Pen Show Prep 2020 and My One-Pen Challenge

Pen Show Season is here, and I’m about to kick things off by heading to Philadelphia late Thursday night for the 2020 Philly Pen Show! Philadelphia is the first show of the year, and I’ve never been able to attend despite hearing great things. What am I looking forward to the most? Just hanging out and walking the show. I’m not working for anyone this time, and while I plan to make time to meet up with readers and Patreon supporters, I don’t have any set obligations, much less a list of anything specific that I’m looking for. The lack of a plan, of course, can be a recipe for disaster at a pen show, but this year feels different.

My One-Pen Challenge(s) and the Year of Reducing My Stationery Hoard

Why? As I previously mentioned, I spent some time around the New Year sorting through my pen collection/accumulation and cutting things hard. I have all sorts of pens, inks, and paper queued up to list for sale throughout the year, and I don’t regret any of it. One of my main themes for 2020 is to acquire and hold onto less stuff, which in my case necessarily involves taking a deep dive into the dozens of pens that remain in my collection and figure out what I want to keep before I cut even more. It bothers me to have pens I like sitting unused for over a year, simply because there’s no feasible way for me to rotate through them. Committing to a quarterly sale, and having a hard backstop like Patreon supporters who have paid to participate in these sales in a timely manner, will keep me honest with myself. My goal is to eventually get to 12-24 pens in my personal collection.

So how do I decide to thin the herd? The only way, in my opinion, is to spend extended periods of time with a pen, compared against a pen that I know I love and will always have in my collection. Here’s what I plan to do:

• Limit the Number of Pens Inked. I have to do this, otherwise, it gets stressful because I feel that I have to write each pen dry and I flit back and forth between a dozen different pens and don’t focus on anything. Having no more than 5-6 pens inked at any given time, and carrying no more than 3 with me on a daily basis, will allow me to focus better, not just on evaluating my own pens but on providing more in-depth review content here.

• The “One Pen” Challenge. Have one pen that’s with me all the time, all year long, and use this pen as the baseline against which I evaluate others. For me, that pen is going to be a Lamy 2000 with an EF nib, probably my Blue Bauhaus 100th Anniversary edition since it has the best-writing nib in my small collection of Lamy 2000s.

• The “Monthly Pen” Challenge. Choose one pen that will stay with me for the month and not get swapped out of the six-pen rotation, even if the pen runs out of ink. For the month of January, that pen is the Leonardo Momento Zero Grande Arlecchino.

• Monthly Change-Up. At the end of the month, clean and ink 5 new pens, including a “monthly pen.” Take note of what pens I’m using, what pens I’m not using, and why. If a pen doesn’t work for me anymore, it goes on the block in the next quarterly sale.

Pen Show Goals for 2020

So what am I going to be up to at pen shows this year? Hanging out with people. Taking pictures and checking out new review items for the blog. To the extent I acquire anything, I love the idea of picking a single model of vintage pen that I can use to create a “mini-collection” within my personal collection, as Jacklyn discusses in her recent blog post. I may take a class or two with Salman and Azizah of the Toronto Pen Company, which is something I’ve never done before at a show. As with most pen shows, you’ll find me in the hotel bar most nights, and I’m signed up for the Pen Mixer at 6pm on Saturday. I’m still pulling together pens I’m taking to Philly for Pen Show Show-n-Tell, so feel free to send me a message if there’s something in particular you want me to bring.

My pen show travel over the rest of the year is also starting to take shape. In addition to Philly, I plan to attend the Baltimore Pen Show (Feb. 28-March 1); Arkansas Pen Show (March 13-15); Atlanta Pen Show (April 3-5); D.C. Pen Show (July 30-Aug. 2), and since D.C. is early this year, possibly the San Francisco Pen Show (August 28-30).

So What Am I Going To Do With All The Pens I’m Selling?

The TGS “Gently Used” Sale will go live to the general readership on February 1, 2020. Currently, the sale is open to Patreon supporters as one of the benefits they receive through that program, along with progressive discounting depending on the level of support. Pens listed for sale include some special edition Pilot Vanishing Points, a matte black Leonardo Momento Zero, an Esterbrook Estie, and nearly three dozen bottles of ink, most of which have had 1-2 fills taken, max. I’ve priced all of these items aggressively, with the goal of giving my readers and supporters as good a deal as I can while still accomplishing my goal of shoring up blog finances for the year ahead.

