The question about collector pens as long term investments is not a new one. Many hobbies have as their core of interest, objects that are perceived to have value growth potential. Coins, Stamps, Gems, Silver tea sets, etc. etc. When does a collectible become an investment? When do pens become an investment? Where does a brand like Wahl-Eversharp (W-E) become a better or worse investment than other pens. And why would W-E be better or worse than any other pen brand as an investment?

The Wahlnut is not too far away from retirement - 5 years on my count and 8-10 years on Mrs. Wahlnut's count (go figger). When I started in the pen hobby, I already had the vintage MG hobby, the stamp collecting hobby, and other interests that were not yet a hobby, but had potential. None of them were really more than a current interest with the sub-element of possessing the possibility for value appreciation.

The vintage MG has shown some appreciation...maybe 40 percent over 12 years (3.5% annual return) less the maintenance costs of maintaining and running a car. The stamps FERGETABOUTIT!. I believe I lost my butt on stamps. I gave up on stamps as an investment after 40 years of collecting! The common items I can't even get face value for. I use them for postage to send PMBHRPPNo.9 to folks. At about $1.11 per shipment, it will be 2056 before I run out of stamps. When I thought I would sell the collection intact (US Plate Blocks complete back to 1909 and air mails totally complete except for one early one and the zeps) I asked the trused dealer who had sold me many items, to come and evaluate the collection with the idea of makiing me an offer for the collection. He sat there with my albums and an adding machine cranking away for literally 3 hours only to come up with an offer of 10% of catalog value! What a myth! What a sap the Sap had been. A sucker who had BELIEVED in the enduring value of stamps as a sort of bearer bond for future security. Hah!

By the time of my realization about value of stamps (not), I had already been interested in fountain pens for about 10 years. Mrs. Wahlnut saw what $$ was going into the pens in a large way. It was she who suggested selling off the stamps to provide a $$ FOR pens. So what pens was I interested in and what pens did I think had the most potential for investment appreciation while also being objects of delight today? WAHL EVERSHARP came out on top of the list. Why?

Here are the reasons:
1) WE was once one of the "Big 4" and was once highly valued by then current pen purchasers.
2) WE had "fallen off the charts" as a current model and the name was less common in the common vocabulary of fringe pen collectors and the general public had all but forgotten about the name if they ever knew it.
3) WE pens were extremely well made
4) WE pens had very attractive designs and colors
5) The price of a WE Oversized Greek Key was less than half that of a same size, era and condition Patrician. If the Patrician was a "right" value" then the nWahl was undervalued (like a Growth stock?)
6) WE pens were not trading freely on Ebay and at pen shows and thus represented a possible relative scarcity. A very key element in determining value.

Am I suggesting that every one turn to Wahl-Eversharp pens as part of their 10 point investment allocation table right up there with bonds, large cap value stocks and REIT's? Not really, and here's the author's message coming up right here:

Collect the pen for its own sake and the sake of good writing, good collecting, and the joy of possessing an object of historical significance. But isn't it better if you get all that and a good investment at the same time? AND you can WRITE WITH IT!

Now, I am not suggestion that the Eversharp Skyline demi in basic black will ever become a super valuable item, but chances are that even that realtively common pen will probably be worth what you paid for it today. And the Coronet, Doric, Gold Seal Flat Top, and all Oversized pens in really good condition will do even better. Check out the ebay prices for the other big 4 pen manufactureres and the prices for Wahl-Eversharps. I think you will see that the W-E prices have risen disporportionately higher over the past 5 years.

People who don't believe in pens as investments must be people have bought into current marketing ploys by current manufacturers trying to make instant collectibles like the comemmorative Mont Blancs. Vintage pens, and vintage WE pens are like coastal real estate. You can't make more. So the supply is limited and the demand is going up at least for now.

The Wahlnut

I don't think of any pen as a long term investment. The possibility of finding that one which people are willing to pay more years later is difficult to do.

I don't think of my pens as investments (heavens knows I overpaid enough for some of them a few years ago, when the Canadian dollar was as weak as a newborn kitten ) .... but I do agree that W-E pens are potential "good buys" on eBay. They're certainly not a household name like Parker, etc.... so they kind of fly under the radar for that reason.... In the pen world though, as you say, Syd, people who are into vintage pens know that W-E was one of the "big four" so there is more appreciation for them there (although I think one is less likely to find a "sumgai" find).

