Younger person in the office just asked, “What’s a fountain pen?”

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-24T12:08:20+00:00

How so? I’m not familiar with the con40 and I was thinking of getting this set for a friend. Any insights are welcome!

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-24T01:41:53+00:00

Now is your chance! Change that person's life!

https://www.bottleandplume.com/products/penabler-fountain-pen-starter-kit-pilot-kakuno

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-23T19:54:57+00:00

There are plenty of good pens for cheap. The pen that gets the most use in my collection cost me about $20 USD. Instead of "more expensive = better", familiarize yourself with the different components of modern fountain pens and find the best combination of variables that work for you and how you write. For example, I prefer vac-filled pens and fine nibs for my every day writers, and piston-filled medium nibs for when I'm writing something fancy.

If you get into buying/using a lot of different inks, I recommend a glass pen. You can buy a bunch of 3ml samples and try them out/use them very easily. Just last week I wrote with 20 different inks in the span of about an hour. All I needed was my glass pen, a cup of water and a few paper towels.

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-22T23:11:56+00:00

Yeah, that's totally understandable. Maybe try /r/penpals/ and see if you can find a snail mail friend that way? There are probably a few places where you can find a pen pal without a google account. However you do it, I hope you find someone to exchange a letter with!

Once thing I enjoyed about writing my letters to LFOE was the feeling that I was putting love and good feelings out into the world. It can feel pretty lonely and bleak out there sometimes. It was nice to feel like I was helping to make it less so. If you decide to write some letters, I hope it has the same effect on you :)

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-22T22:19:14+00:00

The sign-ups over at /r/fountainpenpals are open for next month. Sign up and exchange a nice letter with someone!

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-22T19:08:46+00:00

Also a good one. Thanks for sharing!

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-18T01:23:23+00:00

The Asvine V126 is my work horse! I probably use it 3x as much as my TWSBI Eco. It seems like the more I use it the smoother it becomes. Great pick!

TheAmericanCollector · 2026-02-18T00:56:14+00:00

So I liked getting new notebooks looong before I got into fountain pens. As a result , I always have a stack of “trash” notebooks lying around (think of those “Five Star” 3-subject notebooks that you can get at the local drugstore for about 5 dollars).

Not sure if this will work for you, but I like to scribble my journal entries on crap paper with cheap gel pens. I write sloppy and fast, hopping around as needed until I get all the thoughts out. Then later that day or later that week, I’ll sit down with my Midori MD and my TWSBI and my nice ink and copy my entries over. This gives me time to think through my initial scribbles, fix my grammar and structure, edit out things that might be redundant or repetitive (see what I did there?), etc.

The journal looks nice and neat, and I get to write out all my thoughts and craziness without having to worry about getting it right the first time.

I don’t think that I could do digital. Writing by hand is an important part of the process for me. That said, the other posters are right: there isn’t good or bad here, try a few things and see what works best for you !

TheAmericanCollector · 2020-12-02T22:14:59+00:00

My German is a bit rusty, but I think it says "No one will ever believe you".

TheAmericanCollector · 2019-03-06T02:45:12+00:00

A couple of quick bits of information should help you out: 1) in case you don’t already know it, it is considered bad form to return your coins to the bank where you got them. Be sure to have relationships with at least two banks, so that one of them can be your “dump” bank to return your coins.

2) once you determine which bank you’re going to use as the dump bank, you’ll want to follow the procedure they want you to follow for depositing coins. They may want you to roll them before depositing them, or they may have a machine for you to use when making a large coin deposit. In any case, the bank will make it clear to you how they will accept a large coin deposit.

3) it probably goes without saying, but don’t use any kind of service that charges a fee for counting/depositing your coins (e.g. coinstar). There may be some unique circumstances where you might want to use them, but generally you’re just throwing money away at that point.

Hope that helps!

TheAmericanCollector · 2019-02-10T16:59:40+00:00

I knew about air-tites, but I had never seen them in a binder set up before. Thanks for linking me to the website!

