Yesterday my wife and I planned on an anniversary (5 years!) outing to the nice little college town of Lewisburg, PA- home of Bucknell University.
There are 2 or 3 Antique Malls there and we planned to look. I'm not crazy about AM's, but they seem to be here to stay. As I was getting ready I stuck my 10X loupe in my pocket for the first time. It's a cheezy little thing I pulled out of my wife's old college dissecting kit. I felt like a real FP Nerd, but at 54 years, I've lost most of the compulsion to try to be cool.
Lewisburg is 70 miles from State College and it was a beautiful day.
The Roller Mill was our first stop. I found a stand with 3 empty ink bottles in good shape- Quink, Scrip and new for me, Waterman. $3 each so I bought them.
At a display that usually carries a few FP's I spotted a black "51" and asked the assistant to open the case for a look. The black jewel tipped me to it being a Special. The tag price was $35. For any item over $20 you can almost always get 20% by simply asking, so $28 may not be bad. The cap had a very small ding. Then I pinched the nib and felt a little roughness. I remembered my loupe and took the pen over to a small case light- the light in those places is pretty bad. The nib had been smashed and the iridium was busted off. Maybe somebody had tried to pull the nib with a pair of pliers.
Anyway, I didn't buy. Here's why- At the FP mall you can't deal directly with the seller. This seller is from upstate NY and only is there on thursdays. If he had been present, I'd have offered him $10 and been happy if I got it for $15. Then I'd have ordered a steel replacement nib from 51.com for $10. So, for $25, I'd have been happy. But I also have 2 nice Specials and I wasn't feeling needy.
Who knows what the future will bring? If we go back in a couple weeks and it's still there, maybe I'll get it. I've been buying a pen or 2 each week from e-bay and the experience of finding one in an analog situation was fun. Maybe that's worth the extra $.
A nice day was had by all.
Jack