Per Syd


Syd, i don't follow stamps, but whether or not the market has risen, whether or not the you were sold accurately graded material (always a risk), don't be so quick to take a dealer's purchase offer or claimed appraisal as final word. He might be taking advantage of you. Try ebay a bit :-)




My view is that one ought not to confuse collectables with investments. There are just so many issues. Now, pens can be a good business, but investment implies the items themselves will intrinsically rise in value. For most collectors, to buy collectables from dealers means the item needs to rise 50-100% before they can sell back to dealers at break even (Ebay has changed this equation to a degree), given that many collectables degrade even at rest (have any pristine Dorics melt on you lately?), and given that collectables markets are... fickle (got Beany Babies??), i always advise folks to buy collectables because they... want them, not to make bucks.



These are nice reasons in general to collect a given item in general and WE in particular- pretty items, maybe underappreciated, available and not brutally fought for. If one assumes (eep!) that vintage pens as a whole will hold or grow in value and one assumes that at some future point perhaps with proper promotion (eep! eep!) this assertedly underappreciated brand will grow relative to the other brands, then buying them can yield positive financial results.

Still...

Scarcity is an element- perhaps key- in determining value, but not an overwhelming force. Plenty of tiny makes are more rare than any pen we chat about on FPN, but will never have great value. Not enough of 'em to stimulate a collecting base. There need to be enough pens out there to give collectors the chance to build some sort of collection, or they just don't hunt.

Demand has to be factored in.





Surely you jest <_< (Don't call me, "Shirley")

I s'pose the quote could have typos, but i see things quite the opposite.

I assert that pens are not an investment. Indeed, most of the people who seem to think collectables are investments are those who have bought into marketing ploys of the instant-collectables makers.

Now one can decide to treat his old pens as an investment by investing in them, but i see tha tmore as speculation. Limited market, fragile product, high cost of entry all make this a very very tricky field.



Maybe. I've been on ebay since 1998. Some of my early Wahl buys on ebay cost a fair penny. Most vintage pens today are not priced much above 1998- some are cheaper today.


Wahls are nice pens. They are collectable. They might provide a bit more bang for the buck relative to some other makes. But, pens are not investments.

david

The important thing in this discussion is to compare pens to normal investment methods, and not fall into the trap of comparing them to other poor investments such as cars and stamps. All pens (ALL pens) are an extremely poor investment compared to the usual methods such as stocks, bonds, etc. Don't even bother trying to justify them as an investment; there's no (honest) way to do it. If you like them, buy them and keep them. Unfortunately, that's about all there is to it.

David,
Yours are (as usual) points well taken and made. Time will tell. Lets revisit the going price for a near mint Coral or Lapis Gold seal or a Greek Key , Lapis, or Green-Bronze Gold Seal about a year from now. I know I know, one of your premises is that there are too many variables to be able to compare one pen to another. But I do remember when such prens as listed above were all available for about $250. I have not seen one listed by a reputable dealer (ebay or no) and sold, for anything under $350 for over 2 years. (except for that dark looking coral Gold seal item i won on ebay 2 weeks ago that cleaned up terrifically, and is as good as most of my near-mint items - bargains do happen sporadically). I have over 800 Wahls in my collection/inventory, and have a pretty decent handle on price trends. But after all you may be absolutely correct. Time will tell. Opinion wont. Having said that, MY OPINION is that if the desirability of Wahl pens continues to grow, and the brand attracts devoted fans, who want to collect all of this or that model, the prices will catch up and the value will be realized. I know a doctor who paid about $500 for a Green-Bronze gold seal in 2004. I seem to think that same pen today in the same quality goes for about $650. But I may be wrong. Time will tell. As for me, if I see a superlative item that will be very hard to replace later on, I'll buy it today cause without seller hardship playing a role, I think I will have to pay more next year for the same pen. So if pens are not investments, in any event, maybe they are better bought sooner than later if for no other reason than that they may become scarcer just because more people are coillecting them?

