Welcome to the Floaty Pen Web Ring Home Page!
This Web Ring is for sites dedicated to the collecting and trading of floaty pens. The idea is to help floaty fans connect, to facilitate trading and sharing of information, and to introduce new folks to our beloved plastic obsession. Whether you're a long-time collector, a newbie, or someone who just stumbled over a floaty site and can't believe that this many people really get this nuts over these things...you're welcome to surf the ring, or join up!
And what is a floaty pen? Even if you think you don't know, you've probably seen them. They're those plastic ballpoint pens you've seen at airport gift shops and tourist traps the world over. The upper half is clear and filled with a clear liquid (it's mineral oil) and a scene of some sort, with elements that float back and forth when you tilt the pen. Most floaties (also called float pens, tilt pens, or floating action pens)--and for many collectors, the only ones worth talking about--are made by Eskesen A/S, a Danish company that developed them in the 1950s and has been making them ever since. Besides pens in several styles, Eskesen also makes floaty letter openers, keytags, toothbrushes, lighters, and other gadgets.
Floaty fans are a varied bunch, but we all share a passion for floaties. We can be found around the world, including the United States, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Some of our collections number into the thousands, while others are much more modest. Some of us buy and sell floaties to other collectors, while others strictly trade our duplicates. Some of us also design floaties as a hobby or a business. Some floaty collectors have gotten together and created special commemorative pens so they can see their own names and faces immortalized in a floaty.
The Floaty Pen Web Ring was started in 2001 by some floaty fan whose identity is lost now in the mists of time. When I found the ring in 2002 it was listed as "abandoned" by the WebRing folks. I volunteered to adopt it and be the new ringmaster, and here we are. I'm hoping to expand the ring soon to include more of the floaty sites that I know are out there.
To view all the sites on the ring, visit the ring hub.
If you're interested in adding your floaty site to the ring, these are the guidelines:
- Your site should have something to do with floaty pens--collecting them, trading them, buying and selling them, designing them, displaying them, sharing news and history and trivia about them, waxing poetic about them, obsessing over them, whatever. You don't have to have a record-breaking collection that numbers in the thousands, or a slick site with jaw-dropping graphics and cutting-edge technical gizmos--just have a page that doesn't crash people's browsers and shows that you really like the silly things.
- Ring member sites can be commercial endeavors as well as individuals' not-for-profit hobby sites, as long as they have something to do with floaty pens.
- If you have more than just floaty pen content on your site, the web ring NavBar should be placed on a page with floaty pen content--and that means more than just the NavBar itself! If you have a page just for your web rings, please make it easy to find the floaty content on your site. If people have to hunt around too much, chances are, they'll just skip your site.
- I'm not going to get into deciding what is and isn't "offensive" or "adult" content, or go around combing every page of every site on the ring, looking for anything that might scandalize my Aunt Margie (who is scandalized by a great many things). Let's try this standard: you can't put the web ring NavBar on a page with content (porn, hate speech, extreme violence, etc.) that would probably get someone in trouble if they surfed there on their employer's computer. And if you have links on your site that go to any sites with this kind of material, you need to mark them as such so people can make informed choices about whether they want to go there.
That's it--it's that simple. If your site qualifies, you can join the ring here. Follow the instructions you'll find there, and put the code that WebRing provides on your page. I will check that it's installed and working properly and then add your site to the ring.
If you have any questions or comments about the ring, please email me at floatypens@casagordita.com.
Thanks for visiting!
