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Get Ready For A Rant


derschreibendeanwalt

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After years of not buying a new fountain pen I went on a spree and treated myself to a Montblanc 149 and a Pelikan M1000. As you know, these are their respective brands' "flagship" pens.

 

The 149's Fine nib skipped on downstrokes. It wrote like a true fine, but the skipping was very annoying. Two sessions with a terrific nibmeister fixed the skipping, but now it writes like a Medium-Broad and, though the flow was not adjusted, it writes like a firehose. It's in the mail to yet another nibmeister to see if he has the cure.

 

The M1000 sings, the tines are, I think, misaligned, and on regular copy paper it's scratchy on upstrokes. It has a Medium nib. I tried an EF but that was terribly scratchy though the line width was okay.

 

WHAT GIVES??? I cannot think of another luxury item one buys at these prices that has a defect or problem right out of the box. Honestly, I am unwilling to buy another fountain pen unless I buy it from a nibmeister who has vetted it.

 

The good news is there is a pen show in Long Island this weekend and I'm thinking of making the pilgrimage to meet Richard Binder, who is rumored to be attending, to see if he can turn the M1000 into the pen it should have been out of the box. There are many competent and excellent nibmeisters; however, I was fortunate enough to have had three nibs adjusted by Richard not long before he retired. One of the nibs had been adjusted by John Mottishaw and John did a good job but the nib still had problems. Every nib Richard worked on is an example of perfection. This is not a criticism of John, rather it's deserved praise for Richard. His proteges Mike and Linda are going to be there as well so I hope to have them work on the pen if Richard doesn't attend.

 

But this brings me back to my original question: what is going on with the pen manufacturers? Are nibs so complicated that they just can't manage to make them perfect before they leave the factory? What's with the epidemic of baby's bottom? How can they send out a pen with misaligned tines???

 

I'm sure it's been said many times but the only fountain pen I know will write as it should, no problems, is a Pilot Varsity. A $3.00 pen they can make by the thousands and they're flawless. A pen that's nearly $1K comes with more problems than a used Ford Pinto.

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Assuming that the MB & the Pel were new, did you send them in for warranty work?

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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Both were new. No, because I've heard too many stories from MB buyers that the nibs were sent back after protracted delays in the same shape. I'd rather send it to a nib expert who will make it right. Same for the Pelikan. I'd prefer to avail myself of the chance to stand with the nibmeister and have him or her adjust it on the spot, letting me test it between adjustments.

 

My frustration is that one would even have to consider sending such pricey products back for adjustment on a regular basis. Nibs that are perfect out of the box are becoming the exception, not the rule. The manufacturers in whom one can have confidence is shrinking to, say, ST Dupont and a few of the Japanese brands, e.g., Sailor. I have not heard of nor experienced such frequent problems with watches, non-fountain pen pens, laptops, sportswatches, or anything else for which one pays nearly $1K.

 

The conclusion I am coming to is that more and more, high end fountain pens are being sold to people who value them chiefly for their ornamental value, and not as instruments to actually write with beyond, say, a signature. It's one thing to whip out the Montblanc Diplomat once every ten years to sign the contract of sale for your new house. It's quite another to actually use it to write a brief, a three page memo, a letter, etc. I think more attention goes into the cheap pens because the makers know they will actually be put to frequent use.

 

Or maybe the QC people at Pelikan, MB and a host of others are screw ups.

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The usual thread may have the data that, excluding vintage, I own a few "$1,000" pens including an M1000 (my MBs are older), and that none of them suffered any of these problems. The M1000 medium nib, bought a couple of years old, hosed ink so I made a minor adjustment; now it is fine. My cheapest pen bought new is a Lamy 2000, which is fine, along with all of the new Auroras, Lamys, Pelikans, S T Duponts, Santinis and Watermans in between those price ranges; oh, and one Graf von Faber Castell.

 

Most of my pens are vintage, or at least, before this century. I have had skipping and starvation on a few of those pens (previously mistreated to some degree) but after re-alignment or minor adjustments they were fine. I am no nibmeister, nor do I appear to be keeping any of them in business, so I wonder about threads like these on a couple of levels.

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"Get ready for a rant"? Well, that seems the usual and principal purpose of these threads.

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Just back to fountain pens....did you remember to hold them like one, or did you forget and hold it like a ball point....which it sounds to me.

 

OK buying....but still one could have been holding a nail, like a ball point all the time. You didn't say what other pens you have....nor from what era. A nail is a much more robust nib.

