Five. It sounds like a lot, though all get use each each. Five pens, five different colors. And I switch colors as a visual delineation of writing session.
Two of them are also really cheap -- to carry around and I lose them, it's not too terrible.
Started collecting in May 2024 and have 40 pens in a wide range across the cost spectrum; 100 inks, vast majority of which are 2ml-6ml samples. I have about 20 pens inked up and rotate among them frequently. I love to collect and swatch variety of ink colors but tend to write with the blue-greys.
Fountain pens:
3 Jinhao 159's
Jinhao 999 Dragon Pen
Pilot Vanishing Point
Pilot Metropolitan
Pilot (Not sure the model)
Scrivener Black Green
Grifos Nero Muse
Amazon Basics
A couple others I don't remember the names of
A handful of Pilot Varsity
I know that the Rod of Asclepius on the clip is the medical one. The Caduseus below it on the barrel is more used for commerce and customs agencies. Does it have a significant meaning for you?
Ecos, Safaris, and Kaweco Sport (without clip) fit. Possibly Kaweco Sport with a clip as well. Jinhao 159 does not fit. I likely don't have many truly thick pens :)
My wife has:
Levenger (don't remember the model)
Jinhao 10
Pilot Metropolitan
Montblanc
The remainder of the box of Pilot Varsity that I didn't steal from her
Ink: 13 bottles, 3x calligraphy ink, 4x types of cartridge in different colours, no samples.
Pens: 11 pens = Laban 325, Pelikan M200, Benu Euphoria, Esterbrook Estie, 2xLamy al-star, Lamy studio, 3x Kaweco sport, Twsbi Eco.
1 glass dip pen and a calligraphy nib holder.
I started in July 😁
Probably ~50ish fountain pens (I haven't counted) maybe 30 bottles of ink? I have everything from 100 year old pens with super flexible nibs to new modern stuff. So I basically have a tool for every job or mood.
I have somewhere in the realm of 100 fountain pens, but a lot of these are inexpensive Chinese pens that I keep on hand for sharing with fountain pen curious folks.
The ink hoard currently stands at about 80 bottles. I love to rotate through inks whenever the mood strikes.
One of my works in progress requires Diamine Storm, lol. Trying to convince it that Taccia Hiroshige Ainezu ought to work in a pinch as well since I'm running out of Storm but we'll see.
4 Lamy Safaris, 4 Nahvalurs, 4 Sailors, 2 TWSBIs, a Waterman, a Reform, a Pilot, a Kaweco, a Rotring, a Sheaffer, a dip pen. Inks, 3 years worth of Inkvent calendar tiny bottles, plus 8 more Diamine bottles, 2 Wearingeul, 2 Colorverse, 1 Venvstas, and then dozens of random packets of cartridges.
Just under 140 pens, maybe half of them vintage. Fewer inks than when I started the year, thanks to sample sharing and giving some away to spread the love. Inkvent and Colorvent account for over half of them, if we're not including samples. If we are, then well over 100. Sob!
i feel like i have a pretty modest collection! 6 fountain pens and 9 inks. i'd like to collect more but i also feel stressed when i have too much clutter or stuff i rarely use so it's a fine balance for me haha
I got 12 pens and 19 different colors of ink including samples (About half are sparkly... Gotta get my sparkle fix)
I started with about one pen and three inks about this time last year
Approximately 150 as of now, but I technically started my collection in 1979, when I was a preteen and my aunt gave me a fountain pen calligraphy set with several italic nib units. I thought it was just the coolest gift ever! I was an artsy kid and I felt SEEN! Inks? No comment!
A lot! There was once a subscription box that came with one fountain pen a month! A sample of ink and sometimes a whole ink! Then they changed it to quarterly and upped the value of the pens! And of course gifts and such. I’m recently obsessed with the Tom Studio pens! They are great EDC!
Alrighty. I myself have 91 inks: 59 bottles, 24 Inkvent smaller bottles, and 8 samples.
I count 18 fountain pens in my collection, 6 of which were gifted. Additionally to these 18, I have one pen in long-term use, 5 no-name pens, a Pilot Parallel, and a Jinhao Shark. And I’ve ordered some more..
