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What Would You Consider A Good Price For A 'inked Once' Pen?


RyanM

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Hey guys,

I'm looking at selling one of my pens on here, and am just wondering how much I should advertise it for?

The pen is a Visconti Opera Master in a Demonstrator, a pen which retails at $1,495. Now I originally thought that people would want this pen, and so advertised it at a fair $850. Before long, I realised that this was not the case. I brought it down to $800. And now it sits at $750, and I am really considering pulling it. I bought this pen very recently, not even a month ago, and have really only used it once. Why am I selling it, you ask? Well, financial situations can change in a heart beat. And mine has, for the worst. So now I'm trying to sell one of my most expensive pens, but really don't know how much people are willing to pay for it?? Thinking about it, would people really want to pay $800 for a second hand pen, no matter how new? This is absolutely doing my head in. What have you guys at FPN found? What percentage of the retail price can you, or have you sold a pen for? I have sold many pens on Ebay, but never for more than $100 a pen, with most of them going around $50. What are your experiences with this sort of thing? And how much would you be willing to pay?

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First, sorry to hear about your situation. It is unfortunate that many of us live with a thin layer of liquid assets that requires pens to be sold on a regular basis.

 

To your question, the % of MSRP is dependent on the manufacturer and the pen in question. Some brands tend to hold their value well while others do not. Visconti tends to be one that does not hold value too well on average. Many people say 50% off MSRP is a place to start for a new pen you want to resell. 50% off is where you can buy many of the Visconti pens from delaers after they have been out for a while and have not sold out. (They almost never get MSRP for pens, and 20% off is probably the standard starting discount for newly released pens.) there are exceptions, and some pens do sell out without having to go down to 50% off, but that is your competition.

 

Your pen is very nice looking and I am sure it is in good shape. If it had a wider nib I might have even contacted you. But, as an example, I recently purchased here a never used Visconti LE that was popular and had sold out maybe 2 years ago for 44% of MSRP (and that was the shipped to me price). I am happy with that deal, but that means a 40% of MSRP number may be more your reality. So I guess you could probably sell it for $600 USD without too much trouble.

 

These are just my opinions and you are free to disagree. As many people have said before, pens are not investments. They offer terrible return except in a few rare cases. I wish you luck in your sale.

Edited by zaddick

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I'd certainly pay good money for a pen that was only inked once. When Richard Binder was still doing nibs and pens he advertised them as being inked for testing, though he offered the option to not test them. Honestly, I wonder why anyone would choose that. If someone else inks a pen, they can tell me any problems it might have, how it writes, etc. Maybe it writes well, superb even, but doesn't fit their hand, so they choose to sell it. I have no problem with it being inked, and would probably them what they were asking, if I was in the market for that pen. The problem I see you having is that you're trying to sell a very expensive pen. It isn't that expensive pens don't sell, but it would seem to me that it would be a harder sell. This may be just me, but if I was in the market for your pen, and your experience with it was phenomenal, I'd be willing to take your asking price because I would have the certainty it would work and write well. That may be just me though.

"Oh deer."

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I don't think your problem is because of it was ink, but because it is a high-end pen. Not many people can afford that. If you want to cash your pen fast, you could lower the price. Unless you put a big discount price tag there, honestly, i don't think more than 1/5 of FPN members could afford it. But your loss will be greater then.

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I'd certainly pay good money for a pen that was only inked once. When Richard Binder was still doing nibs and pens he advertised them as being inked for testing, though he offered the option to not test them. Honestly, I wonder why anyone would choose that. If someone else inks a pen, they can tell me any problems it might have, how it writes, etc. Maybe it writes well, superb even, but doesn't fit their hand, so they choose to sell it. I have no problem with it being inked, and would probably them what they were asking, if I was in the market for that pen. The problem I see you having is that you're trying to sell a very expensive pen. It isn't that expensive pens don't sell, but it would seem to me that it would be a harder sell. This may be just me, but if I was in the market for your pen, and your experience with it was phenomenal, I'd be willing to take your asking price because I would have the certainty it would work and write well. That may be just me though.

I definitely see your point. You can get lemons in even the most expensive pens.

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Check eBay sold auctions for your pen in similar condition. That will tell you what the going rate is. You will probably have better luck selling on eBay, a lot more eyeballs!

 

Sorry to hear about your situation, best of luck.

Jim Couch

Portland, OR

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There are two problems I see.

 

First, this pen can be found from online sellers brand new for $895, not $1495, so regardless of what you actually paid for it in AU that is going to be considered the new price. So a used price will be discounted from that. I would think you're looking at $600-700 at best for a used pen.

 

Second, it's an expensive pen so the market is naturally small. Not many people, even those on this forum, are buyng $500+ pens and especially not on a regular basis. So you just have to be patient to sell an expensive pen at a good price.

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