Too many choices...

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Okay, another in my series of ill-thought out musings.

At the last count it seems as though approximately 45 bottles of ink have taken up roost in my home. By way of contrast there are only 9 pens. For those who like me are arithmetically challenged, 45 doesn't go into 9.

So, there is this problem. What inks to use in which pens? Seems simple, but you know how it is. Now sooner have you got all your pens inked when the hankering comes on to write something with one of the other inks, the ones not in the pens. Then what do you do? Flush a pen with a near full barrel of ink just to write a few lines in a different colour. What if you have more than one favourite ink for a specific nib? But you want to use all of them?

One way of working the problem would be to have at least equal or more pens than inks...


... hang on a moment! Isn't that what they used to do 'back in the day', as the hoary old saying goes?

I don't know about other people, but for me, even with a relatively few ink types (compared to a Chrissy for instance ) the problem can be thorny.

Sometimes I long for the days of one pen and one ink. For life!


What say you, fountain pen fiends?

[Paddler]

One pen and one ink would be too limiting for me, even if the pen has interchangeable nibs (that gets messy). Can a mechanic (even a shade-tree mechanic) do his work with one wrench, albeit an adjustable one? Nay! Oh, you can communicate with one pen and one ink, but you can't do it with panache.

[catbert]

Used to do one pen, one ink, when I didn't know what was out there.
Could probably do, say, six pens, six inks now, though I have many times that.
Which six would be the question. Fortunately, I'm not obliged to answer it.

[Wuddus]

I only restarted my fountain pen journey this year, and while I have been exploring what I want, I have been mindful of the feelings of becoming overwhelmed, and striving to minimise it.

I wanted three primary pens, and six primary inks. A pocket pen, for which I wanted two conservative coloured inks in the blue spectrum as my start point. Next is an italic stub letter writing pen, which could use the first two inks, plus a couple of other darker, but elegantly different inks. Finally a daily scribbler, which could use any of the four previous inks, plus a couple of fun inks that I'd never use for anything other than my own phone notes, shopping lists, or working through my own thoughts.

It wasn't long, before I had discovered all of these, and there's a strong chance I could go from two inks per pen, to three inks per pen. On top of this I have a few other pens which I can use for trying out other inks, or simply if I just fancy a change. The three pens with six inks primary set up gives me a stable, but not monotonous base to work from, and then the chance to stray into other things for a while if I want to.

I am very comfortable with this arrangement. It covers all my needs, means I have a few select option, but neither feel overwhelmed nor constricted, or at risk of boredom. My choices wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but they tick all the right boxes for me, practically, and emotionally. I would feel swamped with 45 inks. Truth be told, I'd feel swamped with a third of that. We should each follow our own path though, and while I've found what works for me, I wouldn't want to preach it to others.

[penwash]

Somehow I never end up with a lot of inks. Just less than 10 bottles (including one that is a freebie and one that is a gift).
When I'm curious about some inks, I just order sample vials from Vanness.

To organize that, I have someone make a 3D printed ink sample holder:



This stays on my desk and because I restore a lot of vintage pens, it's very convenient for me to choose what ink I want to do the writing sample with.

It's a process that works for me, may not work for everyone.

[Wuddus]

As to wanting to swap and change inks frequently, I have felt that way with new inks (which is where the spare pens come in very handy), but that seems to settle down quite quickly with me. I do have a side project that I'm getting geared up for, which will see me using different inks in sporadic use, but for that I will be trying dip pens. I can use small quantities of all my drawing/calligraphy inks, and switching colours is as simple as closing one bottle, opening another, and rinsing a nib. No waste.

Thankfully, I've only bought one ink so far which does not fit into my needs. It performs well, but is not a colour I care for. I might warm to it in time, or I might experiment mixing it with something else. It's just one bottle though, so for now it's just put to one side while I enjoy using the others.

[Bold2013]

My wife is into minimalism so I try to keep things simple.

I keep my pen count to 7 (closer to 5-6 now a days). I decided to only have one bottle of black, blue, green, and red ink. If I want to branch out I buy cartridges (mb toffee brown and gvfc hazelnut have been calling my name).

[SIR]

I'm not counting how many inks, i only have a vague idea how many pens i have - and the ratio of inks to pens isn't even 2:1... i probably only regularly use 2 or 3 out of the 50 or so inks i have, but they're definitely all keepers.