 

The MB is a 'Springy' nib, good tine bend and only 2 X tine spread.

The 1000 is a semi-flex nib, so needs to be held very lightly, due to ease of tine bend and spread.

Again holding the pen at the wrong angle can cause problems.

 

95% of scratchy is misaligned tines and holding like a ball point.

 

Did you send a picture to the esteemed nibmeister showing the angle you hold?

 

Singing tines are no problem. They will stop after a while.....you pay much extra for a singing French razor......and you can order a new sword that sings....for a few days and air passes, from the best US master sword smiths. Then metal fatigue, mutes the singing. Sigh....Prince Variant's singing sword only sang a few days.

 

You do have a good coated glass 10X loupe? A cheap 40X Chinese one is the same power.

With out a loupe you can not adjust a misaligned tine, which can happen from a bang on the table or from holding like a ball point.

When you have a loupe, you can fix it your self.....and most here do.

 

Between the mail being kicked around and or, the newest theory, is that whom ever changes the nib to what ever width you ordered was a klutz. (at minimum wage, training is minimum) Tines get misaligned. Folks that buy in a shop and test the nib, don't have that problem.

 

With the 10X loupe...and you don't need more power, see which tine is up. With your fingernail at the breather hole, press the up tine under the low tine, for 2-3 seconds....check. Normally one needs to do that 2-3 times.....4 times is seldom.

 

With out a loupe all you can do is rant............and that happens to all fountain pens.

 

Was on a newspaper won factory tour of Lamy. There the nibs are tested by sound....on a big spinning drum with paper that gets stored to check for problems. 8 pens were checked every 10-15 seconds. One pen in 16 was kicked out for 'tweaking' by a little old lady....she did test the tweaked nib of course.

The better companies of course test every nib..............it's not wrapping of the pen and pen box that is not as bomb proof Goulet(sp)....and pens shipped in pallets to larger pen shops are softer handled than post offices.

And the ill paid klutz, nib changer.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I've had issues with several highly-praised nibmeisters (including RB), Sailor pens, and with new watches costing >$10k. The better companies/individuals EVENTUALLY make things "right" (yes, it's frustrating but it's not a 3rd World plight). By the way, I haven't always felt content at what "right" was.

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't get this rush to send nibs off to nibmeisters that frankly, sound like nibmanglers. In both cases it's an easy swap, but you instead paid for someone to wreck and expensive nib and will pay someone else to (hopefully) fix a faulty nib you could have replaced for free if you had a bit of patience to wait. I just can't see any logic to this.

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Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't get this rush to send nibs off to nibmeisters that frankly, sound like nibmanglers. In both cases it's an easy swap, but you instead paid for someone to wreck and expensive nib and will pay someone else to (hopefully) fix a faulty nib you could have replaced for free if you had a bit of patience to wait. I just can't see any logic to this.

Yup. Also, many sellers will exchange defective pens for 30 days or so.

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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I think part of the issue is equating price / brand / luxury category item with quality. For the, from my oiinfr, small fortune spent acquiring and trying to fix these 2 pens, one could have purchased numerous good quality pens. Names such as Ranga, Lotus, Bexley, Franklin-Christoph, Edison, Sailor, Pilot, Platinum come to mind. There would even be funds for specialty nibs.I have older versions of the two you bought that writ very well. However, I find myself reaching for the others much more frequently.

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8, NKJV)
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I sent a skipping MB 146 to The Write Pen, and it came back perfect. The pen had skipped terribly, but he fixed it. Under $20.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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Just back to fountain pens....did you remember to hold them like one, or did you forget and hold it like a ball point....which it sounds to me.

 

OK buying....but still one could have been holding a nail, like a ball point all the time. You didn't say what other pens you have....nor from what era. A nail is a much more robust nib.

 

The MB is a 'Springy' nib, good tine bend and only 2 X tine spread.

The 1000 is a semi-flex nib, so needs to be held very lightly, due to ease of tine bend and spread.

Again holding the pen at the wrong angle can cause problems.

 

95% of scratchy is misaligned tines and holding like a ball point.

 

Did you send a picture to the esteemed nibmeister showing the angle you hold?

 

Singing tines are no problem. They will stop after a while.....you pay much extra for a singing French razor......and you can order a new sword that sings....for a few days and air passes, from the best US master sword smiths. Then metal fatigue, mutes the singing. Sigh....Prince Variant's singing sword only sang a few days.