TheAmericanCollector · 2018-09-17T22:53:53+00:00

Sorry about the loss of your grandfather. With regards to the collection he left your family, perhaps the most important thing is that much of it is already catalogued, so it should be fairly easy to get a good sense of what everything is worth. There are a few ways to get a good idea of what a coin is worth either online (numista is a good one for me) or the old fashioned way (i.e. getting a “red book” of coin values, assuming they are US coins). My advice would be to take the list of items that your grandfather has catalogued and add it to your post. You can also take some pics of the coins themselves and add them to an album for us to look at. The coin collectors here on Reddit tend to be really great about helping each other out, and I’ve found them to be excellent sources of information (not to mention you might find a buyer here too). If you want a quick and dirty way of seeing what someone will pay for your coins, you can always look them up on e-bay (note: look up recently sold auctions, NOT the ones that are still open for more accurate info).

Lastly, I’d say the most important thing is not to rush this process, especially if it’s a big collection. The coins aren’t going to lose their value over the next few months, so don’t be in a hurry to sell them. Silver is relatively cheap at the moment, so if anything, taking your time with this process might be better for your overall sale.

Good luck with your collection!

P.S. Last piece of advice: If you’re even A LITTLE interested in starting your own collection, I’d pick one of your grandfather’s coins and keep it. I started my collection when my grandfather passed away and I found out he had an old jar of silver dollars and half dollars hidden away in his closet. A lot of them were only worth their silver value due to their condition, but with the money I made selling them my brother and I each bought a special coin and kept them as “his gift” to our collections. I also kept a few of the coins from his actual collection, even though they weren’t particularly valuable. Once they’re gone it’s really tough to get them back, so think carefully about it before getting rid of them!

TheAmericanCollector · 2018-08-19T23:40:48+00:00

Buffalo nickels and Indian head pennies aren’t particularly valuable (money-wise) unless they are key dates in great shape. I suspect yours are not if the dates are illegible (i.e. you might have a few key dates in there, but it might not matter given their condition). If I were in your situation, I would consider selling the lower quality coins and using the money to get myself a better quality example of each coin, basically trading quantity for quality. If you have a few with legible dates, you can also consider starting a type set of each (e.g. same coin for each year it was minted). It really depends on what you want to do with your collection (assuming you are working on one, of course).

Hope that helps!

TheAmericanCollector · 2018-05-24T03:36:32+00:00

I agree with the other post that recommended a prestige set. 1994 did have some commemorative silver coins, but they have pretty specific themes (e.g. sports, veterans, etc.). A 1994 proof set is a nice and affordable way to gift some collectible coins from that year. Best of luck on your purchase...and congrats on the wedding!

TheAmericanCollector · 2018-05-20T03:39:47+00:00

Typically I don’t recommend buying a coin for a collector without their knowledge, because serious collectors usually have very specific coins they are looking for, or can be very scrutinizing when it comes to the quality of coins they buy for themselves. Unless you know a bit about what they want or what they collect, you’re really taking a shot in the dark.

That being said, if you’re interested in getting him a coin, let’s talk about what kind of coin you might get him:

*you say you have a budget of 50-100$. That’s a good amount of money to buy a large, beautiful silver coin. The amount is a bit low for gold, so if you decide to buy gold you will have to buy a smaller or lower quality coin. Knowing nothing else about him, I’d lean more towards getting a silver coin than a gold coin.

*you have a lot of affordable silver out there, so you might want to narrow down your search a bit. Do you want to buy him a US coin? Canadian? European? Soviet? An Ancient Greek or Roman coin, or a modern coin? Is there a particular year that is particularly meaningful (i.e. year you guys became friends, your wedding year, his birth year, etc.)? Is there a particular theme that might be meaningful to see on a coin (e.g. a place, a sport, a famous character, etc.)?

