No, this is not the usual note about collecting versus not collecting. This Thought comes from a number of conversations in recent months about the specific reasons underlying fountain pen collecting. I’ve noted many times that my small collection is a motley crowd of pens that I find interesting and love to use, although I […]
How fountain pens work has long fascinated me. The modern fountain pen is fundamentally a late 19th Century device with many upgrades but the same basic mechanism: a vessel that holds an ink supply, a means of transporting ink to the nib in a controlled manner and letting air supplant the ink that has flowed […]
Among the many questions that come to me is why a company made a particular pen as they did, and the question is often written in the “what were they thinking” tone. Sure, pendom is full of strangeness and mistakes, but when viewed from when the decision was made, they usually make sense. With that […]
When the world changed, now almost a year ago, my life’s habits changed with it. After many years, because I wasn’t using my backpack or pen case, my pattern of filling a few pens, using them empty, flushing them out, and swapping in different pens, came to a grinding halt. My favorite pen case, empty […]
At least once a month, I get an email from someone I’ve not met, noting “Your website has gotten me intrigued by the idea of restoring and writing with vintage pens, where do I start?” These messages often lead to frequent correspondence and new friends, and I truly enjoy both. Although my first response is […]
I often describe a pen as “needing a right-handed writer”, and some pens need my wife or friends to write the writing sample. Why is this? Is it me or the pen? From my first using my first fountain pen in 1965, having received a Parker 21 for a present, I realized that the left […]
When I first considered turning my small hobby shop into a restoration and sales practice, I consulted a number of prominent restorers. One of those consultations was with Ron Zorn of Main Street Pens, with whom I spent the better part of a day in conversation at a Long Island Pen Show. He told me […]
No, this isn’t a commercial for a pen that is listed in the For Sale page. Yes, I’m having some misgivings about selling the oversized Sheaffer Balance in Marine Green from the core of my collection, but I think this is a decision that will stay decided. I’ve owned this pen since the first year […]
Looking at the pens in my three-pen everyday carry case this holiday week, I am ready to acknowledge publicly that all three are modern pens. This is pretty heady stuff for someone so devoted to vintage pens. No, I’m not preparing to rename my company “xxxx, formerly known as timsvintagepens”, because I do still love […]
Some months back, this space was devoted to my purchase of a vintage machine lathe for fabricating replacement parts for vintage fountain pens. Eight months later, after getting-to-know-you learning, restoration, repair, and experiencing the first steps, sidetracks, and culs-de-sac of machining’s very long learning curve, I have now produced my first pen part, the sac […]