Time will tell. Lets wait and see.

Syd

Hi Syd,

I don't wish to pick nits, but what the heck... you brought it up, not me.

If Any of the pens you just cite were to go up 50x in value by next year, that would do nothing to disprove any of the points i raised. Rather, it points that collectables have their periods of mania as well as of depression I fear the point of the "collectables do not equal investments" crowd just is not getting through.

There probably were a couple years when Beany Babies outerformed Berkshire-Hathaway (Buffet). Most now- iirc- are "worth" peanuts.

Virtually no fancy overlay pen- the cream of the vintage pen crop per some- has value as high as in the early 1990's.

If retail for a Coral long goldseal Wahl -assuming we could control for grading and venue- rises from $300 to $400 this year, then the average collector who bought it from an average dealer, still will not be able to sell the pen back to that dealer for $300, given usual wholesale retail spread. That makes a >25% entry fee, far higher than the 0.5% or so spread on stock/funds etc.

And if the pen develops crazing?

No... there is no market with enough liquidity for "investments" such as these to support low-cost transactions.

Perhaps your question would better be phrased citing WE as pens offering... opportunity... rather than investment. If one has skill and can identify bargains, he can do well. BUT, that again is business, not investment. If i buy (and i hope to) 100 vintage pens at the LA show for resale, and if i earn a profit on all of them (even factoring in the value of my spare time spent doing the buying and selling) then i have done some good business but done no investing, as my profit is utterly independent of a market shift upwards in the value of the pens.

BTW- i would like to buy some WE for the website, so if you have some nice duplicates at good price... 9



Which means that using an "investors" model in which the the average man buys at ask but sells back at bid, and given that the bid-ask is not an 0.5% stock flip spread, then everyone who bought from a dealer however far back it was that you recall the pens at $250, all still have lost money on their investment when comes time to sell back to a dealer, as most dealer spreads are not 0.5% but rather 25-75%



I don't disagree with either point. I certainly would value your opinion in a conversation about the retail price point of any given wahl. But knowing trends well, and even having a skill to anticipate trend, makes you a knowledgable collector and potentially a good trader in pens... a good businessman. It does not make the pens an investment, though.



Again, i don't want just to wield a hammer on semantics, because i agree with many of your positive views of Wahls. Wahls might be relatively undervalued. Wahls certainly are desirable. Wahls indeed might move up in value in the absolute sense, assuming the coming Housing crash, doesn't wallop our whole hobby by nuking folks' discretionary income. However, none of those things really have anything to do with pens being an investment. No industry regulation. High resistance to market entry for the buyer. STuff like that.



Actually that doctor bought the pen because he thought it was worth $700 when he bought it. That's usually how serious collector-to-collector table trades happen. Each of us looks over 200 pens on the other guys table, thinks he's crazy high on 199, but has one at a good price. Do that at 100 tables, and ya come home with 100 pens. Probably if a great set like that were to be retailed today, it might be $800+, assuming it has not developed cracks or crazing in the meanwhile. I'd better check




Or, you might not ever see it again. As a collector, to miss a great pen for one's collection certainly can lead to non-buyer's remorse :doh: Been there done that. But, again, not an investment issue. Rather, a collector issue.

Remind me to bring my Gray-Red-Veins OS SHeaffer Balance that i picked up for a song (probalby $200 once on ebay) which was at the time perhaps a $450 pen and one now i would expect to sell around $650. Unfortunately, whilst sitting in my pen trays the last 7 years, the top developed crazing and now is a parts-barrel worth $150 or so.

Anyhow, at the LA Show, i certainly can use some nice metal Wahls (a few anyway), Dorics and Personal POints and the like.

I'm still not certain about shlepping out the camera set-up this time-- i'm a bit fried-- but if i do, i'll touch base before i come out there. Always good to shoot more wahls.

best
d
avid

We seem to agree on many elements about the pens: scarcity affecting price, buying low and selling higher, unpredictable deterioration events (I agree with that, too), the mistake of buying at the peak of a price climb, etc. etc. I don't see that these are non-investment elements. These are a part of any investment. How do you define investment? That seems to be where we really disagree. Every investment has its risks. I gather that you define investment as something that does not fluctuate in value, and only rises predictably. Take a look at my bond portfolio currently and see the fall off in market value. Take a look at my stock portfolio and see the mixed bag of results from day to day. But in the long run, the portfolio rises. While I may have this pen or that pen that develops crazing or other physical problems, I have others that are showing keener interest by buyers, so overall my portfolio of pens seems to rise as a whole rather than fall.

