My pen collection has changed quite a bit since I started Inkophile and has recently been downsized to 50 or so. I have a lot of ink samples but many bottles, too. The total is over 100 but in many cases, the fluid amount is only a few milliliters which is all I need for a comparison.

When it gets down to it, there are twenty or so inks that get regular use though never all at once. Usually half of my rotation is selected to my personal preferences and the remainder is selected for testing purposes. Sometimes I will use an ink for a month or two before commenting on it. Often a pen or two will be filled with a competitive ink so there is that, too. If that sounds like a lot, it truly is but it is the best way to give an ink a fair evaluation.

My inked pens are on my desk or in a felt pen wrap in a nearby drawer. Whenever I leave home, I carry a couple in a leather case along with a Rhodia pad. If I left pens around the house, they would surely get mislaid or appropriated by a family member. I’m sure you know how that goes.

I hardly remember the days when I had only a few pens. It is so much more fun to have lots of choices but if I had to downsize even further, it would take at least twenty pens to keep me from feeling quite keenly that something was missing. The same goes for inks. Am I ruined or what!?

Do you keep your pens in one place, Okami? Like Beth, I tend to keep different (rollerball) pens in a bunch of different places–one in each bag or backpack that I own, one near my writing/reading chair, a couple at my desk, etc. But in spite of that system, and my own best intentions, I’m constantly toting them around and losing track of them… So for now, my Phileas lives and works at my desk and nowhere else.

For the expensive, limited edition pens, such as Visconti, Montblanc, Krone, Marlen, Yard o Led, and Delta, I generally stick to the J. Herbin inks as they’re the safest [as well as the most classically beautiful shades]. I don’t worry about them causing staining on ivory or light colored resins.

For business pens on the road, I stick to my 7 Waterman Carenes in sizes ranging from M, to B, to stubs. I buy multi colored packs of Waterman Cartridges from France, as they’re better behaved when I’m literally slinging them around.

I have Private Reserve as well, as there’s times when only super saturated colors will do, but I have to be careful which pens I load it in, as it can damage some of the high end pens between staining and clogging if left in the pen too long.

Some folks rave about Noodlers, but the brand has so many behavior problems that I’m pretty much weaning it from my collection. Pretty colors, but messy, and the nib creep is extreme on my inlaid nibs.

My problem at this point is not enough ink to test, rather than not enough pens to test with!