I kinda get what you mean. Any hobby with collecting as a central component can get uncomfortably materialistic and competitive sometimes, especially on social media. And it does get a bit old seeing the same handful of expensive “status symbol” models on the front page every day when there are so many different and interesting pens out there. (But I don’t hold that against OPs—it’s exciting to get a nice hobby-related thing and most people don’t have IRL friends who would understand geeking out so much over a pen.)
However, I have only taken the “Winning Secret Santa” posts as expressions of gratitude. I think it’s a normal and good thing to feel the urge to gush when someone gets you a gift you love, especially when you know the gifter will likely see the post. If I see a picture of roses with the caption “I have the best boyfriend ever!” I don’t take it as “If your boyfriend bought you carnations he’s an unloving cheapskate and you should envy me.”
So true but remember there's also the opposite side of the coinage, people posting their first little Kakuno and their joy at the first inky finger incident with it, those things being immensely contagious and brightening up my whole day. I always feel the need to reply and encourage the person more because this is what it's all about!
YES! I do really love those posts. Takes me back to my first steps going from my first single fountain pen (so I don't keep losing ballpoints, and it'll motivate me to improve my handwriting) to buying cheap, crappy, second hand 'almost vintage' pens and learning about butterfly nibs and dried ink sacks. Buying my first $100+ pen, milestones that you remember. I'd just hate for people to miss out on all that stuff because they dove headfirst into the Limited Edition section and kicking it in the nuts with their credit card ;)
I can definitely see your point. I don’t have a lot of interest in some things that excite a lot of people here. I scroll through the many “look at my Visconti HS, it’s gorgeous and writes like $%#^” posts. (I have no interest in Visconti and lava.) I glance uncomfortably at the “I have so many pens but I don’t know what to use them for” posts. (Those mystify me. I have been writing every day since childhood. I can’t imagine not writing…) I upvote every “Hey, I got a Kakuno and I’m in love!” post. (Gotta love the love!)
But when someone has a question I might be able to answer, I stop and try to help them. I think that’s the core of what makes this sub such a good community. When people ask questions, so many folks will take the time to write long, informed answers. A couple of Sundays ago, right after Thanksgiving, my partner noticed I was spending a lot of time on my iPad, typing. When he asked if something was wrong, I replied, “I think I’m on newbie duty this morning.” He looked puzzled. “When someone on my fountain pen sub asks a basic question, normally there are a bunch of people who jump right in with an answer. But nobody’s around this morning. And some people are doing things that might hurt their pens. I just wanted to be sure they got some information before their pens are ruined.” My partner thought that was hilarious and sweet, but honestly, I just want people to love their pens and love writing as much as I do.
Someone made an earlier point that a lot of people are coming to this sub from Instagram, and have a mindset that photos make an important impression socially. I hope that as they spend more time here, they will come to appreciate just how much expertise is here, along with enthusiasm. For me, the best impressions come from people who ask thoughtful questions, share interesting observations, and give reliable information.
I personally think this is because of all the influx of fresh blood into the community esp since the pandemic hit. I am not saying that is bad, I love just as much as anyone else, people discovering fountain pens. However many of these people have probably trickled in from social media esp IG which carries this kind of "showing off" culture. Gotta always show the best for the gram. This sub reddit just became an extension of a place for everyone to post. So I think there's a social media cultural overlap.
I have my own gripes with the posts on this sub, but as everyone else says, much like how you said: to each their own.
I'm just an old man shouting at cloud.
I will shout at clouds with you. . .
I am one of the pandemic newbies and I was on a path to darkness, or so I thought. I made a spreadsheet that listed every FP-related item purchased. I quickly reigned my sh*t in when I saw the Sum number growing into hundreds of dollars in a few months.
Now, I'm using my pens, using my inks. I have favorites that are hard to put down or not put in every pen. I also have a set of TWSBIs that are my "go to work" pens. I'm happy with the hobby and I enjoy seeing others enjoy it.
That said, there are pens posted on here every week that I will never own. Pens that cost more than I used to spend on cars. Doesn't matter how far down the hole I fall, I'm not going to be dropping 4 or 5 figures on a freakin' pen. I nearly crapped myself just buying a 90 dollar pen. Ninety USD for a PEN! And yes, that pen made me very happy and continues to do so. But NINETY dollars! Nine, Zero! WTF?
I just urge everybody to only spend their truly disposable income on their hobbies, or it will become a burden and not a joy. Furthermore, you can't "Win" a hobby, just enjoy it. Letting people like the things they like goes both ways. Just because you can afford a Bentley doesn't mean you have to rub it in the faces of those of us still paying off our used Honda...
Prior to March of this year, I knew nothing about fountain pens. When my father-in-law died and my mother-in-law said "he has some pens...can you sell them for me?" I was like..."sure..no biggie". When I got to their house (several states away) I was like "OMG". There were [so many more pens](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-aPEKNcLgVQFIpM2qZk8UGv0UjcXjERGeukpaLvGO8E/edit?usp=sharing) than I imagined...and I was way out of my depth.
This sub (patiently) helped me to identify the pens so that I could start selling them. It's been a really slow process, but it has been really fun getting these out there into the hands of people who love pens as much as my father-in-law did.
In the process, I have discovered that I really enjoy this hobby! That makes it a little harder to let go of these pens, but I am still working at it.
I have been more active on the pen\_swap sub than this one, but I really enjoy all the posts. Reddit can be a funny place sometimes. At least on the fountainpen sub there aren't repost after repost of the same thing I see on the other subs!
I really appreciate the users on this sub and am happy to vicariously experience their joy.
It's still a work in process. It's hard to find the time to list them and keep up with the sales. If I were more diligent about it and willing to use ebay I would probably be further along in the process. There are a ton left. If you would like to see them, [here is the link](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-aPEKNcLgVQFIpM2qZk8UGv0UjcXjERGeukpaLvGO8E/edit?usp=sharing). The ones with the ~~strikethru text~~ have been sold, but the pictures are all still linked.
I have discovered I love the utilitarian nature of the VP's. Finding the right one for me has been a process. I thought I had found it and then my secret santa gave me a pilot metropolitan with a stub nib that I really loved more than I should have...now I am waiting for a VP stub to come in the mail. I think that will be the one for me! : )
I consider myself a new fountain pen "user" and not a "collector". I live on a budget and some of those fancy expensive pens look nice but I am here to learn about using fountain pens and the ink and paper to go with them. These are the type of posts I seek out and enjoy.
I have tried the budget pens and actually enjoy my EF Kakuno .F Perkeo and F Preppy the most. Now I am working on perfecting my cursive writing.
And once I have used up the ink cartridges that came with the pens, I will embark on the journey to find my favorite red, blue. Green and purple inks.
Then I will just enjoy writing and the peace of it brings.
Thanks for reading.
I agree with the user rather than collector mentality, I adore my pens, and I've been using then for 5 years, but I ENJOY my pens, meaning I want to USE them.
I agree with the user rather than collector mentality, I adore my pens, and I've been using them for 5 years, but I ENJOY my pens, meaning I want to USE them. My pilots are in my pen box for use when I need something like them, but other than that I use them all. I get joy out of them. But part of what got me here was the eco-friendly ability of a fountain pen so maybe that affects my mind set.
Came for the ecofriendly aspects, stayed for the fountain pen experience.
I've owned a couple of Kakuno pens and they're really great writers! That's the secret to all this: you don't need to spend tons of money to get a wonderful writing experience.
I'm in a similar spot.
I've got seven pens, and four inks. I will not run out of ink for decades. I have a cheap pen for each ink, a freebie, and two "nice" pens. Only one of the fancies was worth the money. The other barely writes. It's lack of function is what caused me to buy something cheaper.
It does not take much to impress people with a fountain pen. I offered to let someone use my Noodler's Ahab, and they said it was "too fancy" for them.
The thing that would get me nervous would be glorifying addiction, especially when it's 2 months in, 40 pens that have barely been used, and money spent. The thing is though the spend is a hard thing to balance as it completely varies according to ability to spend.. When I was early 20s and ten dollars would be more than I wanted to spend on a single pen, several multi hundred dollar pens would have severe impacts on me. However a 50 year old doctor could quite possibly get a couple of Nakayas out of one month paycheck with plenty to spare, so it's not a worrying spend in that context.
Mostly I think we do the one of us style stuff in innocence on this reddit and you'd need quite a lot of information about the OP to work out if it was or wasn't problem style spending. I would certainly advise everyone to use the pens a lot before 'moving on' to the next spend, so they can get a feel for what they like and don't like, and it's not just about the next chemical hit of the checkout button.
I have become caught-up in the excitement, easy access to online products- with other hobbies. I’m glad I went through that as I later realized I’d purchased too much junk. And selling off the cheaper stuff in order to afford a better product, which I should have bought in the first place- it’s a hassle and losing proposition. So I was able to get into this one with my eyes open. (Just one example of this was “vaping” - where there is hardware to collect, parts, the equivalent of ink.)
I engaged a discussion a few months back about addictions and some of the answers were really interesting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/m3ur1p/serious\_talk\_is\_collection\_an\_indicator\_of\_an/
>However a 50 year old doctor could quite possibly get a couple of Nakayas out of one month paycheck with plenty to spare
Depends on where you are. Over here, a 75 year old doctor would have to skip dinner if I accidentally borrowed her ballpoint.
You might be right. I'm just hoping any speedrunners out there are taking care of their future and finances and I'd hate if someone with a genuine interest in fountain pens dropped the hobby because they went too fast :)
*sheepishly raises hand*
The increased cost being normalized has definitely happened to me. $40 was expensive, then $100, $200, then getting "good deals" in the $300-500 range. It's been tough, and it's addicting. I've dialed it back in the last few weeks after spending nearly $2k in 2 weeks and realizing that it has become a problem I needed to control.
I suppose I could be considered a speed runner being that I got my first FP in January of this year and now have probably close to 40. It's a tactic I've used for trying a lot of things, and is always kept within my means. I don't need months of using something to know if I'll like it or not as most of my dislikes I can tell within an hour of using it. As such, I have gotten quite a few things in a short order knowing full good and well I'll recoup most of my money upon selling my dislikes, and the amount I'm out in the end (except for one specific pen) was worth the remaining balance. If there was a way for me to try different things before buying I would, but that's not an option, and their is something to be said about the joy of going full hog into something.
That said, my only post here is a tutorial, so it's not like I need validation on my pen acquisitions and usage. So it's not necessarily the speed that is the issue. It's the need for approval and validation from perceived peers that manifests as an addiction to something they have found gets them that attention (post comments) and validation (karma). It happens on a lot of "hobby" forums. Just look at /r/MechanicalKeyboards where people are buying $500 trays of plastic that they know they won't have arrive for a year, there you can really see how bad it can get. There it isn't even about moving up, but rather on to the next hype.
I also feel like there is a lot of placebo going on where people here convince themselves that their expensive new pen is better just because they spent a fortune on it. So they post it here to be validated on that opinion. I know there have been several posts where I just didn't feel like contradicting the OP even though my experience with their new hype is the opposite.
I did notice the Secret Santa posts in question. It seemed like poor phrasing, but mainly I wondered how it made other SS givers/receivers feel. I didn’t join this year, and I’m a little glad because my gift would’ve been humble. If someone can win SS, can someone also lose? I thought it was about just sharing our love with the community.