Investment acording to Websters: "the outlay of money usually for income or profit". It mentions nothing about a guaranteed income or profit. So what is your definition of investment?

Buying right and sometimes intuitively is an integral part of investing. If Wahls as a whole are a little undervalued, then high quality items may be a good buy today. I grew up in the Art Business. So my perspective is probabIy different from yours about inventory appreciation over time.

With ebay you don't have to sell your pen back to a dealer and you don't have to deal with the dealers need to buy with an instant positive spread over purchase. When I buy I buy with a 5 year resell horizon. That is a mid-term investment to me.

So,how do YOU define Investment?

Wahlnut

Mornin'



I do not define investment as something that rises in value, and only rises predictably. I believe i did not write that anywhere.

"Every investment has its risks" is true but unhelpful. More helpful is to assess if the risks are disproportionately or utterly overwhelmingly severe relative to reasonable expectation of benefit and to assess if said risks are downplayed in casual presentation of the imagined upside. These are classic features of the "collectables as investment" industry.

My primary objection is to the conflation of speculation with investment in hobbydom, and to the abject and repeated failure by those who occasionally cite value growth of a collectable as indication of its status of investment, to reveal the overwhelming, dominating and devastating down side risk to such "investments"-- with those downsides including barrier-to-entry, lack of industry standards and regulation, speculative nature of the purchase, risk of degredation of the product itself even whilst owned by the investor, and historically dismal performance.




Industry-specific use of jargon can differ from general use/common dictionary meanings. Any casual reader of the dictionary would be very very disappointed with a "very good" coin or pen, based on his dictionary driven expectation of what very good means.

Futhermore, in the limited definition presented, one can "invest" in the predictions of fortune tellers, or in chain-letter ponzi schemes.

If truly you assert that it is fine to spend, say, $10,000 "investing" in a fortune teller to let you know next week's lotto numbers, then i will grant you that- sure- pens might be an "investment" too. I'm really not sure we wish to go there.

I consider the purchases of pens in hopes of value growth to be speculation at best, to be self- justification for our simple desire to own many things we just waaant to have at medium, and to be horrible self-deception at worst.

Perhaps- if one wishes to stick to the notion that any purchase with hope of value growth can be an investment (even the fortune teller session), then let's just call pens an abysmal and horrible investment.


How do I define investment- or perhaps capital-I Investment?

Don't know fershure. But i would expect a few things to be offered in the arena of financial planning investments promulgated to casual readers...

-----1) Reasonable Barrier to Entry
-----2)Industry standards and safeguards
-----3_ Lack of risk of Degradation to the investment item itself
------4)Some historical record of return, and freedom from purchaser fickleness

1) Reasonable barriers to entry regarding bid/ask price.

The spread for a bank account is about nil. Stock bid/ask is well less than one percent. Pens- assuming all else is done ethically- will run at least 50% from bid to ask. A collector who buys $1000 in nice wahls from a dealer saw them marked up likely (there is play here) from $666. If he tries to sell them to the same dealer the next day he can get $666 for his pens. The 50% mark up (or 33% markdown on repurchase) is itself probably an overwhelming barrier to treatment of pens as investment

In other words, in an FDIC insured bank account one can earn 5% per year turning 666 into $1000 in probably 8 years. If one buys $1000 in pens abruptly devalued to $666 by the hobbydom buy/sell spread, his "investment" will have to gain the equivalent of 8 years bank interest to grow its "buy" value back to the point he can sell it for break even. The collector has lost 33% (or more) and has lost 8 years bank interest (or more) the day he buys the pens.

2) Industry Standards and safeguards.

We have none in pendom. If reason one were not enough to dissuade anyone from "investing" in pens, then we get into overgrading/undergrading. The first time a collector buys a pen with an unadvertised sealed hairline capcrack, he has bought an item worth 30-50% less than its stated value, even before the 30-50% bid-ask spread that so devastates his value. Now he is 15 years from seeing his item reach break-even, assuming the pen market grows at all. Grand.