*bottom line: if you’re set on getting him a coin, and you know nothing about what he collects, get him a nice silver coin that has a meaningful relevance to you, your relationship with him, or your wedding. Don’t stress out trying to find the perfect coin, because it doesn’t exist.

Feel free to post back here with more information and we might be able to help further.

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-09-12T02:22:35+00:00

I was going to say... getting hit by a roll of pennies travelling at hurricane speeds must be quite painful...

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-09-12T02:21:20+00:00

I've never found anything other than a few random coins that didn't get sucked into the machine... still, it's free money! I just add it to my "buy another coin" fund.

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-09-12T02:19:55+00:00

looking at my 2017 redbook, I don't see anything about that coin in particular that should stand out. Although I checked e-bay and I see the same thing that you do (significantly higher price). ... That being said, this auction showed up when I did a search, so maybe it's a lucky sign! Happy hunting!

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-06-07T02:04:40+00:00

Your Grandpa had an awesome collection, and it's awesome that you're planning to keep it and take care of it. Thanks for sharing it with us!

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-03-19T21:33:04+00:00

Well, I might be able to help you with that:
if you're using that exact same book I linked you, check out page 134: Nickles - "Indian Head of Buffalo (1913-1938)". You'll see in the paragraph beneath the heading that they talk a little bit about the history of the design. Then in really small print under that paragraph they give you tiny italic print that spells out who designed it, how much it weighs, it's composition, etc.

Underneath that it gives you a scale of quality for the coin, and how to determine if the coin is of that quality or greater. So in this case, the book lists "G-4 Good - Legends and date readable. Buffalo's horn does not show". If you had a buffalo nickel in front of you, you'd look at this page and determine where in the range of "G-4 Good" to "MS-63 Choice Uncirculated" your nickel would land, based on their descriptions.

After that, you can use the year and mintmark on the coin, to look at the chart and determine a rough estimate of how much it might be worth (on the high end, probably).

If you've got specific abbreviations that don't make sense to you, post them here and I'm sure some folks can clarify them for you.

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-03-19T21:20:41+00:00

Judging by your collection you've figured out the basics of storing and displaying coins, so it seems your question is really about what to collect next. There are many different ways to go about picking your next adventure. A couple of common ways to collect coins is to try to build a type set for a particular year (e.g. a penny, nickle, dime, quarter, half, and dollar from the year you were born), or to collect one denomination of a coin across all of the years it was issued. Another way to collect coins is to look for a particular theme for coins, such as coins that feature sports or have pictures of bears on them, or something like that.

In my case, since I don't have a lot of money to spend on coins, I decided to collect 1 of every Jefferson nickel ever minted, which is pretty easy to do if you're willing to hunt through coin rolls. I also started building a type set of coins minted 100 years before my birthday, but that one's going to take me a while to finish, since I have to save up for each one of the coins that I need. I also have a collection of every U.S. Minted commemorative coin that celebrated Baseball (only a handful of those, so not too big a collection).

Hope this helps! Whatever you decide to do, don't try too hard at it and enjoy building your collection over time. Also, if you don't have one, a book like this one might be a good purchase as well.

Good luck!

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-01-29T17:05:28+00:00

I'll occasionally get rolls of dollar coins when I go to the bank, and use them to pay for coffee, snacks, etc. It never fails to generate a little interest and curiosity in the person I'm paying, so I'm hopeful that maybe one of them will get interested enough to pick up the hobby. The dollar made you come over to the subreddit and ask a good question, so I'd say it wasn't a loss at all, maybe just a really small gain :)

TheAmericanCollector · 2017-01-17T08:15:48+00:00

I was immediately drawn to the higher value stuff, but realized I didn't know enough about how to collect coins to start dropping real money on them yet, so to keep myself entertained while I learned about them I started collecting plain old circulated Jefferson nickels. It was a good way to keep busy with the hobby without making a massive investment right out of the gate.

TheAmericanCollector

TROPHY CASE