I hope to see you all in Philly, and if you’re headed to the show, safe travels!

Disclaimer: This post contains links to paid sponsors and affiliates.

My 2019 Retrospective

What an epic year to close out a decade! 2019 was not only one of the best years I’ve had on the blog in terms of traffic and overall reader engagement, but I was able to visit more pen shows than ever before and truly feel like I engaged with and made an impact on the community. Today I want to recap the last year and share some of my own reflections and travel plans for 2020.

2019 Pen Shows

I was able to attend the Los Angeles, Baltimore, Arkansas, Atlanta, and D.C. Pen Shows in 2019, and enjoyed meeting many more readers in person. Overall, pen show attendance seems to have stabilized, and smaller shows like Atlanta continue to grow in popularity. By far the highlight of my pen show year, though, was Baltimore. Timed to take place a the end of the dreariest part of the year, just before spring, this well-run and friendly show could eventually steal D.C.’s place as the premiere East Coast pen event. To its credit, the D.C. Pen Show seems to have resolved most of the logistical issues plaguing the past couple of years, and from behind the Vanness Pens table, still seems as well-attended and busy as ever. On the other end of the spectrum, the local community-focused Arkansas pen show in Little Rock offered a refreshing change of pace, including an after-hours meetup at Vanness Pens.

I’ve linked to my recap of each 2019 pen show in the paragraph above. The current plan is to attend most the same shows in 2020, replacing Los Angeles with Philadelphia and possibly adding San Francisco. Since both D.C. and San Francisco are in August, I may have to choose one or the other and haven’t yet made a final decision. For those of you who back The Gentleman Stationer on Patreon, I am working on special pen show meetups for those shows where we overlap. See below for more details.

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My Five Favorite Pens of 2019

It was pretty easy for me to pick out the five pen reviews that I most enjoyed writing. All five of these posts discuss pens that I acquired for my own personal collection, and have used extensively over the past year. As I’ve mentioned recently, I scaled back my personal acquisitions pretty significantly in 2019, and will continue that trend into 2020. I still plan on reviewing pens on the blog, but I do want to mix in some different types of content and the main goal is not to hold onto things that I won’t use over the long-term.

1. Leonardo Momento Zero. What can I say? As someone who mourned the loss of Italian pen company Delta, the emergence of Leonardo filled a void in the market (and my own collection). I have Momento Zeroes at the high end (the “Maestro set”) and from the standard mid-range lineup, and they’re all excellent.

2. Lamy 2000 Bauhaus 100th Anniversary. I let Lamy have it a little bit here for their curious decision to severely restrict the release of this exceptional limited edition pen, and for pricing it at an inaccessible - and somewhat incongruous - price point. That said, I love my Blue Bauhaus, and it’s going to be the “one pen” for 2020 that’s always with me.

3. Aurora 88 Sigaro Blu. Though it’s easy to get lost in a seemingly endless flood of limited editions, the Aurora 88 is a classic fountain pen that’s one of the best workhorse tools out there.

4. Franklin-Christoph Model 20 Marietta. 2019 was the year that I finally settled on the Model 20 “Marietta” as my Franklin-Christoph pen of choice. “Winter Pine” for the win - bring it to the standard lineup!

5. Montegrappa Extra 1930. Montegrappa has really emerged as a major player over the past two years, and not just at the high-end of the market. While the Extra 1930 is an expensive pen, the craftsmanship and material are such that I don’t regret the purchase at all.

I have a few other favorite posts from 2019 that were not necessarily pen reviews. I particularly enjoyed writing this piece on my own thought process behind purchasing more expensive pens, which is the culmination of a year of thinking about how I want to frame my own interest in this hobby. I also wrote a bit about the direction of Chinese brand Moonman, which has taken a different turn recently that’s not altogether positive, in my opinion. Finally, check out my article on “Picking a ‘Workhorse’: How to Choose a Fountain Pen for an Everyday Writer.”

