I’ve been remiss in not saying thank you to Patrice K. for their kind donation on Ko-fi. Thank you, Patrice! I appreciate it, and I’m happy you enjoy my posts.
Well, last year was an anomaly. I went over my self-imposed fountain pen purchase limit for this year. Although, to be fair to myself, it was a difficult year, and I would have been under my limit if I’d kept it at 36. I’m ending the year with 35 new pens in my possession, 8 more than last year, and 5 above my goal of 30.
I am, however, proud of how I feel about my pen purchases, looking back at them. Over 97% of my acquisitions fall into the good, great, or best categories. That’s the best I’ve done in all 8 years I’ve been actively collecting.
In a successful attempt to make this ranking post a bit easier on myself, I defined each category, rather than going with “vibes”:
- Regrets: pens I shouldn’t have purchased in the first place — almost certainly impulse purchases — or pens I purchased and discovered I didn’t actually like — a hindsight regret.
- OK: pens I don’t regret purchasing, but probably won’t be long-term joys; I will probably sell them at some point.
- Good: pens I’m happy to have and are generally good additions to my collection; I may or may not sell them at some point.
- Great: pens I’m really happy to have, likely additional colorways of pens I love or pens with unique and/or interesting aspects; unlikely to be sold.
- Best: pens that are highlights in my collection, likely commissions or pens I’ve wanted for a while; I can’t imagine ever selling these.
Per usual, I’ve included photos so you can see the pretties. Where one exists, I’ve also linked the pen images to my dedicated blog posts. Now, enough chit-chat, onto the ranking!