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Tracking your inked pens

I have about 15 inked up pens on my desk as we speak. I have then in various glass trays along with their corresponding inks so it is pretty easy to keep them straight. Moreover, my default ink is often the "synced" to the brand of pen as are the colors of the pens themselves i.e.

Blue Lamy Al-Star= blue Lamy ink
Grey Lamy Al-Star= black Lamy ink

Silver Parker 45-Parker Blue ink
Silver Parker 45
w/ black end cap= Parker Blank Ink
Silver Parker 45
w/gold end cap= Parker Blue/Black ink

Blue Pilot Metropolitan...
Black Pilot Metropolitan...
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I like to know which of my pens has blue ink, but don't necessarily need to know which blue. Aside from that, my pens are gravitating towards colour coding, or at least the cartridge pens are. This won't tell me exactly what's in the pen, but let me know at a glance what colour family to expect, so I know which to grab.

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10 pens. 4 bottle filled on the left, and 6 standard international cartridge pens on the right.

Bottle filled pens:

Parker Slimfold - Short fills only. Ink testing, brief atonating and highlighting only.

Parker 45 Flighter - Currently running a short fill of Quink Black Permanent in this pen to try it out. They work well together, and I am very tempted to let these become a fixed pairing. I also have a golf nib I can drop in if I decide I want to try any iron gall inks.

Parker IM Premium Geometric - Any blue or dark ink that I'd be happy doing a whole page of writing with. Sherwood Green, Grape, Writers Blood, etc.

Demonstrator - Anything and everything.

Cartridge filled pens:

2 Blue pens - Blue ink. Midnight, Sapphire, Recency, etc

2 Silver coloured (coated) pens - Brighter coloured inks. Blood Orange, Antique Copper, etc. I generally prefer these colours to bright reds (Burnt Sienna is my bottled equivalent)

2 Stainless pens - Other dark inks. Chocolate Brown, Oxblood, Deep Dark Purple etc

It's a reasonably simple system, which still leaves me wide open for ink variety and exploration.
 
I have a 3x5 card on my desk and when I fill a pen, I note the pen & ink. When one runs out, I cross it off. It is not intended for history, just tracks what is currently inked up.
 
I keep a Rhodia notebook where I list the fountain pen, the date inked, and the ink used. I also use an inked cotton swab to show the color below the entry. Works perfectly, no matter how many pens I have inked.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I went through a silly phase recently, of having way too many pens inked up. Gradually, I have worked my way back down to three, which is my comfort zone.

In use, it didn't make a whole lot of difference, except I had to wet and wipe choked nibs a couple of times, to get ink back flowing. However, I did have to refer back to earlier notes for the "today" threads on the forum. So no detriment in real life, and only tedious in discussing/sharing online.

From now on, I'm going to try to stick with one blue or black, one dark red or dark orange (antique copper type), and one other (brown, purple, or green). Although I did say that before, and got impatient wanting to try out new inks ... several of which are still waiting for their first use.
 
I'm with @Heckle this one. Ink is cheap (at least what I use) and don't want to risk contamination.

FWIW, right now I am slowly working my way through Pilot black in the 400ml bottle and Pilot blue black in the 400 ml bottle. Each bottle cost me about 20 bucks...maybe 25, I don't remember for sure.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
I bought too many inks and have too many pens inked. I had a string going where I remembered what ink was in each pen but I’ve now forgotten and haven’t been using the pens in a while so this reminds me I need to flush them all now and start fresh. I like the index card idea to keep track though.
 
Seven or eight inked at any one time, but almost all (bar 2 or 3) are always filled with the same ink, so I just refill them when they are near empty: no need to track what is in them. The others I rotate, and track what is currently inked in a plain text file that is synced to all my devices.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I try to stick to having three colour coded (kind of) pens inked up. The pens and inks vary all the time, but the colour coding helps me keep track of which of those three is a primary ink colour, a secondary colour, and a brighter contrast colour.

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From the left, primary colours, secondary colours, contrast colours, and multipurpose:

Black pens:
Quink Black Permanent

Blue pens:
Blue, blue/black, teal, and "blurple" inks. Std International and Parker cartridges, and bottled inks too.

Stainless pens:
Secondary ink colours. Greens, browns, purples, or very dark reds. Std International cartridges and bottled inks.

Silver coloured/coated pens (or red Jotter):
Contrast inks. Brighter reds and oranges (including Antique Copper and Burnt Sienna). Std International cartridges and bottled inks.

Red Ignite Parker IM:
I tend to use this for primary inks, either blue spectrum inks (from teal to "blurple"), or Quink Black (which is more of a teal colour anyway). Parker cartridges and bottled inks.

Wing Sung Demonstrator
Anything and everything. Bottled inks only, of course.
 
Call me crazy but I keep about 20 pens inked at any one time each with a different ink. I use them for journaling every day (5-10 single spaced lined 8 1/2 X 11 paper). It is a bit of a challenge, but I can remember what ink I have in each. The most important thing is that I write at least a few lines everyday with each pen so that they do not dry out. I try to store them nib-down (with the warmer summer weather there is a bit of burping on some). Sometimes a nib dries out a bit with hard or skip stops but I just put the nib under the faucet for 30 seconds and dry it on some paper towel until the ink gets going again.
 

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It really only becomes an issue if I want to empty the pen back into the bottle, flush it, and ink it with another color. I don't want to mix even small parts of one ink into a different ink's bottle. :)
I just empty all residual ink into the black ink. It still stays black.
 
i keep all of my 17 pens inked an in use and all with different inks. I keep a notebook and update a new page about every month. pen name, ink in it, date filled. simple and effective. If i refill a pen mid month i change the date. If I change inks I draw a line through the original entry and create a new entry with the new ink and fill date. super easy
 
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