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A Brief Statistics Of (Un)Problematic Chinese Pens


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The point is why must Chinese pen be cheap ? Especially cheap as in priced against a Pilot Metropolitan !! Hero 200 is a pen with 14K Gold Nib and a pen out of production ( the current production is Hero 200A Which spot quite a few difference ) and priced likewise for that .. so how would a Parker 75 NOS with 14K gold nib be priced these days.

The Hero 200A will sell for around € 40,- at eBay at the moment. If one wants to buy a Hero 200A at eBay and send it to where I live, it's price will go up to € 61,- (because of added taxes and clearing charges). For a Chinese pen made by a manufacturer with a reputation of inconsistant QC, that's not cheap at all and a risky buy. Local B&M shops and EU-based webshops in general don't sell pens from Chinese brands like Hero or Jinhao. It means that for the same amount of money (or much less) one has better options at the local B&M store or at an EU based webshop. To answer your question: Chinese pens have to be very cheap (to avoid clearing charges and taxes) or otherwise these products can't compete against (superior) German. French or Japanese alternatives that are offered at the local B&M shop/EU based webshops.

Edited by mr T.
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You could always buy a Baoer, sorry Conklin Victory from an EU webshop and get the best of both worlds.

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The Hero 200A will sell for around € 40,- at eBay at the moment. If one wants to buy a Hero 200A at eBay and send it to where I live, it's price will go up to € 61,- (because of added taxes and clearing charges). For a Chinese pen made by a manufacturer with a reputation of inconsistant QC, that's not cheap at all and a risky buy. Local B&M shops and EU-based webshops in general don't sell pens from Chinese brands like Hero or Jinhao. It means that for the same amount of money (or much less) one has better options at the local B&M store or at an EU based webshop. To answer your question: Chinese pens have to be very cheap (to avoid clearing charges and taxes) or otherwise these products can't compete against (superior) German. French or Japanese alternatives that are offered at the local B&M shop/EU based webshops.

 

But the same applies to Europeans selling abroad.....I buy Waterman and Pelikans cheaper from Europe because they drop the VAT to export and in Australia we do not pay an import tax. I buy Chinese or American or European cheaper than they do in their own country. The only exception is Lamy...but I get them from the grey market anyway.

 

The bottom line is that most Chinese pens represent exceptional value.

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The Hero 200A will sell for around 40,- at eBay at the moment. If one wants to buy a Hero 200A at eBay and send it to where I live, it's price will go up to 61,- (because of added taxes and clearing charges). For a Chinese pen made by a manufacturer with a reputation of inconsistant QC, that's not cheap at all and ....

Well then its a locale only issue and cannot be considered a universal one then .. and who is to say Hero or other Chonese Mfr could not improve. I fondly remember the days when I buy Pilots, Pelikans and even Montblanc with not much consistency either.

 

Do you actually buy and own enough of a quantity and variety of up to date and current production Chinese pens and pens models to warrant your POV. If not then you are more likely to be basing yours on thin air and prejudice than on real facts. Read that I always maintain old NOS and older models still in catalog certainly suffer an amount of said faults and its a fact but so far that does not come true to most of us for the new produced current models.

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