3) Degradation of the Investment product.

Pens are melting over time. We all know stories of the perfect Doric that one day when pulled from the darkened pen cabinet is found to have flourescent endpieces. Investing in decaying goods adds to risk

4) Some historical record of return.

Independent of losing 30% of value the day he buys the pen, independent of the terrific added loss in cases where a pen is sold in overgraded fashion or at price above market norms (such as they are), independent of the risk of the pens degrading over time, pens just have not ever proven to have any record of consistent growth

The cream of vintage pendom- fancy eyedropper overlays- are worth less today than they were 15 years ago. So if you bought a $1000 retail pen in 1992 that is worth $750 today, and if the average dealer will give you $500 for such pen before selling it for today's $750, then your $1000 investment in 1992 is worth $500 today, whilst money put in the bank at 5% in 1992 would be worth about $2300 today. One will have lost $1800 by investing in pens instead of in the federally guaranteed bank. That of course does not account for further losses to overgrading and meltdown of the pen itself.

And, no, the point is not that something is not an "investment" just because it does not always go up. The point is that if a niche-market collectable wishes to elevate itself to investment, it would be nice to know there is some, any historical pattern of consistent growth. Otherwise, the word "investment" is just blowing smoke.

Pens are subject to collector caprice. Twenty years ago, overlays were the rage. Today plastic is the rage. The Patrician was the king 15 years ago. Now "51" is hot. Beany Babies are worth pennies. Rare coins- the largest collectables hobby on earth- are mostly worth less than they were 20 years ago.

Pens became an organized collectables field just 30 years ago. Inevitably there was an expansion phase as awareness grew and price pumped. Much of the 1980's-1990's price growth was driven by Watch collectors dabbling here, playing at speculation.

Some Wahls today are worth a bit more than they were when i entered hobby 9 years ago. A bit more. Some of my Wahls have developed crazing along the way. Some turned out to be flawed (overgraded).

This is a field of speculation, not of investment.

It is fine to make a business buying/selling pens. It is fine to buy a collectable that has some value beyond the modern "LE" factories telling us about "instant" collectables.

But, given the instant devaluation of pens the moment a collector buys from dealer, given the lack of regulatory standards regarding grading and sell spreads, given the risk of pen degredation, given the lack of any consistent record of value growth once the hobby stabilized out of its infancy, i find notions that these things are investments to be... inappropriate.

Still, all that is different from the question of "Are Wahl's relatively undervalued" to which the answer might well be, "Yes".



Again, true but unhelpful. Or maybe it helps my stand /:)

Buying right and buying intuitively certainly is important to not being destroyed.

I would assert that the more difficult it is to buy right and sometimes intuitively, the greater is the barrier to entry to a would-be investment. A 30-50% buy-sell spread (vs. <1% for stocks), and that the outrageous amount of overgrading that goes on in our hobby (Syd, have you looked at some of the $300 standard Dorics on the tables at the LA Show?- They are NOT all like yours!), makes the notion of investing in these things a bit of a joke.

If Wahl's are a little undervalued (say 10% that we posit will be "discovered" during next year), then the buyer is still hosed on his investment, because if his $500 wahl goes up to $550 retail, he still can sell his pen to dealer for only $300 and is out $200 bucks.

It is possible that this is what you experienced when you had your stamp collection examined by a dealer. Hobbies are not set up for collectors to reap investment returns on their cherished collectables.



Your opening to this whole thread, regarding your stamp collection, would suggest your perspective might be more in keeping with mine than you believe



Ebay without doubt affects one of the four issues i cited- barrier to entry. But it is not an absolute resolution to what is just one of my four core objections to conflating hobby purchases with investments.

Re-selling on ebay is not open to everyone. Many don't wish to become writers and photographers in order to part with their "investments"

Have we factored in the opportunity cost of the time and effort spent on this? What is the time/opportunity cost to just buy/sell a bank account, stock or (yuck) commodity? How many hours must be spent to liquidate a $5000 pen collection on ebay vs selling a stock or closing a bank account.



