KEY POINTS:
Daphne McKay could be described as the ultimate pen friend.
With about 20,000 pens at her home, she was never short of a writing tool - although it was still surprising how many did not work.
And Mrs McKay, 75, always has a pen in her handbag, just in case she comes across someone willing to swap in her hometown of Oamaru.
She has been collecting pens for about 24 years after seeing an advertisement calling for interest in a pen club.
Her daughter had just got married and she found some pens when she was cleaning out her room and thought that would be a start.
She went along to the first meeting of the Whitestone Printed Pen Collectors with about 20 pens - some at that meeting had 1000. But she had the last laugh - she now has the most pens among the club's 17 members.
This weekend, she will catch up with old friends - and trade a few pens - at the 24th annual South Island Meet 'n' Swap at the North Otago RSA in Itchen St on Saturday and Sunday.
The event has attracted 44 registrations. The social aspect was important and Mrs McKay enjoyed the friendships she had made through her hobby.
She once told her husband, as he headed out, that she was going to put some of her pens on the wall. When he returned, she had "a few" up - not that it bothered him.
"He couldn't do much about it. It's half my house," she said, with a chuckle.
She estimated she had about 1000 or 2000 on display - lining the walls of the hall entrance, as well as in two bedrooms - but that was where it stopped.
"I couldn't put 20,000 on the wall."
The pens were mostly colour coded on the wall in strips of colours - green was her favourite. Inscriptions ranged from the Taupo Borough Council to the Catlins Drapery - and everything in between.
While she did not normally pay for pens, Mrs McKay's favourite pen was a gold rose pen which she paid $5 or $6 for.
Another extravagance was an All Blacks pen, bought for $3. "You'd probably get the whole team [for that] now," she joked.
She used to work at a fish and chip shop where she kept a jar of pens under the counter, ready to swap with customers.
Some of the truck drivers, who regularly stopped, also used to collect them for her and she used to correspond and swap with international and North Island pen enthusiasts. She has latterly become more selective, preferring "fancy ones".
Mrs McKay admitted she was always on the lookout for pens and warned if a pen was left on a shop counter - and not claimed - then it might not be there for too long.
She has recently got keen on orchids - which can now be found on the kitchen table, in the sun-porch, washhouse and in a henhouse - and she laughed that they could take over from pens as her passion.
However, pens were easier to look after, she conceded.
