Me? I have mostly new stuff. Or at least recent. And instead of focusing on one genre I've gone ALL over the map regarding my modest little collection. It includes everything from brushs and brush pens, glass dip pens, steel nib art and lettering pens and related nibs, ebonite eyedroppers, new vacuum and piston fillers (mostly TWSBI which is from Taiwan but some Japanese and Euro) but mostly mid-level to very low cost what I call "standard" fill pens (those that take either standard international or proprietary cartridges plus have a converter to use with bottled ink.
Due to some bizarre internal psycho twist I have a special love for things that are very low cost and yet perform way above what should be expected. So I have a BUNCH of Chinese pens by Hero, JinHao, Bauer etc. that tweaked my interest. There's always a percentage of nibs that need adjustment. With expensive pens the percentage is lower, but it's not zero. But if you buy a lot of Chinese stuff you gotta figure on knowing how to do nib adjustments.
Then there's the INK! OMG...the ink. For me, one of the big reasons behind using a fountain pen at all is the ink! The colors...the shading...the sheen...writing...drawing...doing a wash! So much fun.
And beyond that there's the paper...ahhh...the lovely paper. At one time it used to be Strathmore and Crane and high end Arches and Canson watercolor papers...but after recent discoveries for fountain pens it has centered on very fine but moderate cost Japanese bound, Notebook and tablet papers. Brands such as Tomoe River, Maruman, Life, Apica, Tsubame, Midori, blah, blah, blah. Even though French watercolor papers are fine indeed, the Japanese have an almost mystical relationship with paper and it's myriad subtleties.
Interestingly, in perhaps the most literal case of Zero to hero in existence, Mitsubishi makes some of the above papers. Well, be that as it may, there you have a running description of what I'm into. No major thrills but it keeps ME interested.
Due to some bizarre internal psycho twist I have a special love for things that are very low cost and yet perform way above what should be expected. So I have a BUNCH of Chinese pens by Hero, JinHao, Bauer etc. that tweaked my interest. There's always a percentage of nibs that need adjustment. With expensive pens the percentage is lower, but it's not zero. But if you buy a lot of Chinese stuff you gotta figure on knowing how to do nib adjustments.
Then there's the INK! OMG...the ink. For me, one of the big reasons behind using a fountain pen at all is the ink! The colors...the shading...the sheen...writing...drawing...doing a wash! So much fun.
And beyond that there's the paper...ahhh...the lovely paper. At one time it used to be Strathmore and Crane and high end Arches and Canson watercolor papers...but after recent discoveries for fountain pens it has centered on very fine but moderate cost Japanese bound, Notebook and tablet papers. Brands such as Tomoe River, Maruman, Life, Apica, Tsubame, Midori, blah, blah, blah. Even though French watercolor papers are fine indeed, the Japanese have an almost mystical relationship with paper and it's myriad subtleties.
Interestingly, in perhaps the most literal case of Zero to hero in existence, Mitsubishi makes some of the above papers. Well, be that as it may, there you have a running description of what I'm into. No major thrills but it keeps ME interested.