A Cunning Plan To Foil The In-House Pen Thief (Or Redistribution Agent)

[LeonW]

Get some invisible, UV-sensitive, dye and a UV black lamp from ebay (about £5 each). Paint the pens. Scan the husband's hands when pens go missing. And if you're feeling really mean, scan the husband's secretary for fingerprints too

Very cunning indeed.

[inkstainedruth]

Love this thread!

I had my gateway pen, a Parker Vector, go missing for something like ten months (fortunately RIGHT after I flushed the pen out).

I've also had stuff vanish from my purse, only to mysteriously reappear an hour or so later....

Really wish the Borrowers would return the two Esterbrooks that I was supposed to do research on and take photos of for my friend (they came from her mother's house, and she wanted to put them and a Canadian 51 Vac up on Ebay last year...). I know where in the LR they're *supposed* to be. But they aren't there.

Hey, come to think, that's about the time Ron Zorn moved to the Pittsburgh area; does that mean his Borrowers decided to moonlight at MY house? Even though he and his wife have never *been* to my house (and I've never been to theirs)?

Of course, the flip side happened to me once years ago in an occult bookstore in CT. I was looking at a little table with various Tarot decks on them, and had leaned over to look at the ones on the lower shelf. When I stood back up a deck (one that I had seen photos of in a book but didn't know was commercially available) had materialized on the table. Needless to say I spent some money in that store forthwith.... Sort of the same way as when I found that Parker 41 a few weeks ago at an estate sale -- *something* just kept me digging through the box of random writing implements, even when I was about to give up on the grounds that there was just stuff I didn't (and wouldn't) want.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Intellidepth]

Thanks for more humorous suggestions - my husband is chuckling. Love the scented inks and forensic uv. (None have gone missing... But he did buy himself two pencils this week - he has Never purchased his own writing tools for as long as I can remember.)

[richardandtracy]

I think that you should fill a Jinhao or two with BSB and leave them hanging around. Not many people can cope with the ink.

 

Failing that, buy a bunch of Hero 616's. Few non fp people can cope with the hooded nib pens.

 

Regards,

 

Richard

[cattar]

Thanks for more humorous suggestions - my husband is chuckling. Love the scented inks and forensic uv. (None have gone missing... But he did buy himself two pencils this week - he has Never purchased his own writing tools for as long as I can remember.)

 

Interesting that he went out and bought pencils. And not a fountain pen.

It's a start. I had one pen for years, and bought several pencils, before I ditched them and went for a lot of fountain pens.

[Starguard]

Wrap a note around the inside of the pen - Hi! My name is (insert pet name here) If found please return me to my owner - or you have just triggered a gps tracking system, no need to run the police will be along shortly or something along those lines. the possibilities are endless!

[Starguard]

Nanny cam!

[dogpoet]

Wrap a note around the inside of the pen - Hi! My name is (insert pet name here) If found please return me to my owner - or you have just triggered a gps tracking system, no need to run the police will be along shortly or something along those lines. the possibilities are endless!

How about some sort of ominous and frightening looking glyph? There are pdfs of spellbooks all over the internet, and you could do a very nice job of some of the symbols out of The lesser key of Solomon or Abremelin the Mage or somesuch with an italic nib and a nice ink the colour of dried blood...