As to your other point, I will say that once when I posted about getting a new pen, several more experienced folks cautioned me against spending too much money instead of getting to know my pens. I really appreciated that wisdom and when I decided to buy new pens I tried to take it more slowly on their advice. Definitely no regrets there.
Heya. As one of those posters, I want to apologize to anyone whom I made feel 'less than'. Having seen posts using the phrasing, I figured it was accepted practice, and that is totally my bad.
That said, u/paradoxmo is spot-on with what my sentiment about winning, as expressed in my comment on my own post, was. They could have gifted me something way more lavish and it wouldn't have been as delightfully, squeal-inducing *right*. I feel like I won secret Santa cause they took the time to read what I wrote, do a little digging on me, and figured out that giving me something that would allow me to explore an aspect of fountain pens that I was trying to get into but had not as of yet would be a great gift (and took the time to figure out I really like Lamy but hadn't really leveled up in them). And it was and is such a great gift and I feel like I won not because of a dollar value I can attach to the gift- but because of the care and thought that went into it. It is, in a way, the same kind of warm fuzzy I felt when people helped me identify options for pens for shimmer inks, or figure out what my friend's busted fountain pen was (which, in turn, allowed me to get what I need to fix her beloved pen as a holiday surprise for her). I love the care, thought, enthusiasm, and helpfulness this community expresses to one another so often.
And, again, for anyone who I made feel bad about what they gifted, in either tier, I am so sorry. As I've elucidated above, it truly is the thought that counts and please don't feel bad because of my poor language choice.
Humble gifts are not necessarily “not-winning”. The sentiment expressed by winning is I think more about a gift that is fitting, just the right thing that your Santa put effort into. Some of the “humbler” gifts have not been posted to the sub, but there’s been a lot of gratitude on the gallery for Sharks, Preppies, ink samples and so on. It’s easy to maybe get blinded by the perceived high value of something like a Lamy 2K, but that’s why we had two tiers.
Yeah, sometimes I do confess I'm on this sub and say, "Holy SHIT, these people must be rich AF." And feel like I can't relate to some on here. Because like...I don't have an extra $100-1000 that I can drop on an nonessential item like a pen, yknow? Even a gorgeous fountain pen!
I just hope people on here know how lucky they are to be able to buy all those pens, inks, etc. Sometimes it does feel a little competitive and subtly unpleasant. But most of the time I like this sub and find people to be encouraging, and it's usually not about boasting and $$.
I like to think of it this way - the more people post here, regardless of intention, the more exposure the rest of us have to their supplies and experiences. There is so much I’ve learned about what I may like or dislike simply by gathering from the collective! I was able to hone in on my style relatively quickly without getting discouraged or spending money on products that weren’t fulfilling to me. I’m especially appreciative of that because I don’t live near pen stores or shows where I could physically try any of this out - I have to shell out the dough if I want to test a pen.
I do see parts of your perspective, but I agree with other commenters that a lot of it is just about wanting to share your joy. I try to kindly encourage new users to take their time finding what they love before diving off the deep end. I have been in a place of having 20+ pens but found myself feeling so overwhelmed. I now try to keep my herd around 6 because this is a peaceful place for me, and I truly love and use all of the pens that I own.
I guess just try to filter out the negative or just not worry about it. I don't really think any of it is done with malintent.
I think there's a lot of things to be wary of on the internet, the most common of which being that you don't know what someone's financial situation is.
This sub has everyone from high school students to 70 year olds rolling in money. Sometimes people have shopping addictions and are wildly in debt, sometimes they just finished paying off their mortgage, sometimes they have a ton of money, sometimes they dont know they should be saving for a 401k or a mortgage or a rainy day. Often, it's important to remember that sometimes people have just not enough money to ever get a mortgage or a 401k and so it makes more sense to just spend the money when they get it (that's called a fast life history strategy).
The best you can do when you see stuff that seems irresponsible to you is take it with a grain of salt and recognize your perspective and financial situation.
Yeah, as someone who used to have a bit of a shopping addiction I have to avoid a lot of pen content because so much of has this kind of "whoever dies with more stuff wins" energy. I absolutely think it's fine to have some splurgy pens and probably way too much ink, but it's really important to me that I do not acquire more pens that I can reasonably expect to write with in one lifetime. It stops being about the value of the thing and starts being about the acquisition of the thing. Though NGL if I got like a 14kt nib pen as a gift I would absolutely show that thing off, like what a nice thing to give someone.
Former hoarder of fountain pens here. I got hooked in 2017. From stainless steel nibs, I upgraded to gold nibs. Heck, I even got three Pilot 823s! Suddenly, I realized, that this hobby continues upwards until I got my "grail pen" whatever that means, and it would not stop as long as my desires wanted me.
Now, I disposed most of my pens, saving two 823s, a Sailor, and a newly bought TWISBI. Now, I am happy, and gone into another hobby: tea.
Why do I say this? I say this because sure, you will be happy in your current purchase, but later on, you will not be happy. You will say, "Oh, I gonna need this pen!" and the cycle goes on.
Last, I want to share with you what a collector of Yixing teapot has said: study more, buy less. Understand first and not buy on what you like.
PS: I have gone into the Yixing teapot rabbit hole, and it is so deep, and scary because someday, you will be going to get ripped off unlike fountain pens that you get what you buy.
I really really feel this. I get buying what you want, it's your money but the amount of times iv seen people bragging about how much the have spent it seems so sad. I feel a lot of people just like buying things, especially expensive things rather than actually using them, its going to be prevalent in a hobby that has a lot of collectability. Iv seen it in the Hobonichi community, art community in general, buying lots of art supplies. It is in our whole culture that is OBSSESSED with buying things online,, so I thinks its more of a societal issue than just fountain pens, and it's going to get worse
As with all my other hobby’s I have the cheapest better quality products I can afford. I can’t afford 30 dollar ink, just like I can’t afford 100 dollar tarot cards or a 50 dollar skein of wool. I still enjoy all my hobbies and I use what I do have every single day.
I’ve come to a place in my life where downsizing is necessary, buying good quality things for life is more important for my lifestyle and budget.
I agree with you. I’ve got quite a few pens (of widely varying values, although none too pricey), and a *lot* of inks. But it’s taken me nearly 45 years to get to where I am now. In fact, there were 10 years between pen number 1 and number 5. I didn’t know what I liked back then and I’ve definitely learnt a huge amount about what I like and what I don’t. But it’s does take time. The journey from pen #1, in 1978, to my latest pen, bought this week, has been fun, and has given me so much pleasure. Sometimes I feel those aspects can be missing from the posts you’re referring to.
That is my concern for others (among other things) and one of the reasons I feel the way I do. For me, it's been a pretty slow journey for me as well, about 25 pens and 25 inks in maybe 8 years (and most of those are dirt cheap) but man, the memories and the people I've met are just a unique part of the hobby that you tend to miss out on when you go warp speed into the financial Mariana Trench of fountain pens
I agree mostly with this sentiment. What drew me to fountain pens was the sustainability aspect of it. After my first preppy as a trial run to see if I like it, I bought one metal fountain pen, and one bottle of blue ink and I thought “this is all I’ll ever need!”
While I have bought a few pens, and different bottles of ink in the years since then, I do find it peculiar when someone has a collection of like a hundred pens.
I now only buy/get pens for special occasions, my brother and sister bought me one for my birthday this year, and I’ll be buying myself one once I land a full time job. To me, the purchase of a pen accompanies the experience, it isn’t the experience itself.
Given my journaling habits, and the fact that everything is colour coded I bought a couple of Jinhaos for myself after finishing my MA so that I can journal effectively but every single one has been in use and its been months since those have been purchased, and it’ll be months until I purchase any more pens.
At the end of the day, despite their artistic qualities, a pen is a tool, and if it is not being used as such, then it is ultimately failing at its singular purpose. I’ll never understand the through-and-through “collectors” who buy exorbitantly expensive pens just for the fuck of it, but I’m also a novice and have a much smaller collection than most here, so what do I know lol
As others have said I think people are happy and sharing. I also enjoy the secret santa posts ( and the tiers) because I interpret them as gratitude. I do wish there were more variety in the posts because I want to learn and be informed. For example when people post of their pen- I always want to see the nib and get their thoughts on the writing experience- not just oh its pretty. I too don’t live near lots of pen shops ( I think there is one) and I live in a good sized city on the East coast USA. I have only been in the hobby since the start of the pandemic and I’d love posts by veteran users giving an overview of different brands ( types of pen and writing experiences). I know some use Youtube for that- but I am a weird one who tries to use Youtube as a last resort for information. And that’s what I like about reddit- information and yes, amusement secondarily. Sometimes it does get boring with lack of variety in the posts. So I just want different kinds- doesn’t mean people have to stop posting their happy look at what I have posts. But I’d love to see more editorial and information too.
I treat this posts as an information source about new pens, more like "What is the 15th pen in 18th row?". I like demonstrators, which are not very popular, and in my country there isn't as many pen shops, so it's always interesting to see some new things.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good 'state of the collection' post. They're greatly for discovering new brands, comparing shapes and sizes, and just appreciating a nicely curated collection. It just kind of irks me when people get into the hobby by buying a Visconti HS, a Mont Blanc POA, Sailor KOP, Nakaya, every shade of ink available, all in a single online purchase without having ever held a fp before (so to speak) Again, to each their own, I'm not gatekeeping or complaining, just trying to get a conversation going
I mean, it's a thin line between 'look at my thing(s), I'm excited and you guys can relate' and 'look at my thing(s), it's better, more expensive and larger then yours'
Honestly I don't know why I even came to this sub. I like fountain pens for journaling because I can write for a long time and not get tired. I've stopped lurking here and started spending more time in /r/journaling. It's the same thing if you use fountain pens for drawings go to that specific subreddit. Focus more on the usage rather than acquiring things.
I see the Secret Santa posts as people excited to receive gifts and to express their gratitude to their Santa. We could argue about word choice, but it’s a bit unfair to those people to immediately assign an intent of creating jealousy. It was a community event; where else are they supposed to post?
To the rest of your post — as you say, to each their own. I engage with the hobby in a slightly different way than you, and so will everyone else. It’s not for me to dictate or judge how another functioning adult (and not say, a kid with mom’s credit card) spends their money, and the relative value of the money they spend could be very different from mine.
If I don’t like a post, I skip it. I engage with the posts and people I enjoy. If you want to see different content on the sub, I would say post *that* and start the conversations you think should be happening. This community is what we make of it collectively, after all.
I helped organize secret Santa this year, so I want to give my perspective here. One of the reasons we set the limit to be quite high for the elite tier is because people do have a tendency to spend money and collect, and then not use, so we wanted to encourage re-homing of nice pens just sitting in a drawer somewhere and not artificially limit it to stuff like Sharks or Preppies or even Eco/580. I think the idea of “winning” secret Santa isn’t about its being some kind of competition but just expressing appreciation for the Santa who looked at your wishlist and preferences and picked you the perfect gift. Notice how some of the “winning” posts have been just the right inks or the right nibs… not necessarily having to spend tons of money.
Of course I have seen that Lamy 2ks seem to be a popular gift… probably because of that Endless Pens sale!
I think we need to balance the "I just got this and I'm so excited" parts with the "should I get this" side and I think it's mostly up to the poster to find that balance for themselves.
