Vintage Pens today - An Observation

[fountainpenkid]

QUESTION: Is there a waning interest in vintage pens?

ANSWER: I'm not sure. I wonder if the amount of archived information available accounts for a reduction of discussion. The comment was made above (fountainpenkid) that is lamentable that those born in the last 30 or so years are not commonly interested in vintage pens. I, as one of 'advanced age' -- born as I was in the first half of the twentieth century -- have to ask, 'Why would we expect them to be?' Why would they be interested in anything 'vintage' when the world they have only ever known changes, becomes 'new' in so many ways almost daily? New, newer, and newest, is quite literally all they have witnessed since infancy. How many live in homes that no longer have landline telephones, or are not WIFI compliant? They need to be excited by history to discover the historical -- the vintage pens, cars, tools, etc.

I guess the difference I see between fountain pens and other types of technology is their relationship with their past: you don't often go to the hardware store--physically or otherwise--and encounter a "vintage drills" section; car dealers hardly sell things more than 10 years old. Fountain pens are a distinctly a "outmoded" technology, commonly viewed as a form of throwback in themselves. They are also static--no one is going to make a fountain pen markedly different in concept from those already made. Thus I think they are like furniture: sought out in more or less equal measure whether new or old, both being equivalent in function. The people I know who buy antique/older furniture don't see themselves as amateur historians or "vintage furniture nerds;" they simply liked the style and quality--and perhaps price--of a piece they found readily available to them, and it happened to be older. To my mind, that would be an ideal place for a good portion of vintage pens to be, albeit among a smaller set of people. That or great swaths of wonderful, useable pens sit around unused and unenjoyed*.


*is this to begrudge collecting? not a bit...most vintage pens aren't of particular interest as collection-only pens.