I am taking a week of vacation.  Today’s post is a Best of 2009 Post.  It celebrates some of the best content from the site based upon user feedback and analytics.  It was originally posted on this day.  I hope that you enjoy it!

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Lately, I have been writing about antiquated skills and devices from the Industrial Age that have been overcome by the Information Age.  There have been posts concerning penmanship and spelling, watches and now I add to this collection, fine pens.

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Personally, I love a good pen quite a bit.  I have a collection of working class fine pens along with all sorts of nice paper to write on with them.  I even own a few fountain pens along with the messy bottles of ink and loaders.  For full disclosure, some of the most valued gifts that I ever received from colleagues have been beautiful writing instruments and cases to protect and display them.

Unfortunately, I know that I am in the severe minority here in valuing these objects today.  What is worse, is that I cannot give you one practical reason for why I have or use them.  Truthfully, the $2 Pilot G2 gel pens write just as well as my $50 + $3 refill brass filled pens.  I could give you a long list of artistic reasons why fine pens and paper should, could, and might survive into the Information Age, but they would all be just rationalizations.

With the exception of greeting cards, no one ever gets anything that I hand write any more.  No one ever reads my fine pen’s marks, but me.  It is even hard to find planners that can hold a nice pen… they are all designed for skinny, cheap disposable pens.  I don’t value the fashion statement made by expensive pens either.  I don’t even notice anyone paying attention to your writing instrument like I was accustomed to about ten years ago. I cannot remember receiving a pen compliment since the turn of the century.

Fine paper is even more obscure now.  In addition to the environmental impact of heavy papers, the cost has sky rocketed.  Obviously, there is a supply and demand function at work here… with demand plunging, price has soared.  Dead trees and empty wallets.

So, in my opinion, fine pens and their matched stationary are dead.  They are expensive, troublesome to maintain and refill, no longer generate any social benefit, and are simply overlooked by most professionals today.  They are antiques of the Industrial Age and now relics in the Information Age. This is not to say that I won’t miss them.

(For an excellent counter opinion on this topic, including an excellent history of the decline of the fine pen market, you should read one of Steven Leveen’s recent blog posts.  He is the owner of Levenger, purveyor of a multitude of fine products.)

Do you own a fine pen?  What about quality stationary?  Do you still use them?  Does anyone that you know?  Will you miss them?  Do you believe that I overstated their demise?  Do they get to make a comeback?  Let me know how you see it.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for December 28, 2009 by Scott Coughlin

Image Credit: Finding Home

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