Most vintage pens are price about where they were about 5 years ago.

If a Wahl is expected (not sure how, but i'll concede point for now) to "rise" 25% in next 5 years, the buyer still has lost money relative to banking the money, even before the buy-sell spread takes away all his profit, or he has to spend hours of personal effort to sell his 300 dollar pen.

So, again, how do i define investment?

At very least, i define it as a purchase based with rational non tulip-mania expectation of growth, which is not subject to quirks and caprice of a buying public in niche market, in which the item to be bought has industry regulation and standards, and which will not be melting even whilst i own it.

regards

david

I would add another factor that I don't think has been touched upon, though some of the other factors discussed feed into it: the soft cost of the overhead of selecting items to purchase. How much time needs to be spent to merely locate or select a pen to add to one's "portfolio"? One cannot simply decide to put $5,000 into vintage Wahls with the alacrity one can purchase $5,000 of bonds, or even of collectible coins. What is the cost of the time that is plowed into searching for an item to buy (the pleasure enjoyed during of that time notwithstanding)? One may easily spend an hour cruising eBay to find a set of items of interest that ultimately produces a single purchase. That time/labor could be worth a significant fraction of the cost of the item. How inefficient is this overhead compared to other sorts of investments?

--Daniel

If i could obtain one pen per hour spent cruising ebay, i'd be tickled pink.

More like one pen for every 10-20 hours spent... perhaps why i do more of my buying at pen shows these days, and more time moonlighting in the ER rather than browsing ebay

d

Syd,
I also have a stamp collection put together as a kid with an indulgent father who saw a bonding experience with his son as the "payoff for the expenditure" (my plate blocks only go back to about 1918!) so i understand your pain. However david's advice is good. i see old stamps on Ebay and although it may well be a "quality rather than Quantity" marketplace, you should try it.

David's musings on the fashionabilty twists and turns in collectingdom is accurate and affects vitually all collectibles. Presumably you were not collecting Ferrari's in the late ninties, some of those million dollar "investments" chopped in half!

I do think that investments in collectibles should never be more than a very small percentage of ones net worth, the trends are just too caprious, and difficult to maintain, especially in an area as "thinly traded" as Vintage pens. But as pointed out, normal financial investing is far better and safer. I would guess even those Uber-wealthy folks with $100 million Art collections probably are (at minimum)Billionaires!

Still and all, if your collection is extremely qualitative (as i suspect it is) and you were to randomly pick 50 pens from very rare to common and put them on Ebay I would guess some would sell high , some low but at the end of the day you would not lose any $ on those 50 pens, but rather would turn a profit but that does not mean some of those pens would not sell at a loss.

As David pointed out, it seems unfortunately that unless you find a venue that allows you to sell RETAIL (ebay or shows) instead of the old dealer wholesale-retail game, you will never recoup those rising tide profits one hopes for from collectibles and even then on some you'll score big and on some lose out.

David,
As we have all seen, even in the Financial world there exists a great deal of chicanery but at least the rules are vastly stricker and afford some measure of confidence and security to the average investor.

Even in that arena, the best investing is usually the most dispassionate investing.

Maybe that's the true problem with collectibles as investments, there's just too much passion?/:) /:)

Clearly this discussion involves people who are experienced enough to comment and the points are all valid. I come to all this as a long time book collector. My pen thing only goes back about six or seven years. But I can say that I have a valuable book collection, and when my son was a senior in college, my investments to pay his tuition had basically run out about the time of his last semester. I had a book I bought back in about '88 for $2,400 and sold it for $15,000 in 2002 to pay that tuition. It was fortunate that F. Scott Fitzgerald was in great demand and his books brought a premium.

My experience is that the investment aspect of a "collectible" really only works at the high end. And this discussion has already touched upon the fickle nature of the collecting markets. This is all true. If you have an item at the top end, say a deco band, and the cache of such a pen starts to catch up with the Patrician as has been discussed, then maybe you will have a good investment. But you have to sell the item for what it is worth. This isn't easy unless you are a dealer with the required networks. This is where eBay comes in handy for the hobbyist.