 

You do have a good coated glass 10X loupe? A cheap 40X Chinese one is the same power.

With out a loupe you can not adjust a misaligned tine, which can happen from a bang on the table or from holding like a ball point.

When you have a loupe, you can fix it your self.....and most here do.

 

Between the mail being kicked around and or, the newest theory, is that whom ever changes the nib to what ever width you ordered was a klutz. (at minimum wage, training is minimum) Tines get misaligned. Folks that buy in a shop and test the nib, don't have that problem.

 

With the 10X loupe...and you don't need more power, see which tine is up. With your fingernail at the breather hole, press the up tine under the low tine, for 2-3 seconds....check. Normally one needs to do that 2-3 times.....4 times is seldom.

 

With out a loupe all you can do is rant............and that happens to all fountain pens.

 

Was on a newspaper won factory tour of Lamy. There the nibs are tested by sound....on a big spinning drum with paper that gets stored to check for problems. 8 pens were checked every 10-15 seconds. One pen in 16 was kicked out for 'tweaking' by a little old lady....she did test the tweaked nib of course.

The better companies of course test every nib..............it's not wrapping of the pen and pen box that is not as bomb proof Goulet(sp)....and pens shipped in pallets to larger pen shops are softer handled than post offices.

And the ill paid klutz, nib changer.

Thank you for this it's somehow reassuring. I have FPs that are nails and FPs that aren't, and do appreciate your advice about holding them correctly, which I think I'm doing. Thanks again, I am encouraged.

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I've had issues with several highly-praised nibmeisters (including RB), Sailor pens, and with new watches costing >$10k. The better companies/individuals EVENTUALLY make things "right" (yes, it's frustrating but it's not a 3rd World plight). By the way, I haven't always felt content at what "right" was.

Yikes! about the problems, I agree about now always knowing what "right" is.

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I sent a skipping MB 146 to The Write Pen, and it came back perfect. The pen had skipped terribly, but he fixed it. Under $20.

Thanks for the recommendation, am going to look that up and put it in my Rolodex using, of course, a fountain pen.

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Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't get this rush to send nibs off to nibmeisters that frankly, sound like nibmanglers. In both cases it's an easy swap, but you instead paid for someone to wreck and expensive nib and will pay someone else to (hopefully) fix a faulty nib you could have replaced for free if you had a bit of patience to wait. I just can't see any logic to this.

I wouldn't say the nibmeister mangled the nib by any means, assuming you're talking about the MB, I think of it more as an overcorrection on a pen that has proven very temperamental. As for the Pelikan, I have heard too many stories of overpolished nibs, misaligned tines, etc., to trust that the replacement nib will be right. I agree, I don't have a great deal of patience for this stuff; however, if faulty nibs were a true anomaly, I would be far more inclined to exercise my rights under warranty.

 

Let's say, for instance, this were a Shinola watch. I don't own any Shinola watches but it's a trendy brand and a watch costs about the same as a Pelikan M1000. If the watch proved defective, I would have no hesitation about taking it back to the store and exchanging it, confident that it was a lemon and an anomaly. I have not read review after review of problematic Shinola watches. I have read review after review of problematic FP nibs including Pelikan nibs. I have also owned two M800 Pelikans. One was flawless out of the box. It is still flawless some 15 years later. The other was oddly toothy. As they were my first pricey fountain pens, I didn't realize that the toothiness was actually a burr that just wouldn't quit until it met the micromesh.

 

By the way, the same nibmeister who worked on the MB turned a brand new Waterman Exception that skipped more often than not into one of the best pens I own, and he did the same for a vintage Aurora Optima, at a very reasonable price. Had I sent the Waterman back to the factory I'd still be waiting for it. And, since the problem was baby's bottom, why should I expect that the replacement would be better? If they tend to overpolish the nibs to make them seem terribly smooth when first dipped, or for any other reason, I think sending it back is a recipe for frustration.

 

But yes, if it were any other item, I would take your advice without hesitation.

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The usual thread may have the data that, excluding vintage, I own a few "$1,000" pens including an M1000 (my MBs are older), and that none of them suffered any of these problems. The M1000 medium nib, bought a couple of years old, hosed ink so I made a minor adjustment; now it is fine. My cheapest pen bought new is a Lamy 2000, which is fine, along with all of the new Auroras, Lamys, Pelikans, S T Duponts, Santinis and Watermans in between those price ranges; oh, and one Graf von Faber Castell.