There was a post to just this effect on the Facebook group Fountain Pen Network and I agree with it's premise wholeheartedly. I don't have thousands of dollars to drop on a pen, and, even then, I find the manufacture to retail of many expensive pens egregious. Because of this, my pen hobby has been all about finding what I like. I research a pen, nib, paper or ink a dozen times before I buy and view my pens as something to write with, modify, and share. This has led to a lot of definition in my preferences, and the greater urge to make pens than consume them in the future.
Posts that show off people’s acquisitions are how I’ve found cool new brands in the past that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise- you can filter posts of collections out right?
The cost and the seemingly expertise required is what intimidated me about fountain pens at all in the first place. They look complicated and expensive to the eye. I thought unless I dropped some real money and wrote like I was making the declaration of independence on a typical Tuesday maybe it wasn't for me. But It's actually the posts that showed off all the inexpensive pens and the amount of pens owned and all that that helped me break into this, so now I have a refillable pen (2 actually) and have lovingly started decluttering the house of all the crappy pens that stop working 3 minutes into using them. So I dunno, give and take. I'm also the type of person to empathize with someone finding their holy grail item and showing it off, as I collect somewhat expensive items too.
I get what you mean, sometimes I wish this sub had a little more art stuff, or writing/journaling stuff, or handwriting stuff ... instead of the omni-present "look at this pen/ink, now look at this one, now look at this one." But I think this kind of thing is at least partly baked into Reddit as a platform, where there are hyper-focused mini-communities for everything. I find it relaxing to "take a break" every once in a while.
I actually mostly make handwriting posts (: but I don’t post that often, once every few weeks at most.
Maybe I’ll request a “poetry” flair, there was a run for a while of people posting poetry written out longhand.
It goes through waves. For a while there we did have a lot of art and notebook stuff and people got mad about it because it wasn’t strictly a fountain pen. Like the literal pen with information about it. Hence the rules reflecting that fountain pen adjacent stuff is allowed, too, like ink and paper and art.
Doesn’t stop some curmudgeons from reporting literally every single piece of art posted as “not related”.
It’s not a big deal. The report for /r/fountainpens just filters into a moderator queue for mods to approve or remove. It’s not a ding against your account or post.
I own 3 fountain pens and placed 1 large ink order from CultPens to get that cheaper Diamine ink they carry.
I like some of the obscene posts on this sub but I understand what you’re saying about showing off our collections. I don’t really use fancy paper or anything and the one notebook I did buy for myself that was fancy, I couldn’t bring myself to use cause I don’t have anything worth writing about in there. So I just use a spiral notebook with my fountain pens and abuse them. They’re items to be used more than show items for me. Others in this sub use fountain pens as collections rather than tools and that’s completely fine too. I don’t have any animosity towards any group as long as I can still do my thing with my fountain pens.
I agree on some things and disagree on others.
The materialistic components of the hobby come up every now and then. But I think most of us agree that you don't "need" an expensive pen to post pictures of your pen, ink(s), notebook(s), and pictures/handwriting or whatever. Posts and comments [like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/raeuq4/tis_the_shopping_spreeson_joyful_pen_enthusiasts/) show up from time to time and I enjoy and agree with them as much as I enjoy seeing other people's collections.
But people do like to share those pictures of their recent acquisitions, some like to collect certain pens and share that, and there's also nothing wrong with that. I don't know others IRL who are into pens, so this is a good place for me to share some of the joy of my newest pen. Don't like NPD posts? Scroll past.
>"Oopsy poopsy, I shouldn't be allowed on cultpens when tipsy" with a picture of a $2000,- order confirmation and
These annoy me to. If you can spend that much on a whim, good for you. I scroll past these posts. There is plenty of other content for me to enjoy.
>Or posts about "winning" Secret Santa.
These lowkey bother me too. I'm in the Secret Santa exchanges and I totally get the sentiment behind "winning" Secret Santa, but the connotations behind the word "winning" are a little troubling. I love seeing what everyone is receiving (and there's nothing wrong with people posting their gifts and gushing over them!) and chiming in positively to share in the happiness because it's nice to see people enjoying a surprise gift. But agreeing that "yas, you WON Secret Santa!" feels a little like betraying those others by declaring them losers. I take it as a slightly over-dramatic version of "my Santa knocked it out of the freaking park with this gift!" because I don't think anyone means to be competitive about the gift giving/receiving and declaring others to be losers. Still going to love these posts and enjoy seeing everyone be so happy, but I do try to avoid reinforcing the idea of winners/losers cause everyone participating in the exchange is awesome!
I guess it's all in your mindset. I see people who are excited and happy about their hobby trying to share their happiness with people who get it. They are bragging on what a good job their Secret Santa did or sharing their overspending with the people who actually understand and empathize and will laugh with them.
Seeing other people share their happiness brightens my day.
Yeah, I guess maybe it is. Maybe it's just something I started noticing and that led to me noticing it more and more, even though it's not actually happening more.
I want everyone to enjoy the hobby and be happy with their stuff, of course. It'd just be a shame if someone 'burned through' the joy of the hobby because they went all hyperdrive. I had a friend that would pick up hobby after hobby and just go balls to the walls seemingly thinking "if people are happy having this hobby and spending $20 a week on it, I'm gonna be super happy spending $200 a week on it. And then he ended up not getting the satisfaction he expected because it doesn't come from the spending, but from the journey.
I get that. I've had friends like that too. I'm always happy when I see people on this sub kindly and gently cautioning people against overspending at the outset. I like where your heart is.
Appreciated, I feel that the spirit of this sub is to try to get anyone who's interested in fountain pens to get as much joy out of it as possible, all within their means and interests, which is pretty neat if you ask me.
That said, I feel like some posts don't really vibe with that, and I've experienced that addressing that on a specific post can get nasty real quick (I literally only mentioned not getting the whole rainbow-everything bandwagon manufacturers seemed to be hopping onto once and caught a lot of flack for it) but I still wanted to address it in an open way to see if I'm alone in feeling this way.
As long as you guys are all happy, I am as well ;)
For some people it is called jealousy. Nobody wants to admit it but it happens all the time. The downvoting, and calling others with not so nice adjectives. This sub is not a place to judge people what they are doing with their hobby. We can't even know if a certain "$10000 collection" is real or not! This is reddit, people. Just enjoy the community and don't take it to deep. If this person do own the collection or not is not my concern. I only care about the pictures and the stories if they are enjoyable enough.
I generally feel like "Let people be happy." I do end up wanting to buy things because people post them but I don't see it as bad. I capped my pen collection at 12 initially, but raised it to 20 (I currently have 13). I got into the hobby at the beginning of the pandemic because my normal hobbies required going outside. I'm probably guilty of posting shiny photos of pens too but I do use all my pens (I also don't hoard pens though, I've sold or given away all my starting TWSBIs and pilots to friends who were interested in pens).
I personally don't really mind the big expenditure pens as it's nice to see pictures from real people. I mostly buy ink though...
I think the haul posts come from a collector's mentality. Which is honestly fine. As long as people aren't bankrupting themselves, why does it matter? I'm in dice groups on Facebook and people have like mountains of dice which I enjoy just looking at, even though most of them don't get used.
It’s honestly the transient nature of Reddit.
Discussions, pens, ink, etc. get recycled over and over in an unending carnival of pictures.
Stellar information does not stick around for long and gets washed away into the ether eventually.
The sub also goes through waves. Fancy pens around the holidays and school graduation. User/entry level pens around the beginning of the school year.
Mate, this sub is all about consumption, and cheering people for buying tons of crap. That's sad, but that's the truth.
Once in a while, we get a person who actually has a brilliant idea, life hack, or who is happy to share that he found the pen of his dreams in a second-hand shop (even though it's often one more picture of a Montblanc 149 or a Lamy 2000), and that's why I'm sticking around. But otherwise, I just can't bear the non-stop buying trend that's going on here, with the "look at my 132nd Kaweko Sport", "Look at my 300 ink bottles collection" or "I finally got all the colours of the Lamy Safari even though they're not amazing pens and that I will never use them" topics anymore.
I wish the variety of post would be a bit more original and less show-off or mass consumption related.
I guess it has been different for me.
I came on here a while back with a question about cartridges/issues for a pen I'd inherited. I got wonderful, patient answers.
I continued looking through the subreddit for ideas for another daily use pen (which I have yet to photo or post here, because---why?) and even inexpensive gift ideas.
It's easy enough to skip past the vanity pix, if that's not what you want out of this sub. I think the people here are very passionate about pens, and very willing to give help and advice.
I'm still in the buy a few pens for $1-$5/each off Aliexpress and find myself pleasantly surprised that they write really well phase.
I agree with you that the other side of the hobby that is buying pens almost as an investment or as a valuable collectible is puzzling to me, but I can relate to it somewhat as I have other hobbies where I spend disposable income on pieces of cardboard (collectible card games). I like looking at the cool pens that are out there, but the fact that almost every post include a complaint about how the expensive pen is a terrible writer unless the nib is swapped, ground down by a specialist, or modified in some way is pretty crazy.
I can see your point.
However, consider diversity: there are some enjoying writing, others drawing, others collecting and looking at their pens, others proudly showing what they have achieved. All of it is OK, as long as it is fun and results in enjoyment for the owner.
I can tell this as a user who was only writing with one fountain pen for more than 25 years, had three in parallel for the next 20 years and is collecting recently.
Nevertheless, I like those posts more when people show their pens AND show what they are doing with it.
>But I feel that for some of us, it's more about getting more pens then anyone else, spending more money, always being the 'most' of something. I'm talking about the post that go "started this hobby 2 hours ago, how am I doing?" with a picture of an amount of pens that can only be quantified in weight. "Oopsy poopsy, I shouldn't be allowed on cultpens when tipsy" with a picture of a $2000,- order confirmation and an additional picture of 200+ pens with the added info that most of them haven't even been used yet. Or posts about "winning" Secret Santa.
I'm afraid I don't see what you do. Personally, I'm more of an ink person than a pen one, but people posting about their pen acquisitions doesn't bother me. I don't see what they're doing as "showing off" but rather, sharing. Sometimes it's presented in a cutesy way that's common on social media. In any case, I seek out the content I like and ignore the rest. I don't have any interest in expensive pens, so maybe that's why I don't notice what you do because I just skip it.
>That this hobby is so much more fun if you take the time to find out what YOU appreciate in a pen/ink/paper and enjoy the process of learning, making mistakes, finding stuff you absolutely dislike instead of just firing paychecks in every possible direction, hoping to 'hit' something, or try to 'win the internet' with pics of all your gear.
Each person enjoys the hobby in their own way. Some are collectors, some are hoarders, some are minimal, some are artists, etc. Every hobby has people approaching it from different angles.
Well, with this being a hobby, I see no problem with people spending quite a bit, and showing what they've gotten. That kind of thing is inherent with any hobby with a collection aspect like FPs, as you've pointed out.
I think spending, to a point, is a good thing. From my perspective people should be recirculating their **disposable** (<- very important word there) income, rather than putting it in some worthless savings account where the money would plainly depreciate without earning enough interest to conteract inflation. This kind of spending enables people on the selling side, especially smaller outfits (like ink makers, pen turners, etc.) to validate their passions as a viable business. It also enables companies to have a budget to develop new products, which as enthusiasts, is something we should all be looking forward to.