In addition to writing and “painting” with them, I share samples with friends, send matching samples when I sell a pen, give away samples and some bottles that weren’t for me (the two pen shows I attend have a “Share the Wealth” table), and occasionally I will sell a few bottles together as a lot
I currently have 13! As for the inks... I have three bottles of my workhorse ink (Parker Quink); five of >50mL bottles of other brands; and a few smaller bottles (~10mL) and maybe at least 10 3mL samples? I like collecting pens, but hoarding ink makes me feel "safe" from running out. 🤣
I have around 50 pens ranging from a couple of Pilot Petits to a couple of Pelikan Souverän M80x. I have around 25 bottles of ink (not counting the Diamine inkvent ones 🙂)
Over 200 fountain pens, a heck of a lot of ink. Luckily a lot of the inks are in sample form. I keep track of ink numbers over on FPC like Mike does. Me: https://www.fountainpencompanion.com/users/283
14 pens that can go in the rotation, 3 that need a visit to a nibmeister before use again. Counting my swatch cards, which includes all of my samples past and current and a few inks I gave as gifts and no longer have there are 122.
264 fountain pens, 76 brands from 13 countries. I’ll just say that in 20 years I’ve made a big collection and use like the 90% of it. I don’t even want to count how many ink bottles I have. (Much less than my fountain pens, at least).
I love that you use so many of the ones in your collection! I’ve gathered a number of fountain pens recently over the last several years, but am actively weeding out the ones that I can no longer use or simply do not love - though I plan to always maintain a stockpile of lower priced pens to share!
I tend to have good luck with the pens I buy. I just buy the ones that I like, and even with cheap Chinese pens, I’ve only had like 5 duds. As a brand, I had bad experiences with Visconti (bad quality of materials), Pelikan (anything under Souveran 400) and Sailor (nibs too scratchy for my taste).
Carpal tunnel has made it so that I don’t enjoy writing with narrow bodied pens any longer, so those are primarily the pens I’m winnowing out of my collection.
While I enjoyed the feedback of the one Sailor I purchased last year, it was far too small to be comfy for me.
I very much enjoy the experience of many of my cheaper Chinese pens - they’re just typically styled after smaller, vintage pens. My huskier Jinhao, Asvine, and Hong Dian pens are wonderful additions to my collection!
Maybe it's just good metallurgy these days, but I've found that even cheap Chinese pens are usually excellent writers. (I'm a *comfort writing* snob, but not a pen snob, so that's great for me!)
Indeed they are! I prefer Hongdian and Asvine over pricier brands from Japan, Germany or the USA. A brass Black Forest from Hongdian is in my top three writers, over MB, Cartier or Montegrappa…
Pens: Lamy Studio, Lamy Safari, Platinum preppy, Jinhao 82, Kaweco Perkeo, Waterman Kultur (x2), Sheaffer cartridge pen, TWSBI Eco,
Sailor Shikiori (Cherry Blossom at Night) and a Stabilo Grow.
Lots of ink cartridges, and bottles: a J. Herbin, two Wearingeuls, and two Diamines.
I am just about to fill my third col-o-ring, so I’ve tested almost 300 inks. Maybe 30 30ml or 50ml bottles, 35 15ml bottles, and perhaps 175 or 200 samples.
Roughly 20 pens, most of which get a partial fill frequently .
It does. It fits my hand perfectly. It's a very aggressive triangular grip, though, so if you don't like those, you should avoid it. And I also don't think the barrel would feel very good to a left handed writer.
The Twist fits my hand perfectly. The Sailor Tuzu fits my writing best, and therefore gives me the most joy, but they are all enjoyable in their own ways.
You can use the vac filler to cycle clean water into it, and then squirt it out. It's effective, but a little time consuming. Or you can unscrew the grip section and put the barrel directly under a faucet, or spray a blunt syringe down it. And then use a bulb syringe to wash out the nib and feed.
I really like the Lechturm as a bullet journal, so it’s a choice I’ve made. One with thick enough to use fountain pen without bleed would be about as thick as a dictionary, lol
Out of curiosity, what is the ink/pen combo? I'm using a Leuchtterm1917 Classic Notebook (A5 dot grid) as my work meeting notes/planning notebook, and cycle through a ton of different inks and nibs, and most behave pretty well.
I get some show through, but rarely bleed unless I'm really saturating.
Same notebook. I use Stabilo and Staedtler fineliners, don’t really get much bleed through (only if I hesitate or use one of the cheaper red fineliners I have knocking around). I do get ‘ghosting’ for want of a better word (see photo), but given how thin the pages are I think that’s unavoidable.
Ghosting is definitely the term that I see used in the fountain pen community. Both of those fineliners are water-based inks, same as fountain pens, and is pretty typical of what I get with them too.
If you've got a setup that works for you, that sure beats any hypothetical upside of other pens. /1
I feel like a lightweight: About 20 pens (plus a few that don't work) and 6 inks (not counting a ton of cartridges that come with pens). Plus 4 billion different kinds and sizes of notebooks — thank you, ADHD. :)
my fountain pen hobby actually stopped me from wanting to buy all the cute notebooks I saw. This was because I started using only €2 Rhodia notebooks, and later, only Hobonichi with Tomoe River paper.
