(Ice) Tray for my Pens

Everyone has his or her own way of organizing writing instruments. And everyone has their own pen holders to do this. I’ve always had pen holders on my work/writing tables at home and in my office. Some are gifts, like the Ikea pen holder set I got from someone’s Singapore trip, or the wooden set I inherited from someone else; but most are modified pen holders, like mugs of all shapes and sizes, or large peanut butter jelly glasses. For long, this worked as long as my pens are organized. However, when I started collecting fountain pens, I realized that the previous pen holders could damage the barrels of my pens. I found relief when I got my flannel pen wrap. (More about it here and here.)

My pen wrap. I’m still using it to keep (and protect) my pens inside my backpack. Nowadays, its permanent residents are my precious fountain pens, some are pictured below, some I keep uninked for the time being.

Then again, untying and retying a pen wrap and spreading it on my table didn’t look very pretty at all. And so the quest for a better pen organizer went on… Until I went to a pen meet last December and saw fellow fountain pen collector Cindy Trinidad‘s pen trays. At first I didn’t think it would work for me, these trays. Then again, when I saw them at a mall’s kitchen supplies section, I got hooked on these beautiful ice trays made of soft rubber. Each tray has seven slots and each slot is long (and wide) enough to accommodate a pen. And what’s best about these pen trays is that they’re available in blue! Now, my pen tray looks like this:

(It’s my Moleskine on the foreground, yes. That brown ink is Private Reserve Copperburst on my black Schneider Base.)

Up close, this is how my pen tray looks like on an ordinary day. *Wink.* My pens, from left are: white Schneider Base (Medium, inked with Waterman Florida Blue), black Schneider Base (Medium, with Private Reserve Copperburst), Rotring 600 (Broad, with Private Reserve Avocado), black Hero 616 (Fine with Waterman South Sea Blue), Inoxcrom P-200 (Medium with PR Avocado), green Schneider Zippi (Medium with Inoxcrom blue), and a white Parker Jotter with Medium Black ink.

And yes, I’ve completely shifted to full fountain pen use. I only got the Jotter there for signing documents that need ballpoint ink, or when I’m filling out forms. Otherwise, I’m enjoying full use of my fountain pens and enjoying their ink colors even more!

January’s New Pens and Ink

New Year spells new beginnings, new hopes, new wishes. I say New Year brought me new pens. *Wink.* Some people welcome New Year with fireworks, 12 fruits, or money in their pockets. I welcomed 2009 with three new pens! While my brothers were busy setting up fireworks, I was busy inking my Schneiders with my new Waterman South Sea Blue and polishing the Hero616 that Sir Butch D. gave me during last December’s pen meet.

The Waterman ink is a delight. After using Inoxcrom’s blue and Quink’s blue-black, this turquoise from Waterman is a new experience to write with that the moment I inked my black Schneider Base, I wrote endlessly on my Moleskine and completed three pages in a flash! (Photos to follow later, including pages of my Molie where I wrote with my PR Copperburst.) But what’s also exciting is my Shchneider Base fountain pen. This German pen, inexpensive and so elegant in its design is a joy to write with. Its medium nib writes smoothly sometimes I forget I’m writing with a fountain pen! Here are some photos of the New Year’s stash:

Delight, joy, ecstasy. That spells ink, fountain pens and notebooks for me. The bottled ink is Waterman South Sea Blue, and the pens are: Hero616, Schneider Base Medium in white and black barrels.

Ink and pens on the notebook my friend Sonny sent me all the way from Singapore as Christmas gift.

Ink and pen pageantry. My ink stash: Quink black and blue-black, Waterman South Sea Blue, and Private Reserve Avocado and Copperburst. Coming early next week: Noodler’s Concord Bream!

My Fountain Pens

I really do not know how I got into the hobby of fountain pen collecting. I know I have always preferred gel pens and ballpoints for my everyday writing. Perhaps my interest in getting more of these interesting pens started when my sister-in-law Jelyn gave me a Parker Vector a few years back. It was an interesting gift but not interesting enough that I kept the pen but didn’t use it.

Months later, I went to attend a writing class and felt the urge to use the pen so I finally inked it and used it during our writing exercises.

My Parker Vector and my first bottle of Quink black.

Later on, when I got interested in buying Moleskine notebooks, I also became interested in getting more fountain pens. But I have just moved into my apartment and money had to go elsewhere and so I could not afford to add more to the Vector to start a collection. It was only until early this year when I was able to get another, a blue Inoxcrom Vivaldi. Even that cannot be considered a ‘serious’ pen by purists. Then again, I cannot collect vintage pens now. Not yet. So I focused on the ‘fancy’ types of fountain pens, especially the ones from Inoxcrom and Rotring.

Here are my Inoxcrom Vivaldis. The blue one has my name engraved on its barrel. I’ll get the pink one later on to complete the trio.

And then two Saturdays ago, I went malling with a friend and got myself these three. (Yes, I got three fountain pens in a day.)

Top to bottom: My Rotring Core Rubidium, a red Inoxcrom Vivaldi, and a P-200, another Inoxcrom. Among the three, only the Rubidium has been inked.

Above are my five fountain pens. I’ll be getting more later. More reds, more blues, more… Yellows? Greens? Basta more…