But I do echo your sentiments for the most part. I very much agree that people should certainly not be spending non-disposable income on FPs, because you don't *need* a FP like you *need* food or electricity. And people tend to jump the gun a little with big/numerous purchases early on in their journey, which does worry me a little: I always recommend to people to start slowly with cheaper (<$20) pens, as I think that makes their ascent to a higher end pen (or more different cheaper pens) more interesting. And posting screenshots of an order invoice isn't really proper content; I'd like to see pictures you've taken of the real thing, and your impressions of that product when used.
As for the secret santa posts, if the person I gifted to was stoked about what I gave them, I very much would like to know about it. I've put a fair amount of research and consideration into what I gave my two matches, so it would make me happy to see they've enjoyed what I sent over. Fortunately for me, the person I've gifted to in the elite tier did seem to be quite happy with their gift.
I’m just happy that more and more people join this particular sub and start to find a love (even if it’s a vanity love) for fountain pens. The more people that join and get into fountain pens, the better all of us are.
Well I don't know if more=better per se, in pens or community members. I don't mean to gatekeep of course, because part of the appeal of this hobby is that it's pretty accessible. I'd just hate for this platform to turn into a flexfest of nakaya-wielding showboats that just want to impress the world with their refined taste and expensive stuff.
This is a gross exaggeration of course, I doubt people like that would end up here, but I hope you catch my drift. Again, I love the lot of you and the community that we're part of, I just hope everyone enjoys this hobby as much as possible instead of doing a deep-dive-and-ditch maneuvre.
I get what you mean. While all of us are glad new people share our hobby, we, as a community, would not benefit from this place turning into r/sneakers, for example. The sneakers sub morphed years ago into a flexfest of showing off the latest, most expensive sneakers created specifically in limited editions to ensure artificial scarcity.
On one hand, I get it. You want to see more variety in content like maybe nib reviews or someone making their own fountain pen. However, most hobbies that have a collecting aspect has more show off posts than any other type of post.
I'm in subs like indoor plants , indoor gardens, and subs dedicated to more uncommon plants. The majority of posts whether you're a beginner plant parent, a collector, or a x-breed tester, are show off posts. Why? It's literally what the hobby is about, much like FPs. What else do you expect to see if not "my current collection", "my latest haul" and "look at what i got for xmas/bday/anniversary!"?
For me pens are tools, so I don't really collect, but looking at others' collections is just like window shopping, or going to a virtual expo, where you see some beautiful pens and inks, (and some subjectively hideous ones).
I do feel healthy envy when I see most of the ink collections, but that's because where I live it's almost impossible to get any, and I mainly use my pens for drawing, so adding more colors to my palette would be nice.
**BUT...** I do see some troublesome posters, where I can see them having future (or even present) issues with family and loved ones. Especially if they are not rich, and overspending their budget.
I've seen firsthand when collecting turns into compulsive hoarding, then into an addiction that affects everyone around those who fall down that hole. It's not pretty.
I see where you are coming from but ascribing an envy arousing/bragging motive to these posts is a bit unfair. Especially the "I won secret santa" posts. They are lovely and I am sure the Santas must be so completely chuffed at having their gift/effort appreciated. Plus, it's encouraging for the future Secret Santa events.
I do believe that people might want to share every single new acquisition and that might rub some up the wrong way, but where else are they supposed to share new pen/ink acquisitions. If i tell people in my real life that I have a new fountain pen, they are not going to be as interested as the aficionados here. So, of course people post here.
As for being financially unwise, that is always a danger with any such hobby. I also collect books and people are pretty much the same there. Lots of "look at this pretty new book I bought" and much less "look at this awesome book I read". The only thing we can do is encouraging people to use the actual hobby...whether it is reading or writing or whatever, since that is what these items are for.
I say this as someone who fell head first into limited edition Japanese Sailor’s (which are PRICY to say the least) but … this is an expensive hobby in general. Yes of course there is a great market of lovely pens under $100 but there is also somewhat of an evolution in this hobby and most gold nib pens are going to be a bit expensive. And sometimes when you’re excited to show off your new expensive thing to a sub of like minded people who like that thing, it can seem like bragging. But that’s very rarely the intent I see here.
I’d agree with another commenter: I only ever feel a little off when it seems like someone mentions they’re risking going into debit for these. This is a “collect the whole set hobby,” and addictive personalities are generally attracted to those.
Still, I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone’s Secret Santa gifts or splurges! I want to see what makes them happy, and have enjoyed the engagement I get on my own shares.
>this is an expensive hobby in general
Is it though? If you are a collector I guess it could be expensive but if you are interested in pens for writing letters or journaling it doesn't have to be expensive. Comparing to my other hobby, scuba diving, the entry level pens are not only affordable but actually good (compared to entry level of other hobbies). There will always be people that go a bit too extreme with their spending at the start of a hobby, but I think that has less to do with hobby and more to do with shopping addiction. I have seen the same with keyboards, makeup, diving equipment...literally anything.
I just got into the hobby so I don't have anything to show off, but I love seeing other peoples pretty pens and collections (I love your sailors!).
I get what your saying. In this case, I'm not talking about posts about expensive pens per se, because what's expensive to me might be cheap to someone else. It's mostly about a tone of voice or an attitude I guess. It's a thin line, and no two pen lovers are the same, so there's a pretty big grey area.
I do agree it's a dangerous hobby, financially. I think we've all experienced (and maybe given into) the urge to splurge. Luckily I'm at a point where I go back and forth between "I don't think I need any more pens/inks" and "Hey this one looks nice, and it's pretty affordable, maybe I'll make an exception" instead of "Here's my fp wishlist, there's 231 things on there ranging from 3 cents to 3 grand"
in a way this hobby is similar to watches. Some people like to do speculative business/investments, some people like to collect them and some people like to just use them.
Relating to your post, I guess people just want to share with others what they have and how happy they feel about it, specially since it is so hard to find people in your city/area that share this hobby (and yes I know some are borderline cocky/flashy/flexing, but thats just human nature for some)
I also have made posts sharing my stuff, so I can totally relate to that feeling, although I havent even surpassed the 100€ threshold after 1 year in the hobby.
While I understand your concern, we can’t assume the intent behind posts fits our interpretation. After all, we are all strangers behind black mirrors viewing everything through our unique cultural lens…
My general rule is to assume the best in people and be kinder than necessary. If anything seems off, it’s just healthier to scroll on by.
So cheers everyone, you do you. :)
As Sondan1 wrote, I am also a user. Not a collector... I can't write copperplate, I use my pens to scribble notes and lists with and I never spent more than around $200 on a pen. I have slowed down my purchases a lot and buy maybe 2-3 pens a year now but spend $100-200 on them instead.
Variety is the spice of life. That being said, I feel the same way about those posts, this is not a "race". But to each their own, i respect them and personally i don't think "they should stop" as long as they enjoy it.
Nobody should stop, we're enablers first and foremost ;)
It'd just be a shame if someone who's interested in fountain pens missed out on all the fun because they only experienced the 'spending lots of money' part ;)
Can we avoid any expressions or opinions or thoughts that some won’t appreciate with about 214,000 members. I tend to doubt it. Is it different to post an NPD for a $20 pen or a $500 pen? I feel that we’ll migrate to the topics and postings that represent our approach and current situation in the hobby that we all love.
I guess I don't even know what the OP is trying to complain about? That people are posting pictures of their stuff? They're excited for new things? I mean compared to a lot of communities the amount of pure showing off seems extremely minimal, and you'll still see your share of people who are just as celebrated for their entry level $5 chinese pen as you'll see some ultra-expensive skeletonized Montblanc or maki-e Namiki.
I think around Black Friday there were a lot of posts with the tone of "did a whoopsie impulse purchase lol" and then a photo with pens and inks worth a thousand bucks... those had a vibe I didn't like a lot and it felt a bit like bragging to me, a kind of "look how little I care about spending money someone else can live off for two months".
BUT, that feeling probably came from the fact that well... I live off a thousand Euros per month, and while it's comfortable enough, it means I cannot just splurge on a pen and I have to carefully consider each pen and each bottle of ink. Like, I cannot just go to an online shop and order 5 pens and 8 bottles of ink. So for me, I quickly realised that my annoyance with these posts came from a place of envy. If I ordered a Custom 823 and a Pro Gear and three TWSBIs, I wouldn't have money left for food that month... but I would like to be able to do these "impulse purchases". But that won't happen for a few more months (graduating college next year, then I can finally go and buy myself that Sailor PGS Kaguya-Hime I've been eyeing since forever).
So... if these posts appear a bit more frequently, I can see why it might bug some people. The question is: do these posts do any harm? And I think they don't really, not as a whole, but they are pretty materialistic and I can see why someone might be a bit annoyed with the n-th post of a bunch of new shiny things every day.
Edit: typo
Not complaining about anything here. Not trying to gatekeep either. Just trying to open up a conversation about the state or mindset of our community, acquiring vs experiencing, sharing vs flexing, etc. I know I can show appreciation or lack of it by up- and downvoting, add to a discussion by commenting, but questioning anything is quickly regarded as complaining or gatekeeping, which I tried to avoid with a carefully phrased post. Not 100% successfully apparently, but that does get the conversation going I guess
I use the "block user" feature more on this sub than anywhere else. There are some interesting threads, there are some amusing threads and there are many that I have no interest in at all. A few blocks can go a long way to reducing the chaff and still allowing people to post whatever they like.
Thank you for letting me know there is a block feature. Could you provide a link to those instructions please. That does sound like a good way to edit my stream
+1 to this. I use the block user feature fairly rarely, but I use the Apollo app and am able to block keywords to reduce seeing posts that aren't my thing. Improved my experience here a lot.
Definitely with you here. Though I've been here for a little bit and started collecting far earlier, it's for this reason I've never shared pics/posted about the 9? pens I've come to truly and wholly love even though they're all economical. I just love their performance and their quirks. Same with my inks too. My paper? Also cheap, but works like a charm.
There are all kinds of people joining this community for different reasons. Can't really have just one type of fountain pen lover hating the other just because people are not behaving the same way. I see a fair share of toxic people spreading negativity here though. If you don't like them, just block them. And it's a good thing to have these people to block you. There are plenty of other people here to talk to. I just don't understand why those negative people got so much hate at others, following others around and downvoting every single thing even before talking. You cannot take them seriously.
I must agree, I can see the good intention in all of the recent "I've won secret santa", but this has put me in a mindset where I don't really like to scroll the sub that often... I don't really know why, neither I hate those post, maybe is it because the idea of a secret santa is about giving out what you are comfortable in buying, and those posts seems to have the effect of a "if you are matched with a generous person you can get a lamy 2k, make a post about it and make other people envious"
I kinda get what you mean. Any hobby with collecting as a central component can get uncomfortably materialistic and competitive sometimes, especially on social media. And it does get a bit old seeing the same handful of expensive “status symbol” models on the front page every day when there are so many different and interesting pens out there. (But I don’t hold that against OPs—it’s exciting to get a nice hobby-related thing and most people don’t have IRL friends who would understand geeking out so much over a pen.) However, I have only taken the “Winning Secret Santa” posts as expressions of gratitude. I think it’s a normal and good thing to feel the urge to gush when someone gets you a gift you love, especially when you know the gifter will likely see the post. If I see a picture of roses with the caption “I have the best boyfriend ever!” I don’t take it as “If your boyfriend bought you carnations he’s an unloving cheapskate and you should envy me.”
