. I block print, so flex nibs are lost on me. Even so, I’m not bored yet.
Where do I go from here? I go on. This week I resharpened my patternmakers chisels, purchased 30 years ago and still invaluable for (maybe) 2% of my work, a specialized tool. Tomorrow I want to sort out a PenBBS 266 that hard starts. It wasn’t about the chisels, but about the wood that they cut. The pen just writes because I have something to write, and that keeps going.
Get Well!
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Re: Which way to go?
I am enjoying introducing others to the use of fountain pens and restoring Esterbrook pens for them.
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Re: Which way to go?
Glad you're up and about again E_o_C, and feeling better. Saw your post about your Parker 51 set -- you definitely scored!
For the past two weeks I've been pretty sick with bronchitis on top of COPD, but seem to finally be turning the corner.
I've thought about my own relationship to the acquisition of pens and certain other items that collectors collect, and whether it's pens, coins, Wile E. Coyote memorabilia or old books or anything else, I see and I want and I get if I can afford, because I want. I don't consciously "collect," and I see pens in particular as beautiful tools. I get them to use, and if I don't use them I sell them or give them away. I might get one pen because it's gorgeous, and another because it writes so well, or has a type of nib that I need for a particular use. Also certain brands have a mystique about them that calls to me.