For those of you who attended our meeting on June 6, 2026, I hope you have begun your “homework” of cataloging your pen collection.  For those who were not there, let me explain.  Over the last several months, I have received numerous emails and messages from people who lost a loved one and have inherited a fountain pen collection.  The person has no idea about the collection or what it’s worth.  I assigned “homework” to everyone at the meeting to go through and catalogue their collection.  Perhaps, make a binder with manufacturer, model, material (hard rubber, plastic, gold filled, etc.), engraving; nib size and grind (fine, broad, italic, flex, etc.), and other interesting details, pictures, receipts, and other important information / provenance.  You will probably quickly find your collection is worth much more than anticipated.  You may want to call your homeowner’s insurance agent and have it insured.  For inspiration, check out gopens.com, mainstreetpens.com and vintagepens.com for some formatting and description ideas.   Two excellent sites for learning more about your pens are: richardspens.com (Richard Binder) and vintagepens.com (David Nishimura). Binder and Nishimura are very knowledgeable, freely share what they know, and their websites are well organized and easy to use.

Some people prefer a digital system. One of our members set up an excel file like this:

Please feel free to leave a comment about your own spring cleaning experience.

Since I’m in a spring cleaning kind of mood, I also took the opportunity to clean up our website Pen Links page.  I fixed broken links and removed links where the store was confirmed to no longer be in existence.  That has left room for new links!  If you have a favorite pen related website, please send me an email at cstinger@philadelphiapens.com or drop a comment below and I will add it to the page.

I would also like to put together a list of resources that loved ones can use when they want to sell off a collection.  If you know of any reputable people or businesses willing to evaluate and/or purchase a fountain pen collection, please email me.