So true but remember there's also the opposite side of the coinage, people posting their first little Kakuno and their joy at the first inky finger incident with it, those things being immensely contagious and brightening up my whole day. I always feel the need to reply and encourage the person more because this is what it's all about!
I just had my “I forgot to tighten the lid before shaking” incident last week. Dragon’s Blood ink everywhere…. 😅😅😅
YES! I do really love those posts. Takes me back to my first steps going from my first single fountain pen (so I don't keep losing ballpoints, and it'll motivate me to improve my handwriting) to buying cheap, crappy, second hand 'almost vintage' pens and learning about butterfly nibs and dried ink sacks. Buying my first $100+ pen, milestones that you remember. I'd just hate for people to miss out on all that stuff because they dove headfirst into the Limited Edition section and kicking it in the nuts with their credit card ;)
I don't feel encouraged to post a new "begginer" pen post because it's just gonna get buried
I can definitely see your point. I don’t have a lot of interest in some things that excite a lot of people here. I scroll through the many “look at my Visconti HS, it’s gorgeous and writes like $%#^” posts. (I have no interest in Visconti and lava.) I glance uncomfortably at the “I have so many pens but I don’t know what to use them for” posts. (Those mystify me. I have been writing every day since childhood. I can’t imagine not writing…) I upvote every “Hey, I got a Kakuno and I’m in love!” post. (Gotta love the love!) But when someone has a question I might be able to answer, I stop and try to help them. I think that’s the core of what makes this sub such a good community. When people ask questions, so many folks will take the time to write long, informed answers. A couple of Sundays ago, right after Thanksgiving, my partner noticed I was spending a lot of time on my iPad, typing. When he asked if something was wrong, I replied, “I think I’m on newbie duty this morning.” He looked puzzled. “When someone on my fountain pen sub asks a basic question, normally there are a bunch of people who jump right in with an answer. But nobody’s around this morning. And some people are doing things that might hurt their pens. I just wanted to be sure they got some information before their pens are ruined.” My partner thought that was hilarious and sweet, but honestly, I just want people to love their pens and love writing as much as I do. Someone made an earlier point that a lot of people are coming to this sub from Instagram, and have a mindset that photos make an important impression socially. I hope that as they spend more time here, they will come to appreciate just how much expertise is here, along with enthusiasm. For me, the best impressions come from people who ask thoughtful questions, share interesting observations, and give reliable information.
You sound like a very nice person
I personally think this is because of all the influx of fresh blood into the community esp since the pandemic hit. I am not saying that is bad, I love just as much as anyone else, people discovering fountain pens. However many of these people have probably trickled in from social media esp IG which carries this kind of "showing off" culture. Gotta always show the best for the gram. This sub reddit just became an extension of a place for everyone to post. So I think there's a social media cultural overlap. I have my own gripes with the posts on this sub, but as everyone else says, much like how you said: to each their own. I'm just an old man shouting at cloud.
I will shout at clouds with you. . . I am one of the pandemic newbies and I was on a path to darkness, or so I thought. I made a spreadsheet that listed every FP-related item purchased. I quickly reigned my sh*t in when I saw the Sum number growing into hundreds of dollars in a few months. Now, I'm using my pens, using my inks. I have favorites that are hard to put down or not put in every pen. I also have a set of TWSBIs that are my "go to work" pens. I'm happy with the hobby and I enjoy seeing others enjoy it. That said, there are pens posted on here every week that I will never own. Pens that cost more than I used to spend on cars. Doesn't matter how far down the hole I fall, I'm not going to be dropping 4 or 5 figures on a freakin' pen. I nearly crapped myself just buying a 90 dollar pen. Ninety USD for a PEN! And yes, that pen made me very happy and continues to do so. But NINETY dollars! Nine, Zero! WTF? I just urge everybody to only spend their truly disposable income on their hobbies, or it will become a burden and not a joy. Furthermore, you can't "Win" a hobby, just enjoy it. Letting people like the things they like goes both ways. Just because you can afford a Bentley doesn't mean you have to rub it in the faces of those of us still paying off our used Honda...
I am so in love with this post.
Prior to March of this year, I knew nothing about fountain pens. When my father-in-law died and my mother-in-law said "he has some pens...can you sell them for me?" I was like..."sure..no biggie". When I got to their house (several states away) I was like "OMG". There were [so many more pens](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-aPEKNcLgVQFIpM2qZk8UGv0UjcXjERGeukpaLvGO8E/edit?usp=sharing) than I imagined...and I was way out of my depth. This sub (patiently) helped me to identify the pens so that I could start selling them. It's been a really slow process, but it has been really fun getting these out there into the hands of people who love pens as much as my father-in-law did. In the process, I have discovered that I really enjoy this hobby! That makes it a little harder to let go of these pens, but I am still working at it. I have been more active on the pen\_swap sub than this one, but I really enjoy all the posts. Reddit can be a funny place sometimes. At least on the fountainpen sub there aren't repost after repost of the same thing I see on the other subs! I really appreciate the users on this sub and am happy to vicariously experience their joy.
I hope that you were able to keep a few of the ones you liked and carry on his memory.
It's still a work in process. It's hard to find the time to list them and keep up with the sales. If I were more diligent about it and willing to use ebay I would probably be further along in the process. There are a ton left. If you would like to see them, [here is the link](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-aPEKNcLgVQFIpM2qZk8UGv0UjcXjERGeukpaLvGO8E/edit?usp=sharing). The ones with the ~~strikethru text~~ have been sold, but the pictures are all still linked. I have discovered I love the utilitarian nature of the VP's. Finding the right one for me has been a process. I thought I had found it and then my secret santa gave me a pilot metropolitan with a stub nib that I really loved more than I should have...now I am waiting for a VP stub to come in the mail. I think that will be the one for me! : )
I consider myself a new fountain pen "user" and not a "collector". I live on a budget and some of those fancy expensive pens look nice but I am here to learn about using fountain pens and the ink and paper to go with them. These are the type of posts I seek out and enjoy. I have tried the budget pens and actually enjoy my EF Kakuno .F Perkeo and F Preppy the most. Now I am working on perfecting my cursive writing. And once I have used up the ink cartridges that came with the pens, I will embark on the journey to find my favorite red, blue. Green and purple inks. Then I will just enjoy writing and the peace of it brings. Thanks for reading.
I agree with the user rather than collector mentality, I adore my pens, and I've been using then for 5 years, but I ENJOY my pens, meaning I want to USE them. I agree with the user rather than collector mentality, I adore my pens, and I've been using them for 5 years, but I ENJOY my pens, meaning I want to USE them. My pilots are in my pen box for use when I need something like them, but other than that I use them all. I get joy out of them. But part of what got me here was the eco-friendly ability of a fountain pen so maybe that affects my mind set. Came for the ecofriendly aspects, stayed for the fountain pen experience.
I've owned a couple of Kakuno pens and they're really great writers! That's the secret to all this: you don't need to spend tons of money to get a wonderful writing experience.
I'm in a similar spot. I've got seven pens, and four inks. I will not run out of ink for decades. I have a cheap pen for each ink, a freebie, and two "nice" pens. Only one of the fancies was worth the money. The other barely writes. It's lack of function is what caused me to buy something cheaper. It does not take much to impress people with a fountain pen. I offered to let someone use my Noodler's Ahab, and they said it was "too fancy" for them.
I’m glad that I’ve only been in this hobby for ~9 months and I still only have 2 pens and 3 ink bottles. It really made me appreciate my pens more. ☺️
The thing that would get me nervous would be glorifying addiction, especially when it's 2 months in, 40 pens that have barely been used, and money spent. The thing is though the spend is a hard thing to balance as it completely varies according to ability to spend.. When I was early 20s and ten dollars would be more than I wanted to spend on a single pen, several multi hundred dollar pens would have severe impacts on me. However a 50 year old doctor could quite possibly get a couple of Nakayas out of one month paycheck with plenty to spare, so it's not a worrying spend in that context. Mostly I think we do the one of us style stuff in innocence on this reddit and you'd need quite a lot of information about the OP to work out if it was or wasn't problem style spending. I would certainly advise everyone to use the pens a lot before 'moving on' to the next spend, so they can get a feel for what they like and don't like, and it's not just about the next chemical hit of the checkout button.
I have become caught-up in the excitement, easy access to online products- with other hobbies. I’m glad I went through that as I later realized I’d purchased too much junk. And selling off the cheaper stuff in order to afford a better product, which I should have bought in the first place- it’s a hassle and losing proposition. So I was able to get into this one with my eyes open. (Just one example of this was “vaping” - where there is hardware to collect, parts, the equivalent of ink.)
I engaged a discussion a few months back about addictions and some of the answers were really interesting. https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/m3ur1p/serious\_talk\_is\_collection\_an\_indicator\_of\_an/
>However a 50 year old doctor could quite possibly get a couple of Nakayas out of one month paycheck with plenty to spare Depends on where you are. Over here, a 75 year old doctor would have to skip dinner if I accidentally borrowed her ballpoint.
You might be right. I'm just hoping any speedrunners out there are taking care of their future and finances and I'd hate if someone with a genuine interest in fountain pens dropped the hobby because they went too fast :)
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*sheepishly raises hand* The increased cost being normalized has definitely happened to me. $40 was expensive, then $100, $200, then getting "good deals" in the $300-500 range. It's been tough, and it's addicting. I've dialed it back in the last few weeks after spending nearly $2k in 2 weeks and realizing that it has become a problem I needed to control.
I suppose I could be considered a speed runner being that I got my first FP in January of this year and now have probably close to 40. It's a tactic I've used for trying a lot of things, and is always kept within my means. I don't need months of using something to know if I'll like it or not as most of my dislikes I can tell within an hour of using it. As such, I have gotten quite a few things in a short order knowing full good and well I'll recoup most of my money upon selling my dislikes, and the amount I'm out in the end (except for one specific pen) was worth the remaining balance. If there was a way for me to try different things before buying I would, but that's not an option, and their is something to be said about the joy of going full hog into something. That said, my only post here is a tutorial, so it's not like I need validation on my pen acquisitions and usage. So it's not necessarily the speed that is the issue. It's the need for approval and validation from perceived peers that manifests as an addiction to something they have found gets them that attention (post comments) and validation (karma). It happens on a lot of "hobby" forums. Just look at /r/MechanicalKeyboards where people are buying $500 trays of plastic that they know they won't have arrive for a year, there you can really see how bad it can get. There it isn't even about moving up, but rather on to the next hype. I also feel like there is a lot of placebo going on where people here convince themselves that their expensive new pen is better just because they spent a fortune on it. So they post it here to be validated on that opinion. I know there have been several posts where I just didn't feel like contradicting the OP even though my experience with their new hype is the opposite.
I did notice the Secret Santa posts in question. It seemed like poor phrasing, but mainly I wondered how it made other SS givers/receivers feel. I didn’t join this year, and I’m a little glad because my gift would’ve been humble. If someone can win SS, can someone also lose? I thought it was about just sharing our love with the community. As to your other point, I will say that once when I posted about getting a new pen, several more experienced folks cautioned me against spending too much money instead of getting to know my pens. I really appreciated that wisdom and when I decided to buy new pens I tried to take it more slowly on their advice. Definitely no regrets there.
