Montblanc 149 And A Kind Ebay Seller

[TommyJ]

We've heard many horror stories of sellers on eBay over the years. But I wanted to share a transaction I made a few weeks ago. I bought a Montblanc 149 (I shared a bit of the story in another post about shipping inked pens), one of dozens I've owned over the years. The seller was not a pen person and had mailed the pen inked. It took a couple of months to arrived because of eBay's duties and customs scheme.

 

I only have one MB 149 left in my collection and this was to be the second. I bought it for the nib - a 14C italic. I paid $350, which was a good price because of the nib or even in general. When I finally received the pen, the ink had leaked into the cap and all over the section. I cleaned it up looking forward to trying out the nib. After a thorough cleaning, I inked it up and started writing until I noticed my fingers had more ink on them than the paper. I looked at it closely and noticed that someone had crazy glued the ring at the very end of the section to the pen. The glue had also got into the feed. So I emptied the pen and let it sit in some water for a few hours and when I went to check on it, I noticed the ring had fallen off completely! So I emailed the seller and told her the situation. I would need a new feed and feeder case assembly which I estimated was probably going to cost around $50-75. So I asked for a partial refund of $50. She emailed me back quite quickly and apologized and agreed to a partial refund. Within 30 minutes I got an email from PayPal saying that I had received a partial refund of $175 to 50% of what I paid for the pen! I quickly contacted her and said she must had made a mistake. She said no she didn't! She could tell from our emails back and forth that I was a pen collector and user and that she wanted me to have the pen and enjoy using it and to have it repaired properly.

 

I tried to negotiate returning the difference once I bought the parts but she would have no part of it. What a wonderful seller and person and I wanted to share this story! So when I get the pen repaired and start using it I will always think of Sonia. She didn't even want her eBay username used, because she said she didn't believe in taking credit for a kind deed. You rarely find people like her these days!!

 

Cheers

TJ

[bayport714]

You ran into a very nice person. Great to hear an uplifting story about an eBay seller. I've been taken a couple of times on ebay but I've been happy with an overwhelming number of purchases.

[redbike]

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

[Cyber6]

Wow.. what a wonderful story!!!. I have hundreds of great eBay transactions.. (over the last 10+ years)... and some of them I ended up making friends with the seller, but none was as wonderful as this one.

 

Congrats on your pen.. and congrats on the new friend. She is a keeper...

 

 

 

C.

[usk15]

Yep, great seller! And good for you!

[rwilsonedn]

Congratulations on having a great transaction. Unfortunately, the problem you had seems to be a known design defect in the 146/149. In my experience the factory does not do a significantly better job of repairing it than whoever glued your pen back together. They tried multiple times on my 146, and finally ended up with precious-resin cement drooled around the end of the section. At least the pen was sealed.

ron

[ethernautrix]

I appreciate this kind of story. Thanks for sharing it.

[Gilberto Castaneda]

I am sure you wrote a thank you note with THAT pen and a beautiful ink.

[pelman]

what a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing.

[Chrissy]

That's a heart warming story. It just goes to show that there are some good ebay sellers around.

[gerigo]

Wow, the story really helped affirm there are good people who use Ebay.

 

I tried to sell my camera on Ebay and immediately got scammed by someone outside the US. A place well known for scammers, let's put it that way so that I don't insult other members from said country.

[bizhe]

Yes, there are quite a few ebay sellers trying to make an honest living and establish a solid reputation.

[Kyouju]

Now this is a story for the holidays

[Kevan]

This is nice to read. I just bought my first Montblanc (a vintage 146) on Ebay a few days ago. The seller has thousands of feedbacks and a near-perfect rating selling mostly pens so I truly hope I didn't get duped.

 

Anyway, I used to work at an antique store and we sold on Ebay often. I handled all of it. I tried my utmost to be a good seller, and imagine myself on the other side, as a buyer. I've been an Ebay buyer for years, I know how it feels and I made it my goal to never forget that.