 

Most of my pens are vintage, or at least, before this century. I have had skipping and starvation on a few of those pens (previously mistreated to some degree) but after re-alignment or minor adjustments they were fine. I am no nibmeister, nor do I appear to be keeping any of them in business, so I wonder about threads like these on a couple of levels.

My Lamy 2000, bought about ten years ago, was fine out of the box, as was my Aurora 88, bought quite a while ago. When I was buying pens in the throes of my obsession, some years back, I rarely hit a bad nib or a bad pen. A notable exception was an Omas that just wouldn't write. I exchanged it for a Visconti Wall Street LE that sprayed ink on the page when I made a horizontal line. Thus began a saga with Visconti in which they sent me a supposedly brand new Wall Street LE. The newness was belied by the condensation filling the barrel, indicating it had been filled and flushed. To Visconti's distributor's credit, the rep didn't deny that the pen must have been filled and emptied. He didn't offer any nonsense about how condensation naturally appears over time due to volcanic forces and the earth's rotation, etc. Finally I got a truly new Wall Street LE with a perfect nib. Now it sits unused in a drawer and will likely end up on ebay, alongside its baby brother, the regular Wall Street. They're fine pens, I just don't use them enough. Subsequent purchases from Visconti resulted in aggravation and I no longer buy that brand.

 

Of my vintage pens, none are nearly as old as yours. They all needed nib work and got it and now they write wonderfully though some are balky about starting after even a short period--say a day--of disuse.

 

By far my favorite brands are Aurora, Waterman, and Pelikan for fountain pens, the latter despite the reported epidemic of lax quality control as evinced by, among other things, baby's bottom, and the company's infamous refusal to standardize its nib sizes so one Medium writes like the next, etc., you know what to expect if you order a Fine, and so on. The smoothest writer I own is probably my Carene with a Fine nib. My Aurora 88 is the ounce for ounce champ. With a Fine nib it writes unfailingly and smoothly. And my Pelikan M800 with a Medium nib is perfect.

 

Some years back I ordered two hard to find pens from a fellow who specializes in hard to find items. They came to me with nibs that wrote as if they'd been set on the railroad tracks and crushed by the Reading Local. Richard Binder turned them into smooth, flawless nibs, a tour de force.

Edited by derschreibendeanwalt
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Old pens....often have drag from micro-corrosion/ 'iridium rust', from sitting in the dark of the drawer for 2 or 3 generations.

 

Drag can be cured up to 'good and smooth'*** with the good quality brown paper bag. The brown paper bag is not good for anything else. Harder to ruin a nib using a brown paper bag than with micro-mesh, but it can be done if there is no constant rotation of the tip. Once it was 'harder' to lay hands on micro-mesh than now....(and I had was in the Pen of the Week in the Mail Club, so couldn't afford the high US mail prices to here in Germany.)

Yet I don't see that drag cure as having a nib that didn't work....rust is rust even if you can't see it.

 

*** The level right under butter smooth. Was much too lazy to try to get 'butter smooth', and didn't want my nib sliding off of slick paper. :P...that I didn't have. Lazy does work well enough. ;)

 

Tooth being like using a pencil. (certain nibs like Aurora, strive for tooth....or did in the old days.) The Italians once must have had some real good papers. :happyberet:

Scratchy the level under that.....often fixed by adjusting the tines. I do remember the first time or two I did that..... :unsure: :unsure: ..........now no big deal.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I'm thinking of making the pilgrimage to meet Richard Binder to see if he can turn the M1000 into the pen it should have been out of the box.

 

I hope you were able to connect with Richard at the show this weekend and get your pen sorted. I brought him two old Parkers to be adjusted and he did a fine job. A nice benefit of meeting your nibmeister face-to-face is that, at least in Richard's case, he explains what he is doing and offers advice. He encouraged me to do the work myself next time and save myself the money.

 

I do tend to agree that, considering you purchased both pens new, you might have done just fine asking your vendor to simply exchange the pens for ones that worked satisfactorily. Was that not an option?

 

But this brings me back to my original question: what is going on with the pen manufacturers? Are nibs so complicated that they just can't manage to make them perfect before they leave the factory? What's with the epidemic of baby's bottom? How can they send out a pen with misaligned tines???

 

I can certainly understand your frustration, and I'm not here to defend pen manufacturers, but I don't think there's a single, simple answer to that question.

