I'm a veteran fountain pen user, but a tyro collector. I bought a Shaeffer 99-cent cartridge pen while a medical student, under the influence of agraduate student with whom I shared a lab office. I was hooked on FPs from that point onwards. A year or so later my parents gave me a Mont Blanc Noblesse for my birthday, and that stainless-steel dreadnaught lasted through 23 years of heavy daily use, before it became completely incontinent of ink and was pensioned off. Its retirement was made possible by my wife's taking me pen shopping, which had two results: the purchase of a Waterman Preface as a new "main pen," and a desire to have more pens!
So now, our household consists of a dozen or so fountain pens of various ages, two teenage children, (the younger of whom has been bitten by the"pen bug"), two cats, my wife and myself. I work as a pediatrician in a university-affiliated children's hospital, and my wife teaches history in a local college. Fountain pens compete with photography, cooking, choral singing, brewing beer, canoeing, bicycling and hiking for my recreational attention. The nice thing is, they take less time than my other hobbies--in fact, I can (and do!) enjoy fountain pens every time I sit down to write a note at work!
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