 

I messed up a few times on items that we at the shop didn't know much about and I always made that clear in the listing. Once, an item broke during shipping. I was always prompt with refunds and sincere in my apologies. Most of the time, the buyers understood and didn't make a big deal of it.

 

Sometimes, though, buyers don't care even if you bend over backwards to accommodate them. There's nitpicking to an unbelievable level at times -- one buyer wanted a full refund (and rejected a partial) because he found a tiny, tiny spot of paint loss on the underside of the base of a figurine that I photographed but didn't mention explicitly in the description (we won that case). One guy opened up a case against us because he wanted us to pay the fees that Ebay's global shipping program charged him, even though that was entirely out of our control. Another wanted a full refund (again, rejected partial) because I neglected to mention in the listing that a record album we sold didn't have the original inner sleeve, even though the 10 pictures I provided in the listing clearly showed it wasn't there, and it plum slipped my mind to mention the sleeve in the written description...

 

Needless to say, at times it was very stressful. So it's nice to read about a situation like this in which both seller and buyer were level-headed people, trying to make things work.

 

Thanks for posting.

[DBQMary]

Thank you for sharing your story of the kind seller. Sometimes we forget that there really are a lot of good people in the world. Seems like only negativity is shared. It is good to be reminded of the positive and that she wanted no recognition for doing what is right made it even better.

 

Enjoy your new pen.

[Jeff_H]

This is a great story.

 

It's unfortunate that we run into so many people that seem to have less than impeccable character. I think it's just the medium of eBay and people trying to make a buck. I still think that in personal dealings, or on places like this or other forums where you become a known member, people are generally willing to do the right thing. There are always outliers of course.

 

Thanks for sharing the story and enjoy that $175 149. It's probably the last intact 149 you'll ever see at that price!

[Inked]

Sonia, your the Best!

 

Enjoy the pen and the positive energy it brings to your handwriting TTJ.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Inked

[JonDoh]

Wow, what a wonderful seller who went beyond what was asked of them. I bought my 146 new old stock from an eBay seller and they were very honest in their answers to my questions. The pen was bought at a great price and exceeded my expectations in the condition it arrived in. There are some good and honest sellers on eBay, you just have to be careful to find them.

[KBeezie]

I've had some sellers like that, such as buying an Elite that was completely clogged with ink and other crud even though was stated to be clean and good flowing (took 5 days of soaking and incremental disassembly to get it back to clean condition), that seller (Japanese) just refunded the whole thing and just said they found another in similar 'working' condition they would ship it.

 

There was another where it was a Lamy Safari (also pretty cheap), where it too was not clean and working as stated, offered to refund the whole thing, but had to object that at the very least since I was able to clean, and fix the nib's seating that should least keep half since that would cover shipping and then some.

 

The people who sell anything with Montblanc (I only have one though, so just stories I heard) seem to be far more defensive about the sale and condition of the item. Probably because as sellers they probably heard horror stories as well as to being scammed out of a montblanc purchase/etc or dealing with really "picky customers".

 

It's really generous of the seller, guess when you factor in not only the part cost, but the labor that went into repairing/restoring it *seems* about right, but you were only asking for the part cost, so did more than they 'had' to do, kudos to that.

Edited December 18, 2014 by KBeezie

[TommyJ]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I managed to find the part needed from a very well respected and well known Montblanc aficionado who also threw in an ebonite feed and prepared the feeder case threads with Montblanc sealant, all for about $75 including shipping. The ebonite feed should make a huge difference because the older 14C nib had a bit of flex to it with the original plastic feed. All I have to do now is wait for it arrive from Italy, knock out the feed, re-install the nib/feed back in the feeder sleeve, heat the sealant, and screw it back into the barrel. I've already greased up the piston, polished the barrel and cap, and removed the bent clip and straightened it. But waiting for it to arrive in the mail now is the hard part!! I will post some pics when I have it back up and writing.

 

Cheers

TJ

Edited December 18, 2014 by TTJ