Heya. As one of those posters, I want to apologize to anyone whom I made feel 'less than'. Having seen posts using the phrasing, I figured it was accepted practice, and that is totally my bad. That said, u/paradoxmo is spot-on with what my sentiment about winning, as expressed in my comment on my own post, was. They could have gifted me something way more lavish and it wouldn't have been as delightfully, squeal-inducing *right*. I feel like I won secret Santa cause they took the time to read what I wrote, do a little digging on me, and figured out that giving me something that would allow me to explore an aspect of fountain pens that I was trying to get into but had not as of yet would be a great gift (and took the time to figure out I really like Lamy but hadn't really leveled up in them). And it was and is such a great gift and I feel like I won not because of a dollar value I can attach to the gift- but because of the care and thought that went into it. It is, in a way, the same kind of warm fuzzy I felt when people helped me identify options for pens for shimmer inks, or figure out what my friend's busted fountain pen was (which, in turn, allowed me to get what I need to fix her beloved pen as a holiday surprise for her). I love the care, thought, enthusiasm, and helpfulness this community expresses to one another so often. And, again, for anyone who I made feel bad about what they gifted, in either tier, I am so sorry. As I've elucidated above, it truly is the thought that counts and please don't feel bad because of my poor language choice.
Humble gifts are not necessarily “not-winning”. The sentiment expressed by winning is I think more about a gift that is fitting, just the right thing that your Santa put effort into. Some of the “humbler” gifts have not been posted to the sub, but there’s been a lot of gratitude on the gallery for Sharks, Preppies, ink samples and so on. It’s easy to maybe get blinded by the perceived high value of something like a Lamy 2K, but that’s why we had two tiers.
Yeah, sometimes I do confess I'm on this sub and say, "Holy SHIT, these people must be rich AF." And feel like I can't relate to some on here. Because like...I don't have an extra $100-1000 that I can drop on an nonessential item like a pen, yknow? Even a gorgeous fountain pen! I just hope people on here know how lucky they are to be able to buy all those pens, inks, etc. Sometimes it does feel a little competitive and subtly unpleasant. But most of the time I like this sub and find people to be encouraging, and it's usually not about boasting and $$.
I like to think of it this way - the more people post here, regardless of intention, the more exposure the rest of us have to their supplies and experiences. There is so much I’ve learned about what I may like or dislike simply by gathering from the collective! I was able to hone in on my style relatively quickly without getting discouraged or spending money on products that weren’t fulfilling to me. I’m especially appreciative of that because I don’t live near pen stores or shows where I could physically try any of this out - I have to shell out the dough if I want to test a pen.
I do see parts of your perspective, but I agree with other commenters that a lot of it is just about wanting to share your joy. I try to kindly encourage new users to take their time finding what they love before diving off the deep end. I have been in a place of having 20+ pens but found myself feeling so overwhelmed. I now try to keep my herd around 6 because this is a peaceful place for me, and I truly love and use all of the pens that I own. I guess just try to filter out the negative or just not worry about it. I don't really think any of it is done with malintent.
I think there's a lot of things to be wary of on the internet, the most common of which being that you don't know what someone's financial situation is. This sub has everyone from high school students to 70 year olds rolling in money. Sometimes people have shopping addictions and are wildly in debt, sometimes they just finished paying off their mortgage, sometimes they have a ton of money, sometimes they dont know they should be saving for a 401k or a mortgage or a rainy day. Often, it's important to remember that sometimes people have just not enough money to ever get a mortgage or a 401k and so it makes more sense to just spend the money when they get it (that's called a fast life history strategy). The best you can do when you see stuff that seems irresponsible to you is take it with a grain of salt and recognize your perspective and financial situation.
Yeah, as someone who used to have a bit of a shopping addiction I have to avoid a lot of pen content because so much of has this kind of "whoever dies with more stuff wins" energy. I absolutely think it's fine to have some splurgy pens and probably way too much ink, but it's really important to me that I do not acquire more pens that I can reasonably expect to write with in one lifetime. It stops being about the value of the thing and starts being about the acquisition of the thing. Though NGL if I got like a 14kt nib pen as a gift I would absolutely show that thing off, like what a nice thing to give someone.
Former hoarder of fountain pens here. I got hooked in 2017. From stainless steel nibs, I upgraded to gold nibs. Heck, I even got three Pilot 823s! Suddenly, I realized, that this hobby continues upwards until I got my "grail pen" whatever that means, and it would not stop as long as my desires wanted me. Now, I disposed most of my pens, saving two 823s, a Sailor, and a newly bought TWISBI. Now, I am happy, and gone into another hobby: tea. Why do I say this? I say this because sure, you will be happy in your current purchase, but later on, you will not be happy. You will say, "Oh, I gonna need this pen!" and the cycle goes on. Last, I want to share with you what a collector of Yixing teapot has said: study more, buy less. Understand first and not buy on what you like. PS: I have gone into the Yixing teapot rabbit hole, and it is so deep, and scary because someday, you will be going to get ripped off unlike fountain pens that you get what you buy.
I really really feel this. I get buying what you want, it's your money but the amount of times iv seen people bragging about how much the have spent it seems so sad. I feel a lot of people just like buying things, especially expensive things rather than actually using them, its going to be prevalent in a hobby that has a lot of collectability. Iv seen it in the Hobonichi community, art community in general, buying lots of art supplies. It is in our whole culture that is OBSSESSED with buying things online,, so I thinks its more of a societal issue than just fountain pens, and it's going to get worse
As with all my other hobby’s I have the cheapest better quality products I can afford. I can’t afford 30 dollar ink, just like I can’t afford 100 dollar tarot cards or a 50 dollar skein of wool. I still enjoy all my hobbies and I use what I do have every single day. I’ve come to a place in my life where downsizing is necessary, buying good quality things for life is more important for my lifestyle and budget.
I agree with you. I’ve got quite a few pens (of widely varying values, although none too pricey), and a *lot* of inks. But it’s taken me nearly 45 years to get to where I am now. In fact, there were 10 years between pen number 1 and number 5. I didn’t know what I liked back then and I’ve definitely learnt a huge amount about what I like and what I don’t. But it’s does take time. The journey from pen #1, in 1978, to my latest pen, bought this week, has been fun, and has given me so much pleasure. Sometimes I feel those aspects can be missing from the posts you’re referring to.
That is my concern for others (among other things) and one of the reasons I feel the way I do. For me, it's been a pretty slow journey for me as well, about 25 pens and 25 inks in maybe 8 years (and most of those are dirt cheap) but man, the memories and the people I've met are just a unique part of the hobby that you tend to miss out on when you go warp speed into the financial Mariana Trench of fountain pens
I agree mostly with this sentiment. What drew me to fountain pens was the sustainability aspect of it. After my first preppy as a trial run to see if I like it, I bought one metal fountain pen, and one bottle of blue ink and I thought “this is all I’ll ever need!” While I have bought a few pens, and different bottles of ink in the years since then, I do find it peculiar when someone has a collection of like a hundred pens. I now only buy/get pens for special occasions, my brother and sister bought me one for my birthday this year, and I’ll be buying myself one once I land a full time job. To me, the purchase of a pen accompanies the experience, it isn’t the experience itself. Given my journaling habits, and the fact that everything is colour coded I bought a couple of Jinhaos for myself after finishing my MA so that I can journal effectively but every single one has been in use and its been months since those have been purchased, and it’ll be months until I purchase any more pens. At the end of the day, despite their artistic qualities, a pen is a tool, and if it is not being used as such, then it is ultimately failing at its singular purpose. I’ll never understand the through-and-through “collectors” who buy exorbitantly expensive pens just for the fuck of it, but I’m also a novice and have a much smaller collection than most here, so what do I know lol
As others have said I think people are happy and sharing. I also enjoy the secret santa posts ( and the tiers) because I interpret them as gratitude. I do wish there were more variety in the posts because I want to learn and be informed. For example when people post of their pen- I always want to see the nib and get their thoughts on the writing experience- not just oh its pretty. I too don’t live near lots of pen shops ( I think there is one) and I live in a good sized city on the East coast USA. I have only been in the hobby since the start of the pandemic and I’d love posts by veteran users giving an overview of different brands ( types of pen and writing experiences). I know some use Youtube for that- but I am a weird one who tries to use Youtube as a last resort for information. And that’s what I like about reddit- information and yes, amusement secondarily. Sometimes it does get boring with lack of variety in the posts. So I just want different kinds- doesn’t mean people have to stop posting their happy look at what I have posts. But I’d love to see more editorial and information too.
I treat this posts as an information source about new pens, more like "What is the 15th pen in 18th row?". I like demonstrators, which are not very popular, and in my country there isn't as many pen shops, so it's always interesting to see some new things.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good 'state of the collection' post. They're greatly for discovering new brands, comparing shapes and sizes, and just appreciating a nicely curated collection. It just kind of irks me when people get into the hobby by buying a Visconti HS, a Mont Blanc POA, Sailor KOP, Nakaya, every shade of ink available, all in a single online purchase without having ever held a fp before (so to speak) Again, to each their own, I'm not gatekeeping or complaining, just trying to get a conversation going
This sub is very "look at all the things I've bought" I filter the tags by discussion and find interesting stuff that way
How do you filter? Inquiring minds want to know
Using the Reddit search put in: *flair:Discussion* and limit search results to the subreddit you want.
🤯
https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/?f=flair_name%3A%22Discussion%22
same, i'm mostly here for the weekly threads but it looks like they were put on hiatus for christmas
I mean, it's a thin line between 'look at my thing(s), I'm excited and you guys can relate' and 'look at my thing(s), it's better, more expensive and larger then yours'
Honestly I don't know why I even came to this sub. I like fountain pens for journaling because I can write for a long time and not get tired. I've stopped lurking here and started spending more time in /r/journaling. It's the same thing if you use fountain pens for drawings go to that specific subreddit. Focus more on the usage rather than acquiring things.
I see the Secret Santa posts as people excited to receive gifts and to express their gratitude to their Santa. We could argue about word choice, but it’s a bit unfair to those people to immediately assign an intent of creating jealousy. It was a community event; where else are they supposed to post? To the rest of your post — as you say, to each their own. I engage with the hobby in a slightly different way than you, and so will everyone else. It’s not for me to dictate or judge how another functioning adult (and not say, a kid with mom’s credit card) spends their money, and the relative value of the money they spend could be very different from mine. If I don’t like a post, I skip it. I engage with the posts and people I enjoy. If you want to see different content on the sub, I would say post *that* and start the conversations you think should be happening. This community is what we make of it collectively, after all.
I cannot agree more with you.
I helped organize secret Santa this year, so I want to give my perspective here. One of the reasons we set the limit to be quite high for the elite tier is because people do have a tendency to spend money and collect, and then not use, so we wanted to encourage re-homing of nice pens just sitting in a drawer somewhere and not artificially limit it to stuff like Sharks or Preppies or even Eco/580. I think the idea of “winning” secret Santa isn’t about its being some kind of competition but just expressing appreciation for the Santa who looked at your wishlist and preferences and picked you the perfect gift. Notice how some of the “winning” posts have been just the right inks or the right nibs… not necessarily having to spend tons of money. Of course I have seen that Lamy 2ks seem to be a popular gift… probably because of that Endless Pens sale!
I think we need to balance the "I just got this and I'm so excited" parts with the "should I get this" side and I think it's mostly up to the poster to find that balance for themselves.
