Over the last year or so I've reawakened my interest in writing instruments that you don't throw away once they've run out of ink. You refill them, keep writing, perhaps change colors now and again to suit your mood. And perhaps, eventually, give them to your children or grandchildren – these are not 50-cent disposable ballpoints, after all. They're fountain pens, and most of them are designed to last a lifetime.

what i usually write with

I carry two pens around with me these days; one with a medium point ("nib") and a utilitarian ink color like blue or black; the other a broader nib and a highlight color such as purple or burgundy. In college I took notes in two colors; these days my work journal is the same.

My workhorse medium-nib pen is a Lamy Vista, the clear demonstrator version of the Safari. With postal shipping and a converter so that I can use bottled ink with it, it cost me a round $25. Yes, that sounds like a lot for a pen that, while it looks fairly cool, isn't exactly jewelry. But it writes like a dream, is durable as all heck, and should last for decades. Bottled ink eventually becomes cheaper per written word than rollerballs, too. :)

The other pen I carry is jewelry, to an extent. It's also mechanically amazing – it's the only retractable fountain pen made. The Pilot company makes it, under the brand name Namiki, and calls it the Vanishing Point. [Outside the US, it's sold as the Pilot Capless]. Although fairly expensive at $100, I just couldn't resist the Art Deco styling and limited-availability bright yellow finish. This one has a broad nib and – currently – a vivid purple ink sold by the German lifestyle shop Bethge but made by the French company J. Herbin, who have been in that business for over three hundred years.

how this quirk of mine developed

As entirelysonja can attest, I started collecting fountain pens, if you can call one pen a collection, way back in college. That pen (a Yafa Barrage, I believe) was a shoddy Chinese thing that I thought rather nifty-looking; it's since had a lot of lacquer rubbed off and so forth. Doesn't write half bad, surprisingly, but it's heavy and the balance is awful.

My second pen didn't come along until a trip to London in the late 90s; I wanted to bring home a memento and the London Design Museum was selling various items by Muji, a Japanese lifestyle shop. Although I didn't know it at the time it was the perfect choice: Muji do not have any stores in the United States. I'm told the founder is sufficiently anti-American that he refuses to open any here. The particular pen I bought is no longer current, though the Muji web site does have pictures of the current model, which is rather similar in its sleek, cylindrical brushed aluminum look.

And then came another long hiatus. I honestly can't recall what it was last year that stirred my fountain-pen interest again; it might have been as simple as randomly leafing through my favorite calligraphy book again on a lazy autumn day. But this time the internet played a role: i found that there is an excellent online discussion community of hardcore pen collectors, called Pentrace; from them I learned quite a lot about pens both contemporary and vintage, about where to shop, what pens are considered classics and which aren't worth a tenth what they're sold for. I also learned that, like all other collectors, pen collectors are stark raving nutters.

I've infected one of my coworkers with this particular bug, and he asked one day for some suggestions of places online to shop for pens and ink. When I spewed a rather lengthy list at him, he pointed out that failing to LJ it would be a crime... so, on the assumption that someone cares, here's a quick rundown of pen-places online:

where to look for pen stuff

I bought my Lamy Vista from Pam at Oscar Braun Pens, who are without peer. Friendly, prompt, helpful, and no brick-and-mortar store; they bend over backwards to make their online customers happy and they charge rock-bottom prices to boot. They do not take credit cards – rock bottom prices, remember? – but ignore that; they're the best.

My Namiki came from Fountain Pen Hospital, a humongous place in New York City. (I should point out that I wanted to buy it from Oscar Braun Pens, but Pilot only made 1500 of the yellow ones for the North American market, and Pam simply didn't get enough for everyone who wanted one.) They're one of the sponsors of the Pentrace message board I mentioned above and have both an exhaustive stock and a solid reputation.

A less-humongous brick-and-mortar business with considerable depth in the realm of vintage fountain pens – remember, these things last for decades – is Pendemonium, another Pentrace sponsor. This is where I bought most of the inks that I have (though not the Bethge “Aubergine,” which came from a spiffy little international bookstore in Berkeley).

One more highly regarded small-business vendor, strictly of new pens, is Swisher Pens.

The top US lifestyle store catering to those who love to read and write is Levenger. I had an experience with them once that I found rather sour, regarding the most excellent Book Darts bookmarking product, but I'm trying to get over it; everyone else I've spoken to has had only good experiences with them. Levenger's proprietary line of fountain-pen inks is quite highly regarded.

Speaking of inks, the most comprehensive selection I've found anywhere is at the Ink Palette. They seem to carry every brand worth mentioning other than Levenger's own house brand.

I'm strongly considering buying a "vintage" pen next. They have some properties that are simply not available in current products, as nib materials and writing habits have changed quite a bit over the years. If you grow up writing with ballpoints, odds are that you press down much too hard to write gracefully with a fountain pen until you've put in some practice; you might even permanently ruin one of the highly flexible nibs that were common in the 1920s. There are a surprising number of old fountain pens still kicking around – blah blah blah last for decades. Some enterprising souls have built businesses out of restoring and selling these miniature antiques. You can get better prices on eBay, but the inexperienced – like me! – are better off sticking to a reputable merchant. The one I've been watching lately is PenHero, where some of his 1950's Sheaffers "Triumph" nibs are whispering, whispering that they should come home with me.

Other well-spoken-of online vendors of new and vintage pens, in no particular order, are:

Penstop Online, with an intermittent but highly varied selection of vintage pens for sale, supplementing their bread and butter retailing of modern pens.

One rather specialised merchant is PENguin, who carries a dazzling array of Pelikan pens from all eras. If I ever buy a vintage Pelikan, it'll be from this gentleman.

Veering a bit afield, there are a handful of artisans who do not sell pens directly, but rather do restorative or customization work. For example, I plan someday to have the nib of my Namiki Vanishing Point converted from the usual perfectly-round tip into a "stub," an elongated shape that accents the line width variations as you write. The man I'm going to have do this delicate work is Richard Binder, a retired computer engineer in New Hampshire who is now occupied full-time with such tuning, tweaking, and twiddling. The other chap whose name comes up regularly in discussions of pen repair and customization is John Mottishaw, especially for more substantial repair work on badly damaged nibs. He's an absolute wizard.

Whew. That's a lot, and I didn't even get into individual pen makers' home pages! Enough for now. These are the places I shop, or plan to. Discussion of ink selection, stationery and notebooks, et cetera will just have to wait for another day.