NEW SAILOR PROFIT 1911 IN RED WITH 14KT EXTRA FINE NIB

June 30, 2009

The one you were referring to had a starting price of £9.99 (the auction completes today), but I have sold a N.O.S. Parker 45 for £9.99, a lovely Parker 17 for £5.50, a Parker 61 Flighter for £15.05 and a Parker Classic ballpen (lovely condition) for 99p !

I don't understand either. One expects some variations in figures achieved (there are a lot of reasons for this), but to get consistently dreadful prices, I must be doing something dreadfully wrong.

I can accept that prices may be lower than 10-15 years ago when I was buying - and this is what I thought was happening at first - but like you I see far worse pens going for much higher prices. Clearly I'm doing something wrong and I need to work out what it is quickly.

I've sold well over 20 pens so far and only once got more than I paid for a pen (and more than I expected) and that was for a Pelikan Demonstrator, when my Feedback rating was very low ! OK, I thought, demonstrators are obviously the 'hot' thing (in my day it was Waterman 100 year pens, Sheaffer PFMs and certain Conway Stewarts) - there is always an area of madness in the market. So, I put on an Omas Demonstrator and the buyer relisted it, using my photos and text - and turned it for a 50% profit !

Perhaps I'm too honest (or put too much emphasis) about flaws. I've succumbed to buying a number of pens on ebay (I shouldn't) and there is the occasional seller who just isn't open about minor flaws and having had that happen to me a few times recently - and over 10 years ago - I didn't want another collector to feel the same. However, you can begin to understand why people do it, when if you point them out, nobody bids.

I am - and have always been - a collector/user and what has always been important to me is how well a pen writes. In the past, that put me in something of a minority. I guess it still does and that emphasising the writing qualities of a particular pen may be a mistake.

I don't know. Now I'm rambling.

Thanks for listening people. I may drop the whole pen collection rationalisation idea and focus on selling other stuff that takes up too much room. It was just that in getting a lot of possessions out of storage recently (put there following a kitchen fire a number of years ago), it was evident that I had far too many pens and was never going to use a lot of them, so it was time to sell.

It's other collectors' loss - there were some nice pens coming up, as well as some more 'ordinary' pens that are good writers.

Regards Richard

Yes, you are right - sorry.

I often track pens on ebay - not because I am interested in buying them, but just to see what they go for to give me an idea of the price I have to pay if one does come up that I am interested in. I am sure that I'm not the only one to do that. I was tracking all your sales as I am interested in Parkers in particular, and I was quite astonished at the prices they acheived - I think I deleted the P51 in error at the same time and it was standing at £9.99, and that is what stuck in my mind.

Looking at it from a prosective buyers point of view I can't see anything at all wrong with your listings and other people do point out faults and it seems to make no difference at all, in fact I saw, not too long ago, a bog standard P51 aerometric that was sold as spares/repair go for just over £40 !!!!!!!!! Within an hour or two on either side, working examples that were no different went for £22 and £26 - figure that one out!

Other than you being exceptionally unlucky I can't think of any reason - I do know though that this sort of thing happens with other things apart from pens. Ebay buyers are a very strange lot.

It can happen the other way too. I was interested in a P51 and as I wasn't going to be around on the day the auction finished, I put in a very high bid in order to secure it. When I checked it out, I had won the pen but the losing bidder had kept upping his bit as the auction was closing until he reached 5p less than my maximum. So I paid approximated twice what the pen was worth.

It maybe worthwhile just to take a back seat for a couple of weeks and try again.

Good luck

George

June 30, 2009

Yes, you are right - sorry.
I often track pens on ebay - not because I am interested in buying them, but just to see what they go for to give me an idea of the price I have to pay if one does come up that I am interested in. I am sure that I'm not the only one to do that. I was tracking all your sales as I am interested in Parkers in particular, and I was quite astonished at the prices they acheived - I think I deleted the P51 in error at the same time and it was standing at £9.99, and that is what stuck in my mind.
Looking at it from a prosective buyers point of view I can't see anything at all wrong with your listings and other people do point out faults and it seems to make no difference at all, in fact I saw, not too long ago, a bog standard P51 aerometric that was sold as spares/repair go for just over £40 !!!!!!!!! Within an hour or two on either side, working examples that were no different went for £22 and £26 - figure that one out!
Other than you being exceptionally unlucky I can't think of any reason - I do know though that this sort of thing happens with other things apart from pens. Ebay buyers are a very strange lot.
It can happen the other way too. I was interested in a P51 and as I wasn't going to be around on the day the auction finished, I put in a very high bid in order to secure it. When I checked it out, I had won the pen but the losing bidder had kept upping his bit as the auction was closing until he reached 5p less than my maximum. So I paid approximated twice what the pen was worth.
It maybe worthwhile just to take a back seat for a couple of weeks and try again.

Good luck

George

Thanks for responding George. You could always bid for my P51 and pick one up cheap ! These things even out - it's like investing: it's not the performance of the individual investment that is crucial, but the overall portfolio performance. That's why investors will often buy more shares when an individual stock's price has fallen - it reduces the average cost of their holding, rather than a belief that it is cheap or undervalued and will grow markedly in the future.

I can explain variations in price obtained, but I don't understand them, either. I know all about market and price theory, but my experience taught me that we are dealing with irrational beings, so they rarely follow rational economic theories. Auctions are particularly prone to wide price fluctuations. I used to buy lots of pens at Bonhams' auctions and saw some very strange things happen there.

I eventually learnt at Bonhams' auctions (and use the same strategy on ebay) that attending in person wasn't a good idea - it was too easy to get caught up in 'winning' and overbid, which happens in last minute bidding on ebay - but to have a clear idea of the maximum I was prepared to pay, put in an authorisation to bid to that figure and then forget it. I've missed out on lots of great pens that way, but got a few at decent prices.

Of course, it's not a perfect strategy - that's how I ended up with more Sailors than I wanted ! I hadn't expected to win one, let alone 5. In retrospect, I must have bid too much, albeit well below retailers' prices.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

Regards Richard

Edited June 30, 2009 by tsunami31