Because I have a couple new pens on the way, and despite the fact I won’t see them for a couple months, I find myself beginning the slow process of culling my herd of pens to make way for (and pay for) the new ones. This sounds like an easy process but it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

First, i have to look over each pen and decide that it needs to go and why it needs to go: it’s too old, I never use it, there are others I like better, the nib isn’t as good as I thought it would be. I’ve got three others just like it, this one is broken. This results in a list of “this pen must go” candidates.

That part of the process is followed by the hours of justification for why I should keep each pen on the list. These justifications usually start with:

The Sentimental Reasons
It was my first internet pen; it was my first Kickstarter pen; it was my first fountain pen; it was my first Massdrop pen; it looks like a pen that was a gift from my father; my ex-girlfriend gave me a pen by the same manufacturer.

After the sentimental reasons fail, the economic arguments kick in:

The Economic Reasons
Sunk Cost Fallacies: It’s still new; I haven’t had it long enough for me to truly know it; I spent a lot for it and need to get my money’s worth out of it; it still has a lot of life; if I just clean it up a bit it will work perfectly and I will like it better.

You Haven’t Sunk Enough Costs Into It Fallacies: If I just spend some money to get it cleaned and tuned it will be better; if I get this fixed up, I could sell it for more. I haven’t reviewed it on my blog yet.

After those fail, the next step is the denial arguments:

The Bitter Denial Reasons
It’s too much work to take pictures of it and post it and that’s totally the sunk cost fallacy. Look at all these flaws; no one will buy this anyway because it’s crap so I should keep it. Cleaning all these will be real pain in the butt, do I really want to do that when they might not sell? What if something goes wrong in the shipping and I have to waste a lot time dealing with it? What if I’m not charging enough and I’m ripping myself off? There are already thousands of these out there so I won’t get much money for it. I should do more research about how much to charge.

After that is all resolved, the next step involves taking and posting the pictures and figuring out how to collect the payments.

But should I post the pictures on a forum or make a page on my blog to sell them? I’ll have to think about that a while. Until I figure it out, I’ll just play with some pens.