JCinPA
The Lather Maestro
I have just gotten back into the habit of using a fountain pen, and it is a time waster fun way to spend some quality COVID time away from the TV.
I have a couple questions I've not found the answer to in my Internet searching, though, I hope you'll indulge me.
1. People amass tremendous quantities of pens. I have one filled for each ink color I have right now, black, blue, blue-black, purple, and green. I do not think I'd ever keep more than one pen inked per color. How long will they sit without use before you have problems with them? I know you don't want to let them dry out, if you don't plan on using a pen for months, empty it and clean it. But if I don't use my purple pen for a week, is that too long? A few days? Two weeks? How much use do they need to keep them flowing?
2. What is the fascination with older Sheaffer Skrip inks? I've seen a ton of photos of them around here, and I'm old enough to have actually used Sheaffer school pens up through about the fourth grade or so. I wouldn't think it would be anything special, given the tremendous variety of modern inks available today. I'm curious why I see so many of the old Sheaffer inks in collections. Not so much their current packaging. Did the composition of the ink change over the years? I'm really happy with the Namiki, Iroshizuku, Waterman, and Noodler's inks I have. Just curious about this, because there is so much of it around here.
3. Other than regular cleaning, is there any periodic maintenance fountain pens need? All of mine are writing to my satisfaction, but being inexperienced, I don't know how knowledgeable I am about that. I've read that cleaning between every second fill is a good habit, but I've not read about any longer-term periodic maintenance that they benefit from. Is there any?
4. Pens come in sooooo many shapes, sizes, weights, and nib types I am going to try to NOT spend any serious money on them for quite a while, but I would like to try a bunch of them to discover what I prefer, and to learn about how different pens behave. I do not want to have a huge collection of pens I do not use, I'm not wired that way, and I am interested in them more for their utilitarian function than esthetics, generally speaking. I'm not likely to want to collect a lot of them, that means I will want to cycle through a lot of used pens, and resell them. I could see wanting to cycle through a couple dozen used pens, while keeping relatively few of them on hand before splurging on something like an Edison, for example. What are the best resources for buying/selling used pens? Is eBay OK for this sort of thing, or am I better off on fountain pen aficionado forums classified sections?
5. Traffic here is fairly light--understandable as it is a shaving forum with an FP section, not an FP forum with a shaving section. What are some of your favorite FP resources, both for information and for supplies? I'd say I'm not at the bottom of the learning curve at this point, but I'm certainly not too high up the curve yet, so good resources for noobs and intermediates is appreciated.
Thank you all, in advance!
-John
I have a couple questions I've not found the answer to in my Internet searching, though, I hope you'll indulge me.
1. People amass tremendous quantities of pens. I have one filled for each ink color I have right now, black, blue, blue-black, purple, and green. I do not think I'd ever keep more than one pen inked per color. How long will they sit without use before you have problems with them? I know you don't want to let them dry out, if you don't plan on using a pen for months, empty it and clean it. But if I don't use my purple pen for a week, is that too long? A few days? Two weeks? How much use do they need to keep them flowing?
2. What is the fascination with older Sheaffer Skrip inks? I've seen a ton of photos of them around here, and I'm old enough to have actually used Sheaffer school pens up through about the fourth grade or so. I wouldn't think it would be anything special, given the tremendous variety of modern inks available today. I'm curious why I see so many of the old Sheaffer inks in collections. Not so much their current packaging. Did the composition of the ink change over the years? I'm really happy with the Namiki, Iroshizuku, Waterman, and Noodler's inks I have. Just curious about this, because there is so much of it around here.
3. Other than regular cleaning, is there any periodic maintenance fountain pens need? All of mine are writing to my satisfaction, but being inexperienced, I don't know how knowledgeable I am about that. I've read that cleaning between every second fill is a good habit, but I've not read about any longer-term periodic maintenance that they benefit from. Is there any?
4. Pens come in sooooo many shapes, sizes, weights, and nib types I am going to try to NOT spend any serious money on them for quite a while, but I would like to try a bunch of them to discover what I prefer, and to learn about how different pens behave. I do not want to have a huge collection of pens I do not use, I'm not wired that way, and I am interested in them more for their utilitarian function than esthetics, generally speaking. I'm not likely to want to collect a lot of them, that means I will want to cycle through a lot of used pens, and resell them. I could see wanting to cycle through a couple dozen used pens, while keeping relatively few of them on hand before splurging on something like an Edison, for example. What are the best resources for buying/selling used pens? Is eBay OK for this sort of thing, or am I better off on fountain pen aficionado forums classified sections?
5. Traffic here is fairly light--understandable as it is a shaving forum with an FP section, not an FP forum with a shaving section. What are some of your favorite FP resources, both for information and for supplies? I'd say I'm not at the bottom of the learning curve at this point, but I'm certainly not too high up the curve yet, so good resources for noobs and intermediates is appreciated.
Thank you all, in advance!
-John