[countrydirt]

Yes, you need more inexpensive pens to try out the inks! But 45 bottles? Wow, that's impressive. I think I have about 10. I fully intend to empty some this year!!

[carlos.q]

I have come to the conclusion that I have too many pens and way too many bottles of ink. Must do something about that.

[azkid]

I am trying to stick to as few ink bottles and colors as possible. Right now, four. Two blacks, blue, brown.

But my black was too wet for most pens. I had to add another black. My dark blue is too dry. My brown is great, though.

I'm using samples for testing permanents and a third mainstay color.

I use ink too slowly to want more than a half-dozen bottles.

Having lots of pens just mean more flushing. And I am sick of flushing . I would like to get to a point where I am not constantly changing inks in each and every pen.

[Medieval]

For me it is entirely random. "Ah pen X has run out of ink so I as I haven't tried ink Y for a while I will use that".

Because different pens use inks at different rates due to the differing capacities, different wetness, differing nib sizes, and differing usage rates by me, I couldn't possibly work out any rational system.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

That's the problem for me. My Pilot 823 is always and only filled with Iroshizuku tsuki-yo. This is a perfect combo for my needs. Have a couple of pens with italic nibs that I like to use with shading inks. Alas, that I have more than 2 shading inks!

[Bold2013]

Azkid, what brown do you speak of?

[da vinci]

Yes I yearn to find THE pen and THE ink. I doubt the day will ever come

[Wahl]

I have 45 pens, but use only three ink colors, blue, black and blue/black. Pelikan, Montblanc, Parker and Diamine.

I just can´t remember when I last bought a bottle of ink, all have been gifts.

[VertOlive]

These days, I seldom ink more than 6 pens at a time out of the 40-something I own. I have, at last count, 50 bottles of ink and some dozen samples. So I have to be fair. I only fill a pen half full so I can move on to another pen/ink combination faster.

[azkid]

Azkid, what brown do you speak of?

Diamine Macassar. To be fair I haven't tried it in *every* pen yet but I guess that will be a fun experiment over the ensuing months.

[ethernautrix]

After realizing how fickle I was with ink colors and feeling exasperated with myself for the frequent ink changes, I finally realized that I want my "daily carry" pens (usually four, sometimes five -- maybe six for a day or two, then back down to... four) to write with black ink, except the Pilot Falcon (SEF), which LOVES Noodler's Lexington Gray.

But... but... COLORS!

Hello, Platinum Preppy multi-pack! Now I keep these Platinum Preppies and their similarly-priced colleagues filled with Non-Black Inks. Since I don't count these fpens as, you know, fine writing instruments, I'm not compelled to carry them everywhere with me, so they are not counted and they are not "daily carry."

I don't use most colors for pages and pages of writing, so this solution works perfectly for me. The Preppies have that seal mechanism that keeps the pens from drying out, but I haven't noticed drying out in the Pilot Parallels or Pilot Kakuno.

It's like having my own personal ink-testing station, except certainly not so extensive as the SF Pen Show's incredible set-up.

[Kaputnik]

My ink choices aren't too complicated, even though I have a pretty wide selection.

First, do I have one pen each with Pilot Blue and Blue-Black? Okay, check.

Now, do I want to use something else? The answer might well be no, in which case I could have up to four pens with one or the other of those two inks.

Do I want a purple? Sailor Jentle Shigure.

Do I want a brown? Sailor Jentle Doyou or Pilot Iroshizuku Yama guri. An Esterbrook Dip-Less set on my desk always has some sort of Noodler's brown that I won't put in a regular pen.

Do I want a green? Usually not. But if I do, there's Iroshizuku Shin Ryoku.

I keep Noodler's Fox in a refilled Pilot Varsity at my desk for the really rare occasions where I want to mark something in red. Another Esterbrook Dip-Less has some sort of black, I forget which.

I'd be happy doing almost all my writing with some sort of blue, including a blue-black that looks more blue than black.

Water resistant inks are strongly preferred. I've got an Esterbrook filled with Akkerman Shocking Blue right now. Beautiful color, but I wrote a couple of pages in my journal with it, and somehow a couple of drops of water got on it. It only made two words truly illegible, and they probably weren't the best words anyway, but still.