New fountain pen addict

[jjhcunningham]

Hello FPGeeks forum,

I am fairly new to fountain pens. Started less then a year ago and at 4 pens already . The last one I got at the LA Pen show (Orange Pilot Custom 74, fine). This years pen show was my first exposure to vintage pens (My wife got one, I have not yet). I research to death any hobby I get into and was surprised that I could not find a lot of online resources, besides forums and blogs. Seems like looking through retail online shops gave me most of my incites, and this only covered modern pens. If I am missing some other resources please let me know.

Since I have been a web developer for 16 years I decided to work on a project to give back to the fountain pen community. I would love to know if something like this already exists and if this would be beneficial to the community. I registered the domain PenDatabase.com and hope to have an initial beta up by end of march if not sooner. The main goal is to create a site that allows people to manage their pen collections while adding to a global pen database. Similar to the Fountain Pen Inventory Database by Jon Rosen, but online with everyones inventory adding certain information to a shared database as well. Here are some of the features I have come up with so far and I am open to suggestions.

1. Modern intuitive mobile friendly site
2. Private or public personal pen inventory
3. Searchable public database Including by manufacturer, produced year range, size, nib, material, etc
4. Public database community driven by inventory submissions.
5. Ability for voting on pen traits that conflict based on conflicting submissions
6. Pictures included with pen submission are tagged or categorized to allow display of the pen, parts, and writing samples cleanly
7. Ability to add both private pen inventory comments/notes as well as public ones.
8. Coded to allow for future IOS and Android applications
9. TECH GEEK WARNING: Coded in Golang, Emberjs, Bootstrap, and currently a MongoDB backend (Things I wanted to play with anyways)

Since I am new to this community I apologize if this is something someone else is doing. Don't want to step on anyones hard work.

Super excited to see my pen collection grow and to gain as much fountain pen knowledge as possible.

[Jeph]

Personally I enjoy not even knowing what I have. That way I can open a box or pull out a tray and it is like Christmas all over again.
But I also know that there are many people who like such tools. So good luck.

[Potter]

Database? No thanks, it would reveal the sheer size of my folly!

[kbrede]

Welcome to the forum! Your pen database project sounds great. Keep us posted on the progress.
Kent

[VertOlive]

Welcome! Er, this would be password protected so spouses couldn't actually lay their hands on hard data as to the exact extent of one's collection...right?

[writingrav]

I think it is a great idea but password protection is a must.

[jar]

Welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

There are lots of online resources about pens, most confined to a single brand or era but also some fabulous general knowledge sources. If you have not yet examined Richard Binder's Glossary and Encyclopedia, Gary Ellison's Sheaffer reference, Tony Fischier's great Parker Penography they are great places to start.

A wiki like database of pens is a great idea but unfortunately not everyone really knows what there pen is. You will need some way to filter or correct misidentification. Just look at the number of "What did I just buy" or "What pen is this" threads that appear here and at FPN. Currently there is not even a master list of manufacturers much less of brands. We simply exist in a vacuum when it comes to much of the historical pen brands out there.

One of the Canadian pen posses has been working on a similar database and you should seek their help. There is also an effort to develop a master list of pen makers by an Italian FPN member IIRC.

Good luck with the effort and I hope you keep us posted.

[caribbean_skye]

welcome welcome

[klpeabody]

Welcome to the forum. I love your enthusiasm!

[Wahl]

[Frantik]

[Morgaine]

Hello and welcome

[Mags]

Welcome to the forum and your ideas for an app or software are spot on for many of us with the shhhh feature of a password so if we track what we invested only our bankers know what we spent if we need to leverage our holdings.

[k5MOW]

Welcome to the forum.

Roger

[cwent2]

[chojo]

[Hawk]

Welcome.

[Midwest]

Welcome! While a searchable online database sounds pretty great, I wouldn't trust myself for accurate contributions. For example, I don't know how to identify all the materials and I might not always know if a nib in a vintage pen is original.

Besides the online websites listed above, a few more are parker51.com, vintagepens.net, esterbrook.net, billspens.com, and thepelikansperch.com.

[Bisquitlips]

[inlovewithjournals]