Don't ever get any kind of binding machine. Just don't. Then you'll find yourself buying paper, designing pages (lines or dots? hexagons? how far apart?), and filling shelves with personalized notebooks....
Comments
Two of them are also really cheap -- to carry around and I lose them, it's not too terrible.
I'm just a newbie. But I work with an expert who has guided me and taught me so much.
3 Jinhao 159's
Jinhao 999 Dragon Pen
Pilot Vanishing Point
Pilot Metropolitan
Pilot (Not sure the model)
Scrivener Black Green
Grifos Nero Muse
Amazon Basics
A couple others I don't remember the names of
A handful of Pilot Varsity
Levenger (don't remember the model)
Jinhao 10
Pilot Metropolitan
Montblanc
The remainder of the box of Pilot Varsity that I didn't steal from her
8 inks: 4 in full rotation, 3 in limited rotation (some pens don't dig them), 1 new (🤞)
Bonuses: 2 glass dip pens, 3 replacement nib units
Pens: 11 pens = Laban 325, Pelikan M200, Benu Euphoria, Esterbrook Estie, 2xLamy al-star, Lamy studio, 3x Kaweco sport, Twsbi Eco.
1 glass dip pen and a calligraphy nib holder.
I started in July 😁
Letter writing
Drawing
Journaling
All the same colour deep blue. The kind you see in museums of writing in olden times.
Thanks for asking.
Am keen to see the replies to your post.
Happy Holidays
The ink hoard currently stands at about 80 bottles. I love to rotate through inks whenever the mood strikes.
I started with about one pen and three inks about this time last year
40 or so Ferris Wheel, 2 box of curiosities, 5 Inkvents, 20 or so Diamine, a dozen other.
25 ish Lamy, 6 Esterbrook, 2 Scriveiner, a dozen or so other.
250+ Moleskine pads, 80ish drawn in, the rest just waiting :)
I count 18 fountain pens in my collection, 6 of which were gifted. Additionally to these 18, I have one pen in long-term use, 5 no-name pens, a Pilot Parallel, and a Jinhao Shark. And I’ve ordered some more..
I don't know how I'll use up what I have.
I put out samples at our freebie table at the London Pen Show. I hope someone got some use out of them.
(Mainly for writing, there's another handful or two floating around for sketching etc.)
Each FP seen here has an allocated ink and is being used in a daily rotation.
Beyond fountain pens, a number of ballpoints, rollerballs, colored pencils, glass dip pens.
Currently 65 inks of which I've used 49 extensively.
Pens and inks are catalogued in https://www.fountainpencompanion.com
I also bought my fourth fountain pen this year.
I bought 19 ink samples too.
I make do with 4 main inks and 3 inks for dip pen.
9 Inks
264 fountain pens, 76 brands from 13 countries. I’ll just say that in 20 years I’ve made a big collection and use like the 90% of it. I don’t even want to count how many ink bottles I have. (Much less than my fountain pens, at least).
While I enjoyed the feedback of the one Sailor I purchased last year, it was far too small to be comfy for me.
more than I need, less than I want...
Sailor Shikiori (Cherry Blossom at Night) and a Stabilo Grow.
Lots of ink cartridges, and bottles: a J. Herbin, two Wearingeuls, and two Diamines.
Roughly 20 pens, most of which get a partial fill frequently .
yet, also weary to realise the money spent, or their worth today: like with records and discogs (or movies).
definitely 50+ in each category, and unfortunately, nothing cheap.
3 low cost-just cleaned waiting ink
1 low cost-waiting for a replacement piston converter
4 ink samples-12 new incoming!
Goal: all inked and used as daily drivers for general life and work skribbles.
Want to explore integration with my (not great) watercolor attempts
As for inks. Four bottles, 6 samples, and three packs of cartridges.
Ink: 127 but that is mostly four years of the inkvent calendar.
Pens: 5 Benu, 2 Aurora, 3 Pilot, 2 Sailor, 1 Diplomat, 3 Pentel, 1 Kakimori, 2 Jinhao, 1 Hongdian, 2 Conklin, 1 Kaimei, forgot 1 Teranishi and 1 Parker Vacumatic.
Of the pens about 10 are mod range or better and I rotation for daily writing, the others are more affordable pens and use them for sketching
I get some show through, but rarely bleed unless I'm really saturating.
If you've got a setup that works for you, that sure beats any hypothetical upside of other pens. /1
That said, Leuchtterm1917 isn't coated/sized the way some fountain pen friendly paper is, and some inks really are notorious for soaking through.
The coated papers (like Hobonichi TRP mentioned above) stop bleed through, but can still have lots show through. And some inks wreck any paper.