Day 27 #blogjune Fings

I’ve mentioned before that I love fountain pens.

I don’t actually know how many fountain pens I have – a few*.

Of course, along the way I have also accumulated ink for said pens.

Why does one need so many inks? Well, colours, for one, and different brands have different colour saturation. My favourite ink? I am very boring: Parker Quink Royal Blue. I am not even sure they still make it! These days I tend to use Waterman Florida Blue or any black ink I happen to have.

And there’s something about the bottles they come in, too. (Note the empty Quink bottle perched on the Lamy box, above. Quink was a staple ink of my childhood and really evokes primary school memories for me.)

I recently bought this bottle (right) from an Etsy seller, located in Adelaide. She says the bottle used to belong to her grandfather and is Victorian. I’d planned to use it, but of course, now I have it, and can see the dried ink in it, I’m finding it hard to just wash it all out.

Incidentally, when I bought this ink bottle off Etsy, that’s when the alarm bells went off. I’ve been profligate enough lately, buying jools and shiny things like they’re going out of style, but if I were to start seriously combining my obsessionlove for vintage writing implements with the enjoyment I derive from window shopping on Etsy… The fings** start to take over… (Where does this sort of collector-mania come from, anyway? No doubt someone’s studied it.)

I am therefore now on a self-imposed Etsy ban. Reduced looking, and NO BUYING. I have imposed a similar embargo on myself before – I avoid eBay. Happily, once I broke the eBay “habit” I deflected the urge for fings into other, more useful (less extravagant) pursuits. Sadly, I’ve slipped back into the same habits with Etsy, but I stopped once, I can stop again.

Yes, I’m publicly stating this so I hold myself to account! (Am imagining how challenging this would have been to say on video 😉 )

* yes, understatement.

** Yes, I can pronounce the th. In my mind, fings are quite separate from things, defined as items that give (me) pleasure, but which, until I know they exist, I have absolutely no urge/desire for, and without which, life goes on quite nicely, thank you very much.