Anticipated 2020 Pen Show Calendar

I currently plan to attend the following pen shows in 2020:

• Philadelphia Pen Show (January 17-19)

• Baltimore Washington International Pen Show (February 28-March 1)

• Arkansas Pen Show in Little Rock (March 13-15)

• Atlanta Pen Show (April 3-5)

• DC Pen Show (July 30-August 2) TENTATIVE

• San Francisco Pen Show (August 28-30) TENTATIVE

In addition to attending shows, I hope to organize more meetups during my other travels. To that end, I will be in New York City at the end of the month to attend the National Stationery Show with the crew from Vanness, and we are targeting a meetup the night of January 31. Stay tuned for additional details!

Patreon Update

Many thanks to everyone who has backed The Gentleman Stationer on Patreon! Check out the Patreon page for full details, but I wanted to post a few quick updates. First, I am now able to offer backers a new benefit in the form of a special “thank-you” coupon for 10% off your order at Vanness Pens, in addition to other periodic promotions that will be exclusive to my Patreon members. As I discuss on the Patreon page, one of my longer-term goals is to be able to develop some exclusive products of my own that I can offer in partnership with retailers and manufacturers, but in the meantime I’ll be exploring other ways to bring value to the membership. Second, I will be attending the Philadelphia Pen Show next weekend, and since I’ve met the first Patreon goal I’ll be doing something special for any Patreon backers in attendance. I’ll post details on the Patreon page. Finally, I still have plenty of pens and ink available in my year-end clearance. Patreon backers get early access through the end of the month (in addition to discounts for certain tiers of support), after which the sale will be opened up to the general readership.

Many thanks to all my readers for a great 2019, and I look forward to making 2020 even better! I have my first review of 2020 lined up for Saturday, as we leave the last decade behind us for good.

Disclaimer: This post contains links to paid sponsors and affiliates.

Five Themes for 2020 and a New Decade, and Introducing TGS Patreon

New Year’s resolutions have rightly fallen out of favor, given how they’re nearly always doomed to fail. After trying - and failing - to keep traditionally framed “resolutions” for most of my life, I’m now firmly on the “yearly themes” bandwagon, in which I try to keep things fairly general and then build new habits to support the theme throughout the year. I don’t plan on writing a full length piece on this idea, at least not here. If you’re interested in reading more on this idea, you can check out books by James Clear and Charles Duhigg, and if you’re more of a podcast person than a book person, the latest episode of Cortex on RelayFM digs into the concept of annual themes.

With that said, after spending the past few days ruminating on what worked - and didn’t work - in the 2010s, here are five themes that I’d like to build on for the next year (or ten), all of which will affect the blog in some way. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere, but I also don’t want TGS or my outside personal and professional life to stagnate, and you’ve got to evolve to keep things interesting, right?

Write.

The most stationery-centric of these “themes”, and perhaps the most important because it ties the rest of them together. I need to write more. Not here, on the blog, but offline - in notebooks, in journals, on scrap paper, wherever. And not just writing for the sake of writing, to test pens, notebooks, and paper. I need to do real writing, because that’s how my brain works best, whether it be processing complex ideas, planning out projects, keeping track of tasks and to-dos, or finishing the half-novel I’ve slowly churned out over the past eight years. One possible outcome is that you see more process-focused reviews here as I re-evaluate not only how I use things but how well products actually hold up to daily use.

All of this ink needs to go. Details on how I plan to run my sales this year at the bottom of this post.

Own Less Stuff.

Cancel subscriptions. Give stuff away. Sell stuff off. Use stuff up before buying more. With the exception of a few specific products that I churn through on a regular basis, I stopped stockpiling stationery last year. I’ve reached full S.A.B.L.E., and if I stopped buying stationery today, I’d never use up what I already have. Some of this can be sold off to recoup unwisely spent funds and/or to re-invest in TGS, which I will discuss further below. I’m not going full Marie Kondo, but when stuff becomes clutter it develops a sort of psychic weight that prevents me from fully enjoying those things I am actually using at the moment.

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A fraction of the pens I acquired over the past couple of years that don’t get nearly enough love. They need to move on to new homes. All of these, and more, will be available in the stationery sale discussed below.

Stop Chasing the Latest and Greatest.

Relatedly, “upgrade culture” has burned me out. A lot of the clutter around my house consists of old devices (computer components, phones, tablets, Kindles, etc.) that have accumulated as we’ve been asked to spend ever-increasing amounts of money on devices that represent, at best, only marginal improvements over the last iteration. Pen companies aren’t necessarily doing the same thing - there’s no need to “upgrade” a fountain pen unless it breaks and can’t be fixed - but I wrote last month about the seemingly endless proliferation of “limited editions” that aren’t limited in any meaningful way, which really makes nobody happy. It ticks off collectors who might be looking to acquire something special, and for others it confuses the market and creates FOMO. Starting last year I’ve focused on making more informed purchases with an eye towards longevity and craftsmanship.

