I confess to being a pen hunter on safari, always looking for vintage in the wild. On a good day I might find something on ebay, like my $20 Lady Patricia or Stylochap, but more often I find pens lurking at car boot sales or in junk shops.

Which brings me to the place of luck in forming a collection. For instance, because I have a lovable frog in my life, I spend a lot of time in France. That means I have started a small collection of Bayards and Edacotos and have rather more Watermans than I might otherwise possess.

But luck also led me to some wonderful German pens. At one French village fete I acquired a frankenpen Esterbrook in green with a replacement cap in black lozenges on green celluloid. Three euros.A couple of weeks later, a duofoldish pen from a box of one euro pencils which turned out to be an Osmia supra minor.

Two weeks later I saw a pen on ebay with the same celluloid as that weird cap. I bought it. My second Osmia.

I now collect Osmia pens and have bought a few more German piston fillers, though for some reason Soenneckens stubbornly refuse to turn up in village fete bargain boxes. None of this would ever have happened if it hadn't been for that little Frankenpen!

Would love to hear other geeks' stories of how happenstance has changed their direction in collecting!