I never change except in my final decisions, especially when they involve getting rid of stuff.

After limping back home after work, I spent some time cleaning pens as I prepare them to be sold. (Or more accurately: before I attempt to sell them.) The decision to sell these particular pens was reached after several fits of mind-changing.

Both of the pens are reasonably new, but neither of them is that interesting to me anymore. I have other pens I like better and have no particular use for these anymore. They’d already been removed from the every day carry rotation and mostly resided at the office while I used up the ink in them. That said, I still like writing with one of the pens, but I’m getting tired of maintaining it. Also, it’s not the kind of pen you can just toss in a bag and expect it will come out well when you get where you’re going.

The main hindrance to the cleaning is my lack of knowledge of how to properly take them apart and tune them. I’ll wash them, flush them and soak them in pen cleaning solution but I’m not confident enough to yank out the nibs and clean the feeds. Oddly, a higher level of maintenance skill is one rabbit hole I’ve chosen to avoid. I can do basic stuff, and want to learn a few other things, but mostly I’m happy doing the basics.

Now the pens will go into short term storage whilst I clean and ready a few more to be sold. Now that they are desk pens I find I don’t miss carrying them around. That’s a good sign. However, the act of cleaning brings back a lot of memories and gets me worried about sunk costs and if I’ve got my money’s worth out of them and if I’ll get what I think they’re worth.

The problem is, what they are worth changes depending on the memories that get brought back.