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I need to work my way through my book backlog. Only a fraction of these have been read.

Read More.

If I have one great regret from the 2010s, it’s the degree to which I allowed so much of my media and information consumption to be pushed online. I used to consider reading books a core part of my life, and though I still technically “read” a lot, it doesn’t feel the same. I have shelves of unread books to plow through, and while I managed to read more than 15 books last year and mostly kept up with a New Yorker subscription, I can do - and have done - more that that in the past. Actively reading makes me a better writer, drives creativity, and just makes me feel better about myself.

Try New Things and Trust Others to Support Me.

All of these entries will touch on the blog in some way, but perhaps this last one more than others. This coming April, I will have been writing The Gentleman Stationer for six years. Over that span of time, not much has changed in terms of format. The site has focused on product reviews, namely pens, pencils, and other fine writing accessories that not only look good and are fun to collect but serve a functional purpose. TGS is a one-man show. I’m the reporter, editorial board, and business manager, and as the site started to consume more of my time over the years I took on sponsors, advertisers, and affiliate partnerships to generate revenue to cover my costs and compensate me for at least some of the 3+ hours per day, 7 days a week I was putting in.

I don’t have a problem with my current business model, per se. I love to write. I retain full creative control and operate with relatively low overhead. I’m careful about who I partner with, and nearly all of my advertisers and sponsors are also friends. That said, it does create some discomfort on my part that the success or failure of The Gentleman Stationer as a business is driven entirely by clicks and commissions, and having to generate revenue in this way offers little flexibility to explore new ideas for content such as audio and video content, livestreams, curated retail, product collaborations, etc.

For the past year, I’ve considered how best to fix this. Should I create a “membership” model that I run myself, with a paid newsletter, etc.? Should I branch into curated retail? Should I write a book? At the end of the day, I’m still considering different options, but decided that the Patreon platform offers me the most flexibility given where the site is now. I like the idea of trusting my readers to support the site to whatever degree they see fit, and having the opportunity to interact with my most dedicated supporters on a much more personal level.

Patreon Benefits

First of all, absolutely nothing will change here on the main site. Content through Patreon will be 100% extra for those who wish to help support the site financially. If the Patreon is successful, you may see fewer advertisements on TGS as I choose to work closely with a smaller number of sponsors and partners. For now, the main benefits for Patreon sponsors include the additional content available on the Patreon platform and early access to my periodic “gently used” sales with progressive discounting based on your level of support. Other benefits will include pen show meetups, first crack at any exclusive products, a members-only “e-mail hotline”, and more if things take off. A full discussion of the various tiers and benefits is available on the Patreon page. If you decide to support TGS, you will have immediate access to the Patrons-only content, which will contain a link and password to access the sale page. The sales will run quarterly, and will remain Patreon-exclusive for the first 30 days after which I will open them up to the general readership. Currently, the sale page contains dozens of pens (including Aurora, Edison, Esterbrook, Leonardo, and Pilot), bottles of ink, and pocket notebooks, with more being added as I work my way through Goal No. 2 discussed above (“Own Less Stuff”). I’ve really tried to price this stuff aggressively to reward you all for supporting me. I can’t afford to give it away, but I can do my best to make it worth your while!

I know this has been a long post, but it’s one I needed to write, and I truly believe that changing things up will help set TGS up for success over the long term and ultimately keep this site an interesting and inspiring place to visit. Thank you for your years of readership and support, and I look forward to many more!

Disclaimer: This post contains links to paid sponsors and affiliates.

The Ten Most Influential Stationery Products of the Past Decade

Notice that I’m not framing today’s post as another “best of” list, but rather something different. Here I’ve tried to identify those stationery products that have most influenced what is currently on the market today, which necessarily may include some products that either weren’t good to begin with or haven’t held up over time as the stationery market has evolved. This list may also include products which weren’t released in the 2010s, but still established their popularity and influence during the past decade. This New Year’s is bittersweet for me. My foray into pen collection (let’s just call it “pen enthusiasm”) really started up again in early 2010, so it’s hard to believe that ten years has passed. Writing this list brought up a lot of feels. I hope it does for you as well. Happy reading!

