Downsizing a collection to only the essentials
Hello everyone,
I’d like to share my own experience of buying too many pens and inks here, I hope that it might help newbies to the hobby as well as people wanting to downsize like me.
I used fountain pens for most of my school years and really liked the experience, unfortunately the majority of pens available in nearby grocery stores were quite shitty… the best one I had was a Parker Jotter that was always reliable without fail but the nib was a bit too wide for me (I had it for ~19 years).
After many years of solely using disposable ballpoint pens since leaving school (just needed to write quick notes), an acquaintance on Instagram reignited my love for fountain pens by showing me the wonderful world of inks (only knew the cheap cartridges sold in the aforementioned grocery stores) and made me discover the Sailor Pro Gear Slim and the Pilot Décimo.
I started with good intentions and decided that I would only have 2 pricey fountain pens (the Sailor Pro Gear Slim & the Pilot Décimo), the faithful Parker Jotter and maybe 3-5 bottles of inks…
My old collector tendencies (present in all of my hobbies) coupled with the need to compulsively research the subjects/hobbies that interest me (especially when my mood is bad) had other plans though and my collection has been steadily growing these past 4 years: 2 dip pens, 3 ballpoints (not disposable ones), 33 fountain pens and 81 inks (samples, cartridges and bottles) were purchased… it didn’t help that I bought inks choosing the lowest price per liter and thus ended up with big bottles.
Some pens and inks of my collection have been sold or given to friends/family but to this day I still have 31 pens (fountain pens, ballpoints and dip pens) as well as 49 inks. I shudder to think of the amount of money spent in inks that were just catch and release.
I’ve been conscious since last year that I had too many pens and inks but it sadly didn’t stop my buying sprees… my true wake up call came at the start of this year when I was choosing which pen and ink combos I would be using for each month’s entries in my journal and was torn between using a beloved pair or “forcing” myself to try one of the new inks littering my desk drawer… a hobby is to be enjoyed, not endured after all!
Since then I have been grading my pens and inks to help determine which ones will stay with me and the ones that will be given/sold using the following criteria:
- nib, nib size, body (shape/weight/size/color) and ease of cleaning for the pens
- color, properties, ease of use and cleaning for the inks
I’m giving myself until mid November to sort the pens, I won’t be able to do the same with all the inks but I hope to at least have sorted the bottles… cartridges will be tackled next year.
I will be participating in the Secret Santa exchange again this year (the 2025 edition was super fun, join if you can!) and will gift some of the pens/inks I want to let go of if they fit my giftees preferences (and if the giftees accept secondhand pens/inks), the others will be sold.
Some limits and guidelines have been put in place for my future purchases:
- a wishlist has been set up with a 5 levels order of priority, only the pens, inks, notebooks and washi tapes/stickers/stamps present for at least 2 months in the highest level can be bought
- 3 new pens max per year, that number includes buying new bodies for nibs I already have… I hope to reduce that number each year until only a joker purchase is allowed per year if a pen really stands out
- only buying ink in samples or packs of 2-3 cartridges, no bottles unless the grade I have issued to an ink after trying it is high or perfect
- buying paper tasting sets before whole notebooks/notepads
My main goal is to only have pens and inks I really love to write with, there is no point in feeling forced to use an ink/pen because you don’t want their purchase to be a waste of money.
I hope that this has been helpful to at least some of you and am curious to know how you each manage to downsize/keep at a reasonable size you own collection if you want to share.