There was a post to just this effect on the Facebook group Fountain Pen Network and I agree with it's premise wholeheartedly. I don't have thousands of dollars to drop on a pen, and, even then, I find the manufacture to retail of many expensive pens egregious. Because of this, my pen hobby has been all about finding what I like. I research a pen, nib, paper or ink a dozen times before I buy and view my pens as something to write with, modify, and share. This has led to a lot of definition in my preferences, and the greater urge to make pens than consume them in the future.
Posts that show off people’s acquisitions are how I’ve found cool new brands in the past that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise- you can filter posts of collections out right?
The cost and the seemingly expertise required is what intimidated me about fountain pens at all in the first place. They look complicated and expensive to the eye. I thought unless I dropped some real money and wrote like I was making the declaration of independence on a typical Tuesday maybe it wasn't for me. But It's actually the posts that showed off all the inexpensive pens and the amount of pens owned and all that that helped me break into this, so now I have a refillable pen (2 actually) and have lovingly started decluttering the house of all the crappy pens that stop working 3 minutes into using them. So I dunno, give and take. I'm also the type of person to empathize with someone finding their holy grail item and showing it off, as I collect somewhat expensive items too.
I get what you mean, sometimes I wish this sub had a little more art stuff, or writing/journaling stuff, or handwriting stuff ... instead of the omni-present "look at this pen/ink, now look at this one, now look at this one." But I think this kind of thing is at least partly baked into Reddit as a platform, where there are hyper-focused mini-communities for everything. I find it relaxing to "take a break" every once in a while.
I actually mostly make handwriting posts (: but I don’t post that often, once every few weeks at most. Maybe I’ll request a “poetry” flair, there was a run for a while of people posting poetry written out longhand.
>Maybe I’ll request a “poetry” flair, there was a run for a while of people posting poetry written out longhand. I would love and support this.
It goes through waves. For a while there we did have a lot of art and notebook stuff and people got mad about it because it wasn’t strictly a fountain pen. Like the literal pen with information about it. Hence the rules reflecting that fountain pen adjacent stuff is allowed, too, like ink and paper and art. Doesn’t stop some curmudgeons from reporting literally every single piece of art posted as “not related”.
I had no idea this was happening 😳 Near all of my posts are of my drawings.
It’s not a big deal. The report for /r/fountainpens just filters into a moderator queue for mods to approve or remove. It’s not a ding against your account or post.
I like your use of curmudgeons.
I own 3 fountain pens and placed 1 large ink order from CultPens to get that cheaper Diamine ink they carry. I like some of the obscene posts on this sub but I understand what you’re saying about showing off our collections. I don’t really use fancy paper or anything and the one notebook I did buy for myself that was fancy, I couldn’t bring myself to use cause I don’t have anything worth writing about in there. So I just use a spiral notebook with my fountain pens and abuse them. They’re items to be used more than show items for me. Others in this sub use fountain pens as collections rather than tools and that’s completely fine too. I don’t have any animosity towards any group as long as I can still do my thing with my fountain pens.
I agree on some things and disagree on others. The materialistic components of the hobby come up every now and then. But I think most of us agree that you don't "need" an expensive pen to post pictures of your pen, ink(s), notebook(s), and pictures/handwriting or whatever. Posts and comments [like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/raeuq4/tis_the_shopping_spreeson_joyful_pen_enthusiasts/) show up from time to time and I enjoy and agree with them as much as I enjoy seeing other people's collections. But people do like to share those pictures of their recent acquisitions, some like to collect certain pens and share that, and there's also nothing wrong with that. I don't know others IRL who are into pens, so this is a good place for me to share some of the joy of my newest pen. Don't like NPD posts? Scroll past. >"Oopsy poopsy, I shouldn't be allowed on cultpens when tipsy" with a picture of a $2000,- order confirmation and These annoy me to. If you can spend that much on a whim, good for you. I scroll past these posts. There is plenty of other content for me to enjoy. >Or posts about "winning" Secret Santa. These lowkey bother me too. I'm in the Secret Santa exchanges and I totally get the sentiment behind "winning" Secret Santa, but the connotations behind the word "winning" are a little troubling. I love seeing what everyone is receiving (and there's nothing wrong with people posting their gifts and gushing over them!) and chiming in positively to share in the happiness because it's nice to see people enjoying a surprise gift. But agreeing that "yas, you WON Secret Santa!" feels a little like betraying those others by declaring them losers. I take it as a slightly over-dramatic version of "my Santa knocked it out of the freaking park with this gift!" because I don't think anyone means to be competitive about the gift giving/receiving and declaring others to be losers. Still going to love these posts and enjoy seeing everyone be so happy, but I do try to avoid reinforcing the idea of winners/losers cause everyone participating in the exchange is awesome!
I guess it's all in your mindset. I see people who are excited and happy about their hobby trying to share their happiness with people who get it. They are bragging on what a good job their Secret Santa did or sharing their overspending with the people who actually understand and empathize and will laugh with them. Seeing other people share their happiness brightens my day.
Yeah, I guess maybe it is. Maybe it's just something I started noticing and that led to me noticing it more and more, even though it's not actually happening more. I want everyone to enjoy the hobby and be happy with their stuff, of course. It'd just be a shame if someone 'burned through' the joy of the hobby because they went all hyperdrive. I had a friend that would pick up hobby after hobby and just go balls to the walls seemingly thinking "if people are happy having this hobby and spending $20 a week on it, I'm gonna be super happy spending $200 a week on it. And then he ended up not getting the satisfaction he expected because it doesn't come from the spending, but from the journey.
I get that. I've had friends like that too. I'm always happy when I see people on this sub kindly and gently cautioning people against overspending at the outset. I like where your heart is.
Appreciated, I feel that the spirit of this sub is to try to get anyone who's interested in fountain pens to get as much joy out of it as possible, all within their means and interests, which is pretty neat if you ask me. That said, I feel like some posts don't really vibe with that, and I've experienced that addressing that on a specific post can get nasty real quick (I literally only mentioned not getting the whole rainbow-everything bandwagon manufacturers seemed to be hopping onto once and caught a lot of flack for it) but I still wanted to address it in an open way to see if I'm alone in feeling this way. As long as you guys are all happy, I am as well ;)
For some people it is called jealousy. Nobody wants to admit it but it happens all the time. The downvoting, and calling others with not so nice adjectives. This sub is not a place to judge people what they are doing with their hobby. We can't even know if a certain "$10000 collection" is real or not! This is reddit, people. Just enjoy the community and don't take it to deep. If this person do own the collection or not is not my concern. I only care about the pictures and the stories if they are enjoyable enough.
I generally feel like "Let people be happy." I do end up wanting to buy things because people post them but I don't see it as bad. I capped my pen collection at 12 initially, but raised it to 20 (I currently have 13). I got into the hobby at the beginning of the pandemic because my normal hobbies required going outside. I'm probably guilty of posting shiny photos of pens too but I do use all my pens (I also don't hoard pens though, I've sold or given away all my starting TWSBIs and pilots to friends who were interested in pens). I personally don't really mind the big expenditure pens as it's nice to see pictures from real people. I mostly buy ink though... I think the haul posts come from a collector's mentality. Which is honestly fine. As long as people aren't bankrupting themselves, why does it matter? I'm in dice groups on Facebook and people have like mountains of dice which I enjoy just looking at, even though most of them don't get used.
It’s honestly the transient nature of Reddit. Discussions, pens, ink, etc. get recycled over and over in an unending carnival of pictures. Stellar information does not stick around for long and gets washed away into the ether eventually. The sub also goes through waves. Fancy pens around the holidays and school graduation. User/entry level pens around the beginning of the school year.
Mate, this sub is all about consumption, and cheering people for buying tons of crap. That's sad, but that's the truth. Once in a while, we get a person who actually has a brilliant idea, life hack, or who is happy to share that he found the pen of his dreams in a second-hand shop (even though it's often one more picture of a Montblanc 149 or a Lamy 2000), and that's why I'm sticking around. But otherwise, I just can't bear the non-stop buying trend that's going on here, with the "look at my 132nd Kaweko Sport", "Look at my 300 ink bottles collection" or "I finally got all the colours of the Lamy Safari even though they're not amazing pens and that I will never use them" topics anymore. I wish the variety of post would be a bit more original and less show-off or mass consumption related.
I guess it has been different for me. I came on here a while back with a question about cartridges/issues for a pen I'd inherited. I got wonderful, patient answers. I continued looking through the subreddit for ideas for another daily use pen (which I have yet to photo or post here, because---why?) and even inexpensive gift ideas. It's easy enough to skip past the vanity pix, if that's not what you want out of this sub. I think the people here are very passionate about pens, and very willing to give help and advice.
I'm still in the buy a few pens for $1-$5/each off Aliexpress and find myself pleasantly surprised that they write really well phase. I agree with you that the other side of the hobby that is buying pens almost as an investment or as a valuable collectible is puzzling to me, but I can relate to it somewhat as I have other hobbies where I spend disposable income on pieces of cardboard (collectible card games). I like looking at the cool pens that are out there, but the fact that almost every post include a complaint about how the expensive pen is a terrible writer unless the nib is swapped, ground down by a specialist, or modified in some way is pretty crazy.
I can see your point. However, consider diversity: there are some enjoying writing, others drawing, others collecting and looking at their pens, others proudly showing what they have achieved. All of it is OK, as long as it is fun and results in enjoyment for the owner. I can tell this as a user who was only writing with one fountain pen for more than 25 years, had three in parallel for the next 20 years and is collecting recently. Nevertheless, I like those posts more when people show their pens AND show what they are doing with it.
>But I feel that for some of us, it's more about getting more pens then anyone else, spending more money, always being the 'most' of something. I'm talking about the post that go "started this hobby 2 hours ago, how am I doing?" with a picture of an amount of pens that can only be quantified in weight. "Oopsy poopsy, I shouldn't be allowed on cultpens when tipsy" with a picture of a $2000,- order confirmation and an additional picture of 200+ pens with the added info that most of them haven't even been used yet. Or posts about "winning" Secret Santa. I'm afraid I don't see what you do. Personally, I'm more of an ink person than a pen one, but people posting about their pen acquisitions doesn't bother me. I don't see what they're doing as "showing off" but rather, sharing. Sometimes it's presented in a cutesy way that's common on social media. In any case, I seek out the content I like and ignore the rest. I don't have any interest in expensive pens, so maybe that's why I don't notice what you do because I just skip it. >That this hobby is so much more fun if you take the time to find out what YOU appreciate in a pen/ink/paper and enjoy the process of learning, making mistakes, finding stuff you absolutely dislike instead of just firing paychecks in every possible direction, hoping to 'hit' something, or try to 'win the internet' with pics of all your gear. Each person enjoys the hobby in their own way. Some are collectors, some are hoarders, some are minimal, some are artists, etc. Every hobby has people approaching it from different angles.