1. Field Notes. To me, naming the Field Notes pocket notebook, and the brand as a whole, as the most influential stationery product of the past 10 years is something of a no-brainer. I wasn’t going to do a ranked list, but after evaluating my top five, I’m pretty comfortable with the order, and leaving Field Notes as the undisputed No. 1. The Field Notes quarterly edition subscription program has taken on a life of its own, with certain coveted past editions arguably qualifying as design icons. Absent the success of Field Notes and Moleskine (see below), I have a hard time seeing many notebook-focused companies enjoying the level of success they are seeing today. While Field Notes have fallen out of rotation for me personally, that’s more a function of my own needs than anything else.

2. Moleskine. I debated whether to include Moleskine on this list, as the brand launched in the late 1990s and expanded throughout the 2000s, which is when the “black Moleskine” notebook first became synonymous with hipster stationery, and later, omnipresent. Why did I ultimately include it? Because Moleskine inspired countless companies to attempt to “build a better Moleskine” - a black everyday carry notebook that contained consistently decent paper and held up over time. Without Moleskine, would the Leuchtturm 1917 or the Rhodia Webnotebook be as popular as they are, or would brands such as the Dingbats notebook or Endless Recorder even exist?

3. Blackwing 602. Am I talking about the vintage pencil or the modern pencil? How about both? At the beginning of the decade, as the stationery-obsessed began to “rediscover” pencils (or at least talk about them on the internet), you could still find lots of original Blackwings at what would now be considered reasonable prices on eBay. Then CalCedar, maker of the popular Palomino pencil - may it rest in peace - announced that it had acquired the right to the Blackwing and would begin making a modern version of this classic pencil. Today, Blackwing is on its way to becoming a brand to rival Moleskine.

4. Noodler’s Ink. I’ve mentioned numerous times how, ten years ago, Noodler’s Ink was one of the only options if you wanted “boutique” inks in colors other than the standard black-blue-blue/black-red, green, and purple. Five different shades of each color? Now, boutique ink manufacturers such as Robert Oster Signature, KWZ, and Colorverse are the norm, and even old-line pen companies like Pilot and Sailor have vastly expanded their ink lineups to include dozens of colors.

5. Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Pen. The so-called “refill that launched a thousand Kickstarters,” and arguably the entire modern machined pen industry. JetPens even built a business around sourcing Japanese gel pen refills that are difficult to find in the U.S. I’ve fallen away from the Hi-Tec-C in recent years, but for those who love needle-tip gel pens and write small, it still has enduring popularity. I still field weekly questions about whether this or that machined pen is compatible with the Hi-Tec-C.

6. Montblanc Alfred Hitchcock Limited Edition Ink. Did this 2012 ink launch the “limited edition” ink craze? In my mind, it did, since it’s definitely the first ink I can remember people purchasing in lots of up to a dozen bottles to hoard, back in the days when there weren’t so many inks that you could find a similar shade elsewhere. Of course, that doesn’t keep people from trying to duplicate what some consider the best red ink ever made….

7. Edison Pens. Brian Gray of Edison Pens was the first to truly take the “custom fountain pen” industry into the mainstream, offering not only custom designs but unique filling systems, including modern recreations of vintage-style filling systems such as the pump (vacumatic) and pneumatic fillers, as well as his own innovations like the “Draw Filler”. Today, those looking to design their own ideal fountain pen can also choose to work with Shawn Newton, Renee Meeks (Scriptorium Pens), Jonathan Brooks, and many others, but Edison Pens kicked off the trend!

8. TWSBI 530/540/580. In addition to custom-designed fountain pens, which can cost hundreds of dollars or more, the 2010s were notable for the reintroduction of mid-range and entry-level writing instruments of a quality unavailable since the so-called “golden age” of fountain pens decades earlier. Leading the pack was Taiwanese company TWSBI, which has now introduced several iterations of its 5XX series fountain pens, in addition to the acclaimed TWSBI Eco. TWSBI designed its initial release, the TWSBI 530, with input from the fountain pen community (making it sort-of-crowdsourced-but-not-really), and tweaked the design throughout the decade in response to customer feedback and quality control issues. Now, TWSBIs are regarded as some of the most reliable low-cost fountain pens available, and their accessible price point has served to keep other companies (relatively) honest.

