Hi everyone, it’s RPD (u/rpdiego from the subreddit). I didn’t know that a new forum had been made but it made me very excited, most of the forums I used faded into obscurity with the rise of social networks and reddit looked like our last bastion.
I wanted to introduce myself, since I’ve been posting on the subreddit for a while already. My main hobby has always been pen spinning, I’ve been doing it for 12 years, won a few tournaments and wrote a book about pen spinning history, which can be read for free. Pen spinners use “mods” (modified pens), basically we butcher a bunch of cheap pens with useful parts into a long, pretty, well balanced stick. This was my introduction to Japanese stationery: I used to buy a ton of Dr Grips, Airfits, Color Twins etc for making mods for me and my friends.
The online shops I used also had nicer pens and pencils, so I bought some. My first two nice pencils were two kuru togas: the rubber gripped version and a black roulette, which I used a ton in high school. Fast forward to the present day, I moved to Japan, which let me buy many of my dream pencils from my high school days.
I’m not sure if I would consider myself a collector, although I do have some vintage pieces (notably all four Pilot H200x and H300x). I don’t intend on expanding my collection indefinitely, actually my ideal way of enjoying the hobby would be just to share information and talk about pencils, moving the focus away from buying more, more expensive and rarer pieces.
Hopefully the forum keeps its activity for years to come!!