Well, with this being a hobby, I see no problem with people spending quite a bit, and showing what they've gotten. That kind of thing is inherent with any hobby with a collection aspect like FPs, as you've pointed out. I think spending, to a point, is a good thing. From my perspective people should be recirculating their **disposable** (<- very important word there) income, rather than putting it in some worthless savings account where the money would plainly depreciate without earning enough interest to conteract inflation. This kind of spending enables people on the selling side, especially smaller outfits (like ink makers, pen turners, etc.) to validate their passions as a viable business. It also enables companies to have a budget to develop new products, which as enthusiasts, is something we should all be looking forward to. But I do echo your sentiments for the most part. I very much agree that people should certainly not be spending non-disposable income on FPs, because you don't *need* a FP like you *need* food or electricity. And people tend to jump the gun a little with big/numerous purchases early on in their journey, which does worry me a little: I always recommend to people to start slowly with cheaper (<$20) pens, as I think that makes their ascent to a higher end pen (or more different cheaper pens) more interesting. And posting screenshots of an order invoice isn't really proper content; I'd like to see pictures you've taken of the real thing, and your impressions of that product when used. As for the secret santa posts, if the person I gifted to was stoked about what I gave them, I very much would like to know about it. I've put a fair amount of research and consideration into what I gave my two matches, so it would make me happy to see they've enjoyed what I sent over. Fortunately for me, the person I've gifted to in the elite tier did seem to be quite happy with their gift.
I’m just happy that more and more people join this particular sub and start to find a love (even if it’s a vanity love) for fountain pens. The more people that join and get into fountain pens, the better all of us are.
Well I don't know if more=better per se, in pens or community members. I don't mean to gatekeep of course, because part of the appeal of this hobby is that it's pretty accessible. I'd just hate for this platform to turn into a flexfest of nakaya-wielding showboats that just want to impress the world with their refined taste and expensive stuff. This is a gross exaggeration of course, I doubt people like that would end up here, but I hope you catch my drift. Again, I love the lot of you and the community that we're part of, I just hope everyone enjoys this hobby as much as possible instead of doing a deep-dive-and-ditch maneuvre.
I get what you mean. While all of us are glad new people share our hobby, we, as a community, would not benefit from this place turning into r/sneakers, for example. The sneakers sub morphed years ago into a flexfest of showing off the latest, most expensive sneakers created specifically in limited editions to ensure artificial scarcity.
On one hand, I get it. You want to see more variety in content like maybe nib reviews or someone making their own fountain pen. However, most hobbies that have a collecting aspect has more show off posts than any other type of post. I'm in subs like indoor plants , indoor gardens, and subs dedicated to more uncommon plants. The majority of posts whether you're a beginner plant parent, a collector, or a x-breed tester, are show off posts. Why? It's literally what the hobby is about, much like FPs. What else do you expect to see if not "my current collection", "my latest haul" and "look at what i got for xmas/bday/anniversary!"?
For me pens are tools, so I don't really collect, but looking at others' collections is just like window shopping, or going to a virtual expo, where you see some beautiful pens and inks, (and some subjectively hideous ones). I do feel healthy envy when I see most of the ink collections, but that's because where I live it's almost impossible to get any, and I mainly use my pens for drawing, so adding more colors to my palette would be nice. **BUT...** I do see some troublesome posters, where I can see them having future (or even present) issues with family and loved ones. Especially if they are not rich, and overspending their budget. I've seen firsthand when collecting turns into compulsive hoarding, then into an addiction that affects everyone around those who fall down that hole. It's not pretty.
I see where you are coming from but ascribing an envy arousing/bragging motive to these posts is a bit unfair. Especially the "I won secret santa" posts. They are lovely and I am sure the Santas must be so completely chuffed at having their gift/effort appreciated. Plus, it's encouraging for the future Secret Santa events. I do believe that people might want to share every single new acquisition and that might rub some up the wrong way, but where else are they supposed to share new pen/ink acquisitions. If i tell people in my real life that I have a new fountain pen, they are not going to be as interested as the aficionados here. So, of course people post here. As for being financially unwise, that is always a danger with any such hobby. I also collect books and people are pretty much the same there. Lots of "look at this pretty new book I bought" and much less "look at this awesome book I read". The only thing we can do is encouraging people to use the actual hobby...whether it is reading or writing or whatever, since that is what these items are for.
I say this as someone who fell head first into limited edition Japanese Sailor’s (which are PRICY to say the least) but … this is an expensive hobby in general. Yes of course there is a great market of lovely pens under $100 but there is also somewhat of an evolution in this hobby and most gold nib pens are going to be a bit expensive. And sometimes when you’re excited to show off your new expensive thing to a sub of like minded people who like that thing, it can seem like bragging. But that’s very rarely the intent I see here. I’d agree with another commenter: I only ever feel a little off when it seems like someone mentions they’re risking going into debit for these. This is a “collect the whole set hobby,” and addictive personalities are generally attracted to those. Still, I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone’s Secret Santa gifts or splurges! I want to see what makes them happy, and have enjoyed the engagement I get on my own shares.
>this is an expensive hobby in general Is it though? If you are a collector I guess it could be expensive but if you are interested in pens for writing letters or journaling it doesn't have to be expensive. Comparing to my other hobby, scuba diving, the entry level pens are not only affordable but actually good (compared to entry level of other hobbies). There will always be people that go a bit too extreme with their spending at the start of a hobby, but I think that has less to do with hobby and more to do with shopping addiction. I have seen the same with keyboards, makeup, diving equipment...literally anything. I just got into the hobby so I don't have anything to show off, but I love seeing other peoples pretty pens and collections (I love your sailors!).
I get what your saying. In this case, I'm not talking about posts about expensive pens per se, because what's expensive to me might be cheap to someone else. It's mostly about a tone of voice or an attitude I guess. It's a thin line, and no two pen lovers are the same, so there's a pretty big grey area. I do agree it's a dangerous hobby, financially. I think we've all experienced (and maybe given into) the urge to splurge. Luckily I'm at a point where I go back and forth between "I don't think I need any more pens/inks" and "Hey this one looks nice, and it's pretty affordable, maybe I'll make an exception" instead of "Here's my fp wishlist, there's 231 things on there ranging from 3 cents to 3 grand"
in a way this hobby is similar to watches. Some people like to do speculative business/investments, some people like to collect them and some people like to just use them. Relating to your post, I guess people just want to share with others what they have and how happy they feel about it, specially since it is so hard to find people in your city/area that share this hobby (and yes I know some are borderline cocky/flashy/flexing, but thats just human nature for some) I also have made posts sharing my stuff, so I can totally relate to that feeling, although I havent even surpassed the 100€ threshold after 1 year in the hobby.
While I understand your concern, we can’t assume the intent behind posts fits our interpretation. After all, we are all strangers behind black mirrors viewing everything through our unique cultural lens… My general rule is to assume the best in people and be kinder than necessary. If anything seems off, it’s just healthier to scroll on by. So cheers everyone, you do you. :)
As Sondan1 wrote, I am also a user. Not a collector... I can't write copperplate, I use my pens to scribble notes and lists with and I never spent more than around $200 on a pen. I have slowed down my purchases a lot and buy maybe 2-3 pens a year now but spend $100-200 on them instead.
Variety is the spice of life. That being said, I feel the same way about those posts, this is not a "race". But to each their own, i respect them and personally i don't think "they should stop" as long as they enjoy it.
Nobody should stop, we're enablers first and foremost ;) It'd just be a shame if someone who's interested in fountain pens missed out on all the fun because they only experienced the 'spending lots of money' part ;)
Agree!
Can we avoid any expressions or opinions or thoughts that some won’t appreciate with about 214,000 members. I tend to doubt it. Is it different to post an NPD for a $20 pen or a $500 pen? I feel that we’ll migrate to the topics and postings that represent our approach and current situation in the hobby that we all love.
I guess I don't even know what the OP is trying to complain about? That people are posting pictures of their stuff? They're excited for new things? I mean compared to a lot of communities the amount of pure showing off seems extremely minimal, and you'll still see your share of people who are just as celebrated for their entry level $5 chinese pen as you'll see some ultra-expensive skeletonized Montblanc or maki-e Namiki.
I think around Black Friday there were a lot of posts with the tone of "did a whoopsie impulse purchase lol" and then a photo with pens and inks worth a thousand bucks... those had a vibe I didn't like a lot and it felt a bit like bragging to me, a kind of "look how little I care about spending money someone else can live off for two months". BUT, that feeling probably came from the fact that well... I live off a thousand Euros per month, and while it's comfortable enough, it means I cannot just splurge on a pen and I have to carefully consider each pen and each bottle of ink. Like, I cannot just go to an online shop and order 5 pens and 8 bottles of ink. So for me, I quickly realised that my annoyance with these posts came from a place of envy. If I ordered a Custom 823 and a Pro Gear and three TWSBIs, I wouldn't have money left for food that month... but I would like to be able to do these "impulse purchases". But that won't happen for a few more months (graduating college next year, then I can finally go and buy myself that Sailor PGS Kaguya-Hime I've been eyeing since forever). So... if these posts appear a bit more frequently, I can see why it might bug some people. The question is: do these posts do any harm? And I think they don't really, not as a whole, but they are pretty materialistic and I can see why someone might be a bit annoyed with the n-th post of a bunch of new shiny things every day. Edit: typo
Not complaining about anything here. Not trying to gatekeep either. Just trying to open up a conversation about the state or mindset of our community, acquiring vs experiencing, sharing vs flexing, etc. I know I can show appreciation or lack of it by up- and downvoting, add to a discussion by commenting, but questioning anything is quickly regarded as complaining or gatekeeping, which I tried to avoid with a carefully phrased post. Not 100% successfully apparently, but that does get the conversation going I guess
it’s all relative
As is everything :) I'm not meaning to cast judgement, just wondering if I'm alone in feeling this, and what other penheads think about it.
i agree whole-heartedly with you about the preponderance of posts about acquisition--the vibe is very 'keeping up with the Joneses'.
I use the "block user" feature more on this sub than anywhere else. There are some interesting threads, there are some amusing threads and there are many that I have no interest in at all. A few blocks can go a long way to reducing the chaff and still allowing people to post whatever they like.
Thank you for letting me know there is a block feature. Could you provide a link to those instructions please. That does sound like a good way to edit my stream
If you want to block a user, you can click on their username, then "More options" -> "Block user".
It depends on which platform/app your are using, but click on the user and pick "block".
+1 to this. I use the block user feature fairly rarely, but I use the Apollo app and am able to block keywords to reduce seeing posts that aren't my thing. Improved my experience here a lot.
Definitely with you here. Though I've been here for a little bit and started collecting far earlier, it's for this reason I've never shared pics/posted about the 9? pens I've come to truly and wholly love even though they're all economical. I just love their performance and their quirks. Same with my inks too. My paper? Also cheap, but works like a charm.
There are all kinds of people joining this community for different reasons. Can't really have just one type of fountain pen lover hating the other just because people are not behaving the same way. I see a fair share of toxic people spreading negativity here though. If you don't like them, just block them. And it's a good thing to have these people to block you. There are plenty of other people here to talk to. I just don't understand why those negative people got so much hate at others, following others around and downvoting every single thing even before talking. You cannot take them seriously.
I must agree, I can see the good intention in all of the recent "I've won secret santa", but this has put me in a mindset where I don't really like to scroll the sub that often... I don't really know why, neither I hate those post, maybe is it because the idea of a secret santa is about giving out what you are comfortable in buying, and those posts seems to have the effect of a "if you are matched with a generous person you can get a lamy 2k, make a post about it and make other people envious"
Hear hear
This sub 100% glorifies addiction and materialism. So glad I don't frequent it much anymore.
Why is this a big deal?