9. Nanami Seven Seas Notebooks. This entry on the list could easily be “Tomoe River Paper,” but I decided to go with Nanami Paper, which was one of the first companies to offer an accessible fountain pen friendly notebook stuffed with hundreds of pages of excellent ultra-thin Japanese paper. For a while, Nanami couldn’t make enough of their Seven Seas Writer and Crossfield. Though today there are plenty of other companies offering similar notebooks, it’s still hard to match Nanami’s quality.

10. Hobonichi Planner. Perhaps as part of the greater rebellion against digitizing anything and everything, the paper planner has made a comeback. While the planner resurgence could justify it’s own stand-alone article, the Hobonichi Techo makes this list as the first insanely popular fountain pen friendly Japanese planner that is now available in an English-language version. Whether people love the Tomoe River paper or the flexible format, the Hobonichi looks like it’s here to stay, and has driven the popularity of other Japanese planner systems like Kokuyo’s Jibun Techo, my own planner of choice.

A lot on this list is, of course, affected by my own personal experience and preference, and you can argue about the “Top 10” anything, but I don’t think there can be much dispute that all of these were influential. Stay tuned for more year-end recap content over the next couple of weeks! Happy New Year to everyone, and know that I appreciate your readership and support.

Disclaimer: Wherever possible I’ve tried to link to a past post of mine reviewing or discussing the items listed here. Otherwise, I’ve linked to sponsors or the companies themselves.

Thoughts on Purchasing Expensive Pens (or Any Luxury Item)

I’ve been collecting notes and thoughts on this topic for a while now, as I’ve noticed my own acquisitions starting to trend in the direction of purchasing fewer-but-nicer pens, and as more brands seem to be directing significant manufacturing and marketing efforts towards high-end pens and limited editions. Honestly, there are now so many limited/special/store editions on the market that it’s easy to get confused and caught up in FOMO, spend a lot of money, and wind up with an extremely expensive pen that doesn’t meet your needs or isn’t as great as the “hype” made it seem. Believe me, I’ve been there. So I thought it might be helpful to write a piece on my own thought process when acquiring pens - especially expensive high-end pens - and the various considerations and questions that I ask myself as I evaluate whether a prospective purchase is “worth it.”

Before we start, I need to preface this discussion with an acknowledgement that what constitutes an “expensive” or “high-end” pen is subjective, and necessarily changes from person to person. A $50 pen is extremely expensive to some people, and I’m not necessarily talking about financial means. Some people simply prefer a functional daily writer and don’t want to have any more money than absolutely necessary locked up in a writing instrument they might lose. With that understood, I don’t think the analysis changes significantly based on where you draw the line on what’s “expensive” or “high-end.” Hopefully this article has something helpful for everyone.

My own baseline for what I consider a “very expensive” pen is roughly $500. Some might set the baseline even lower, and there’s definitely an argument for that. I chose $500 because this price point captures most brands’ non-limited or standard edition “workhorse” pens such as the Pelikan M800/M600, Aurora 88, Montblanc 146, Sailor Professional Gear, Pilot Custom 823, and even some Conids. (While the MSRP on some of these pens may be greater than $500, you can usually find them below that, either by purchasing on sale or with a discount code, or by acquiring them secondhand in barely used, or even mint, condition.) Once you get past this baseline price point, in my opinion you are definitely paying for more than functional hardware - i.e., a gold nib, build quality, filling system - and get into more subjective forms of “value” like artistry and branding. I think hard before purchasing above this baseline price point, and if I do, there has to be a compelling case. I use my pens, so I’m not a pure collector in the sense that my primary focus is on making sure the pens do not depreciate in value for later appraisal or resale. I may buy something because I view it as a “work of art,” but it’s a functional piece of art that I still intend to put to good use as a writing instrument.

Leonardo Officina Italiana makes some of my favorite limited and special edition pens currently on the market. They’re all handmade, and the runs truly are limited - especially those in rare celluloids.

First Consideration: What Exactly Am I Paying For, and Why Am I Spending this Money?