I have been successful over the recent years buying pens I thought were bargains, fixing a few flaws then selling them at a profit to help finance my WE thing. But bottom line is that this is not the proper way to build an investment portfolio.

Well, I see we have run this fox to ground. Just look at the ground we have covered so far: Perceptions about what investing is, what speculation is, what capricoiusness may be in the collector hot item du jour marketplace, the hours of work it takes to find suitable pen candidates to buy/invest in, that bank accounts with definite returns are perhaps better investments than pens (duh) :-) , that there is a difference between buying from and later selling back to a dealer (who would with any other choice to sell do that) on the one hand and buying a pen and selling it retail (who would do otherwise) on the other hand, and many more quasi-economic analyses including one reference to the tulip speculation crash have all been a good exercise. and enlightening. By the way do you folks insure your pens? At replacement value? Is that higher or lower than what was paid. Just wondering.

And yeah, I am very familiar with the Ferrai and the XK150S Jags for that matter although they don't come close to the tulip scandal, I suppose. But then again the XK 150S is back where it was before the frenzy and crash and so is the stock market after the Dot com bomb.

As with every investment timing is critical. If you can wait till the time is right , you may find you huckleberry (is that the phrase?) They say Success is being at the right place at the right time. In Banking we say which of those 2 can you better predict? The place or the time. Most people reply The Place. So go there and wait. For me Wahls are a good place to go. Besides, I love them anyway.

Thanks for the advice about selling stanps on ebay. I've been doing that on and off for 2 years averaging 50% of book - better than the 10% offered by the dealer), but still less than was paid for some and a fair bit more than that paid for some that were bought 15 years ago. I'm hanging on to Air Mails and The Mint Ducks however.

And thanks for the econ lecture, too! After 30 years as a Commercial and Investment Banker maybe I learned somthing new :-) To some, speculation is not a dirty concept and is considered a valid form of investing if it is kept to a reasonably small portion of the extremely risky end of a well balanced portfolio.

I am glad this topic stimulated so much interest, even if it focused on the validity of pens (in general) as investments. The original topis was WAHL EVERSHARPS AS LONG TERM INVESTMENTS. I had hoped to elicit some feelings about Wahl-Eversharp pens as compared to other brands as a better or worse potential for appreciation (if the pen does not turn to powder or goo, or crystallize, or drop on the floor).

Are we having fun yet?

Good old Moderator Wahlnut at your service.

What, you didn't think this would be a chewy subject??

I agree that speculation is nothing dirty. I just try to keep it separate from investment <_<

As far as relative bang for the buck in the collecting sphere, i concur that Wahl's give a nice amount of pen per $100.

regards

david

Syd,
As a final postscript here's a photo of the only auto i've ever made money on, sold it for 40%more than I bought it for after 4 years ownership. The funny thing though is if I could buy it back tomorrow for a premium i would do so in a heartbeat!!! Sellers regret i guess :doh: :doh:

All I know is every pen I purchase and like a lot, is discontinued within months of my ownership of that pen. So, if you're looking for a pen that won't be made for any long stretch of time, follow my purchasing history. Or, even the history of my fountain pen gifts.

Elysee? Closed the company within six months of my acquiring one of their lovely 18K nib pens.

I fell in love with and purchased a MB Noblesse Oblige. My ex used it, lost it, then found it, then failed to return it, then... MB discontinued the line. Sigh.

Rotring Core-- these were pen purchases that were to take advantage of the ergonomic grip. They are great pens, and lovely to use when you're getting a bit of cramp. And, they discontinued the line.

Parker 51, a lovely pen that found me on the Chicago El. Wouldn't you know, that entire line was no longer made long ago?

How about those Esterbrooks? Within a year of my first one (my first ever fountain pen) the company stopped making them.

Stypen? Sorry, that pen is no longer made. It was a great gift though, and it writes very well.

Reform (the 'school pen style' that is now at ISellPens for $3.99) was discontinued after I bought my first one. However, I bought two more for gifts to kids that like fountain pens as they are lovely to use.

Shaeffer school pen? Sorry. Not made any longer.

That Hubert received as a "good luck with the book" gift? Sorry, not making that one any more.

How about the hot-hot-hot pink Waterman? Sorry. Stopped production.

