My Hand Carved Pen. Love Carving!

[gtcarving]

Hi, my name is Phil, and I would like to share some of my artwork with you. I turn and carve pens..Please check my pens and kindly respond with your thoughts and opinions. Any feedback would be great and I really appreciate your time and support: especially any suggestions on pricing my pens. I spent over 55 to 65 hours on each pen. Thank you for looking and your support. .

Sincerely,

Life is short, Art is long

gtcarving

[NinthSphere]

Very nice. Not big on the kit aspect, but this is such a different level than what that usually brings that it pretty well ceases to matter.

[Holon]

Impressive carving skills! So much detail and very well done.

[PAKMAN]

Wow, just wow! Great looking work! Congrats!

[AlohaLani787]

WOW! I did not expect the level of detail depicted in your photos. Really incredible work.

[Timeline]

You are very talented, great looking pens. I doubt you would ever be compensated fairly for your labor with each pen being hand carved. Assume the average pen takes 60 hours to carve at $10/hr (which is below minimum wage), would dictate a $600 price tag. I'm not sure how many pen enthusiasts would spend that kind of money on your handmade pens vs. the mass manufactured pens that keep production costs to a minimum. Best of luck to you in your work and sales.

[sansenri]

Very nice carving work. I too am rather put off by the kit pen approach. I do understand that it's difficult to find other solutions for an individual artist to using kits, but in my case the narrow metal section, and the big resulting step body to section are a deal breaker, even on commercial pens.

The detail of your work is exceptional though. I have seen some hand carved pens going from $70 to $150 on the net, but they are nowhere near the artistic value of yours.

$600 is unlikely IMHO, asking for $200-250 might be closer if you find the amateur attracted by your type of artistic work, but do consider the kit approach may be the real issue.

(in that respect the ballpoints may stand a better chance...)

[WLSpec]

Beautiful carving skills! Amazing work!

[r3nekton]

As Timeline stated above, based on time alone, one would estimate that a ~$600 price tag is "fair", in the sense that offering significantly less would be diminishing the value of your fine work (it's really amazing carving!)

 

I'm willing to pay a lot for a pen - $600 is not "unreasonable" to me, if the pen is right. But I prefer function over form - I buy pens that, for me, work well. Appearance is largely a secondary consideration - I wouldn't pay that kind of money for a pen that doesn't act like a $600 pen. So I guess my point is, if these pens write really well, you could charge $600+ and I'd probably be thinking about them a lot and toying with getting the money together, and maybe overlooking the middle of the pen and the section where there's a step in.

 

If you enjoy making pens like this, then keep doing it, they do look great

 

Something else to consider - Would I buy your carving? Absolutely. If you enjoy carving and turning, and want to mix one hobby with a hobby for pens, you could think about what else someone might find useful and would look nice carved. You come to me with a pen stand that has that quality of carving, and my money will be on the counter before you've said five words.

 

Dark wood, medieval knights. Just in case one day down the road you start taking orders for stands or any number of other accessories, I want to make sure my order is in first