I firmly believe that you don’t need to spend more than $65, tops, to get a reliable fountain pen to use as a daily writer. For $200 or less, you can purchase what I consider one of the best-designed fountain pens ever made, the Lamy 2000, which is my own “desert island” writing instrument. As I mentioned above, once you pass a certain price point, you stop paying for additional functionality and get into things like design, artistry, and, yes, branding and hype. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But one thing I do try to do when contemplating an expensive acquisition is figure out exactly what I’m paying for and why I’m fine with paying it. For example, a $600 Nakaya is not $600 because it’s a “better” pen than a $150 Platinum 3776 in terms of functionality. For the most part, they write similarly because they feature the same nib, and the Platinum might actually be a “better” choice for most people to take to work everyday because it posts and the pen is lightweight. The Nakaya, however, is a vehicle to showcase artistry, namely the Japanese tradition of Urushi lacquer work and other traditional pen designs. Do I really like the design of this particular Nakaya, or is this a FOMO-driven acquisition influenced by online discussions and/or podcasts? Put another way, do I like this pen and want one because “other people” are telling me I should have one in my collection?

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Two limited edition fountain pens that I’m glad I purchased. On the left is my Delta Fusion 82 in “Pompeii” celluloid, and on the right is the Leonardo Momento Zero “Maestro” in discontinued Omas Burkina celluloid. I grabbed both of these immediately, knowing they really were limited and won’t last.

Second Consideration: Is this “Limited” or “Special” Edition Really That Unique?

When considering the purchase of a “limited” pen, I try to remember to ask myself how “limited” or “special” the pen actually is. In my opinion, these two marketing taglines are overused. Case-in-point: I own a couple of Montblanc Writers Edition fountain pens, which retail for nearly $1000. I’m a Montblanc fan, and generally appreciate the brand’s design and build quality, but is a run of 16,000 fountain pens really limited enough to qualify for the “limited edition” designation, and command the sort of price being asked?

In my opinion, probably not. Older Writers Edition fountain pens, like the Hemingway and Agatha Christie, command higher prices on the secondary market because Montblanc made fewer of these pens, and they’re difficult to locate. That’s exactly what some pure collectors want to see - appreciation in the value of the pen due to scarcity. But it’s hard to see a run of 16,000+ pens that cost $1000 apiece appreciating in value anytime soon, which is why you can find later Writers Editions like Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Friedrich Schiller, etc. for much less than the original retail, sometimes still NIB (“New in Box”). If you’re a user, like me, that’s not a bad thing at all, which brings me to the third consideration….

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On the other hand, Pelikan limited and special edition fountain pens tend to linger, like the M101N pictured here, and you can get extremely good deals towards the end of the year….

Third Consideration: How Badly Do I Want This Pen Now, and Should I Wait for a Price Drop?

For the past couple of years, I have made 90% of my pen acquisitions in November, December, and January, which is when most retailers run inventory clearance sales and holiday promotions, starting with Fountain Pen Day sales and running through the post-New Year’s clearance events. At the top of the list for retailers to clear out are those “limited” and “special” edition pens that haven’t sold over the past year or two - after all, they need to make room for the next year’s releases that start shipping in February and March - and if you wait patiently enough you can often find the “older” pens discounted as much as 60%, or even more once you factor in holiday coupon codes that are always floating around. With respect to the Montblanc Writers edition pens noted above, I found two of them at around 70% of what they originally cost, and was able to use a 20% off Black Friday coupon to get the price down even further. In short, if you can resist the FOMO, patience can pay off. If a limited edition isn’t really “limited,” just wait for a while, and I suspect you’ll enjoy that pen all the more having paid half the original purchase price.

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Aurora limited and special editions typically remain available for at least a year or so. I waited a year for the Aurora 88 Sigaro Blu to go on sale and got a slightly better price than I would have had I purchased it upon release.

Final Thoughts

Choosing a pen is a uniquely personal experience, and as you gain experience, you’ll develop your own set of considerations, or even rules, that you take into account when building your collection or accumulation. I do hope this piece is helpful. I’ve made my share of mistakes in my decade or so in the pen hobby, and the ones that always burn the most are when I gave into the FOMO and purchased something expensive that I either didn’t really like it or could have purchased a year later for half the money. On the flip side, I’ve also missed out on some truly limited releases because I dawdled, but I tend to regret those instances less because there is always going to be something else to take its place. Trust me on this one.

Happy holidays, everyone! After tomorrow’s “Links” post, I’m signing off until after the New Year, when I’ll be back with all sorts of new things in store for 2020 and the next decade!