That wooden pen? (I can't remember the maker at all, but the gift card said "I hope you like this, they're not making these any more..."

Do you like that fountain pen in your hand? Do you want it to become scarce? Just find out if I've got one in my pen case, and "poof" it will disappear from the market.

I don't think I've got one single pen that is currently being manufactured. This is not a good record. Or its a terrific record for collectors.

Syd,
maybe you should have started the thread with that comment rather than comparing pens to stamps and other collectables. If you had done that maybe you would have gotten the thread you wanted. But this is a free and open board and threads sometimes wander

Hmmm. yours is a good observation Tytyvyllus.

In kicking it off I did compare Wahl Eversharps as investments to my experiences with items other than pens. My bad. I guess. If people are still interested, I guess I could re-start the thread, but I'll give it a rest at least until I post statistics that I track on a buy-sell basis in my pen values spreadsheet . In tracking the Wahl brand in this manner I see about 18% appreciation over the last 2 years, and about 24% over the past 3 years. Of course there are both winners and losers in the mix, but the overall lot has been positive. So rather than elicit pure opinion, I'll go with statistics next time.

The idea was that since I do not collect or specialize in other brands I was curious what others see who know more about the appreciation of their other brand specialties (like Vacs, or MB's, eg). I know those type folks are frequent posters here. Maybe next time I will post it in Writing Instruments to reach a larger audience of experienced collectors/buyers/sellers in other brands.

I see a thread on Zoss called "Where have all the bargains gone?" And the some of the same posters here clearly state that values \/prices have been rising over the past 2 years. That theme is close to this one, but the word "investment" was not used.



Thanks for your cogent observation

most of the bargains=gone wrtiers at Zoss are citing a very recent exposure to the market as baseline.

Given that i just picked up a gem (i mean GEM) Signet 51 set on ebay for bupkus and picked up a Vac Maxima for $40 (parts pen with Lots of chewy parts) and do stuff like this every month, i figure the bargains still are here

david

Am I out of bounds in asking suggestions to set my Ebay asking price for a c1925 10k gold-filled lever filler, with a No. 4 wet noodle fine nib and near mint except for a tad of posting wear, no visible brassing and shiny as the day it was produced?

I bought it as NM from FPH and take it as such, but I think the posting wear, while slight, does merit mention.

Thanks.

depends in part on the pattern- some bring well more than others.

Assuming a basic pattern clip pen #4 i'd think full dealer retail around $200-225 if truly superb. Price drifts down for non-retail and lower grade. Ebay reserves can be targetted to whatever you want, but not many pens will sell there at full dealer retail.

d

Thanks, David. I paid $300 for it about 2 years ago, may have to lose a bit on this one.

You know, I should've mentioned that it comes with the original box, as well.

Well, Syd, I'd agree that was an interesting read - for the most part. I don't know about investing in pens but I do know that I like to accumulate them. And over time, my accumulation is starting to feel more like a collection. Would I make money if I sold out? You bet. I don't know how much, but I'm guessing around 50 to 75%. The only reason for that is that I typically buy "bargain" pens at estate auctions, junk stores, and occasionally ebay.

My last two WE purchases would do OK, I think. A metal deco lever filler in good condition w/#5 nib & an OS RHR Greek Key Chased Signature in good condition. I spent around $25.00 for both. An investment? No. A good buy? I think so. And I'm assuming I can make some money on them when it's time to sell. But, if I don't, I don't have much in them.

The biggest factor in my accumulating from a financial perspective is the money I save on therapy - vintage pen repair & restoration is therapy enough!

And yes, I'm having fun.

A very good discussion, and David i's points were all very good. He is obviously as good a businessman as he is a medical man. BTW, where do you find the time to do all this?!

The biggest problem in trying to project values over the long term is that you are betting on a future generation's appreciation for fountain pens - something that is impossible to estimate. As David said in effect, it is a matter of supply and demand. The supply consists of tens of millions of fountain pens that were made and are still in good condition. What will be the demand? That is completely unknown.

Based on my children's and their friend's opinions, I would guess that they will not appreciate fountain pens and the pens will not appreciate! Of course, this could change over time, but will it? No one really knows.

Ron