 

High end fountain pens have, in fact, become luxury items that people buy as status symbols and not to write with. There are a few of us who actually want to write with these pens, but we're not the majority of MB or Pelikan's market in that price range. The days of people actually needing to write with pen and paper as part of their day-to-day lives passed decades ago and ballpoints displaced fountain pens in that function long before that. That leaves fountain pen manufacturers in a bit of a bind. MB's solution was to redefine themselves as a luxury brand and cater to conspicuous consumption and, at times, it seems Pelikan may be headed the same way. Most of the customers buying those very shiny $1,000 pens are far more interested in how they look than how they write so you can bet that the manufacturer is going to make shininess a much higher priority than baby's bottom.

 

To a lesser degree I think part of the problem is also that there isn't a "perfect" nib. Everyone holds a fountain pen differently and has their own preferences regarding how a nib should write and feel. And I'm just talking about real FP users who actually know what they're doing. The best a manufacturer can hope to do is adjust a nib to be as universally likable as they can, but we will always have preferences that may vary from the middle of the road. Sometimes we get lucky and like a nib right out of the box. Sometimes not. That doesn't justify misaligned tines on a new pen by any means, but doesn't a vendor have a responsibility to see that their inventory is in acceptable condition as well? A simple adjustment on their part would have solved the problem. That opens up a whole discussion about pen shops and profit margins that belongs somewhere else, I suppose.

 

Regarding baby's bottom on new nibs - a topic discussed on FPN a lot - I think the general consensus is that it's a combination of overpolishing as mentioned above and also a reaction on the part of manufacturers to younger users, new to fountain pens, pressing too hard on their pens because they learned on ballpoints. A pen that starts a little too hard for experienced users probably starts just fine for someone who mashed the nib into the paper like a BIC Crystal. Also the general misconception of new users that fountain pens are messy would, I believe, lead a pen maker to lean toward a harder starting pen. I believe these are areas in which the manufacturers are actually choosing to make the pens work better for new users than for experienced users, which is a shame, but I think they're just following where they think their market is. They're in business to make pens, yes, but they're also in the business to make money.

 

Lastly, and I think this is the saddest part, I think that the old adage that "They just don't make 'em like they used to" holds true here. It may not be true for all things or even all luxury items, but it's certainly true of pens. That said, many of the smaller makers and the larger Japanese makers still seem to be keeping their quality extremely high, Perhaps that's because they don't have the cache of a brand name like MB to rest their laurels on or perhaps it's because they're more focused on experienced users as their target market. It seems to me that if you really want to be able to experience "perfect right out of the box" you're a lot more likely to achieve that with one of these companies than with MB or Pelikan nowadays. Don't get me wrong; I love Pelikan pens and I like MBs as well, but I haven't purchased a new pen from either company in many years and, sadly, I don't believe the quality of either is what it used to be.

 

anyway, I think I've beaten that dead horse into glue now. I hope Richard set your pen straight and your problems are over!

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It really is ridiculous how many high end pens (flagships nonetheless) have glaring issues right out of the box. I've had issues with Pelikan myself. Every Montblanc I've owned has been perfect though. As far as other brands go, I won't ever buy another Visconti and I've sold all the ones that I used to have. Some pens just aren't worth the headaches. As for nibmeisters, I've found that I prefer my own tinkering to most of their work, but sometimes it is necessary.

"Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes."

"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

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High end fountain pens have, in fact, become luxury items that people buy as status symbols and not to write with. There are a few of us who actually want to write with these pens, but we're not the majority of MB or Pelikan's market in that price range. The days of people actually needing to write with pen and paper as part of their day-to-day lives passed decades ago and ballpoints displaced fountain pens in that function long before that. That leaves fountain pen manufacturers in a bit of a bind. MB's solution was to redefine themselves as a luxury brand and cater to conspicuous consumption and, at times, it seems Pelikan may be headed the same way. Most of the customers buying those very shiny $1,000 pens are far more interested in how they look than how they write so you can bet that the manufacturer is going to make shininess a much higher priority than baby's bottom.

 

This is why I just buy Japanese pens which are actually made to work and priced reasonably. The hobbyist culture is very strong there which is great for real fountain pen users. It seems that for the fountain pen industry to survive in the future nurturing this kind of culture is important, which is what FPN is doing. But whether that's enough i don't know.

 

It's great that there are many custom pen makers but this raises the price range and therefore makes the market smaller. So who knows maybe the growth of custom pen culture is paradoxically killing the fountain pen industry as a whole. For me, I can't afford a pen that costs over a few hundred dollars or I don't think it's reasonable for me to spend that much money on a pen given my situation.

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