FOUNTAIN PEN INK: A Sampler by Greg Clark

Anyone who follows me anywhere (and anyone who comes to my house - ha!) knows that I'm slightly obsessed with ink. Swabs, samples, bottles, and more - I love ink. I like to say that I'm working on collecting them all.  Only kind joking.  (The above is Noodler's Habanero on Tomoe River Paper.)

A few weeks ago, Mr. Pentulant and I had friends over for a delightful afternoon of board games. The topic of my ink addiction came up and one of our friends said, "Hey, I had a friend who wrote a book about fountain pen inks once."

What!?  Say what?!

Something about swabs on all of the pages (and I'm thinking, "No way!") and next thing you know, our friend is texting the wife of the guy. But, no, that book has been out of print for a number of years.

Well, the end, right?

Wrong!!

Mr. Pentulant regularly trolls the For Sale section of Fountain Pen Network and in an amazing bit of unbeknownst-to-me serendipity, the book showed up for sale there!!!

Saturday was the one year anniversary of our marriage. Among other wonderful things, Mr. Pentulant presented me with the book. True love.

The book is in excellent condition. The previous owner says it was stored in drawer to protect it from light - and, really, the swabs look like they could have been done just a week or two ago and not in 2007 as indicated in the text.

It's interesting to see some very familiar brands and colors - and it's also interesting to see which brands and colors have not survived.

I see this book/project as a snapshot of a moment in time. The pricing guide, the availability of certain inks, and the articles included in the concerning the changes happening with fountain pen inks.

Granted, this isn't an incredible piece of history (it was published in 2007), but it is a record of someone's love for something I love - and that's pretty special.

Tradition says that paper is the gift one gives for first anniversaries - Mr. Pentulant sure got it right with this.  (Not to mention our other crazy paper adventures over the weekend - but more on that another time.)

What do you think? Would you be crazy for an item like this, too?