Buying A Pen That You Neither Want Nor Need

[Beechwood]

I pulled a friends leg yesterday because he had bought a pen from ebay that he didnt really want, it was simply a low price.

 

"You would have done the same" was his reply, which was so wide of the mark.

 

To prove him wrong I went looking a for a 51 Vac in a colour that didnt do very much for me, I will show him that I have some will power, decent backbone, thats all you need, even at a very low price.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone want a pale grey 51 Vac?

Edited July 17, 2019 by Beechwood

[PaulS]

anyone who owns more than c. ten f.ps. - and especially those of us who number their collection in the hundreds (or worse still the thousands) - is also the owner of vast quantities they certainly don't need or, equally likely, will probably never use.

This, however, is to overlook the most fundamental part of human nature that drives us to be honoured with the epithet 'collector', and I should know since I've squandered a fortune on my hobbies.

But I wouldn't change a thing, and if I could start out again would probably do it all over again - collectors are so much more interesting than ordinary folk

Edited July 17, 2019 by PaulS

[City74]

I see pens at low prices everyday, and I keep going. Unless it’s something that’s going to fill a hole in my small collection I don’t want it. That way I keep my core collection at 10 pens or less happy with that

[Mech-for-i]

Ah ... hmmm ... OK

 

I shall be the first to admit I did fall into such lures / temptations / distractions ... whatever on and off ... and I must say I still do sometime ..

[Bo Bo Olson]

I resigned from the Pen of the Week/Month in the Mail Clubs.............and avoid the bay....so buying pens I 'don't' need has taken a drop..........not a stop, just a drop.

 

I have no need of a '50-65 Pelikan 400....I have enough of them..........but at live auctions I do look at them....

I have all but a Steno nib..........and the Steno nib that I trans-mailed*** to a passed pal in England, was not even semi-flex much less the superflex it is supposed to be.

 

Well a 400 semi or maxi OB or OBB could show up. I do have those nibs in other brands.

Sigh cubed.....I won a small pen lot with a 400 OB piston cap marked pen........... someone had swapped nibs.....it was a OM just like the other OM I have.

 

I wouldn't buy an H nib....I'm not into nails, but have a D nib (the Nails Nail) was in another live auction lot........it sits covered with cobwebs.

 

Actually I don't need any more pens....especially one cheap enough to be affordable at a live auction.....there are often less bidding than on the Bay.....and dealers bail out before it reaches Ebay prices.

Well, there are 5-6 grail pens I'd want....not need.....especially at the prices they go for.

 

 

***There are idiots in Germany who refuse to mail out of the country, even to England.

[Erik Dalton]

Guilty...I just bought a Plum P-51 Demi at a very good price. I don’t need it, but have always wanted one in Plum. My guilt disappeared once the pen arrived. what a sweet pen...

[PAKMAN]

Since I do buy some pens for the purpose of reselling them, I do buy pens that I don't want when the price is too good to pass up.

[Frozenoak]

I bought a Fake Montblanc. Does that count? I use it at work for doing "Red Lines."

[Studio97]

I have more than enough fountain pens (and missing one somewhere around here). I will still buy another if its pennies on the dollar but no more. I have even been using Blackwing pencils more than fountain pens lately but that's another collection.

[senzen]

Been there: "mmmh okish pen... Wow, cheap...". I usually manage to shoot it down with "don't need it"or "don't have a really cool ink for it". My latest is wanting a black and silver Carène but finding the price unacceptable, so maybe making do with an amber... Nah.

[Beechwood]

I saw this grey 51 with 5 bids at £19, on impulse I bid £20, 40 minutes later it was a win.

 

Turns out it has a broad nib, quite unusual on a 51.

 

Cap looks perfect, I would pay at least £10 for a good cap.

 

But do I need another 51, No.

 

Can I resist a bargain. No.

[PaulS]

of course we might consume a bottle or two of ink debating the meaning of the word 'bargain' - quote ……. 'usually a favourable transaction or advantageous purchase or thinking you're getting something for less than its current worth'. Put simply, we like to think we've put one over on the other guys, whether we needed the item or not.

[Honeybadgers]

Initially, yes.

 

Nowadays, no.

 

When it comes to the more novel chinese designs, I do buy them just to try them out, but I always intend to give them away from the outset.

 

If it's a CRAZY good deal, I'll sometimes buy with the intent to resell (hence why I now have three Montegrappa Nerouno Deutto's, at $180 apiece, I'm probably going to make a decent profit on them while still making someone else very happy with what I can charge)

Edited July 17, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[Beechwood]

I had built up a collection of almost 400 pens, then I realised that within a few short years I would be/ could be pushing up daisies and sold or gave away well over 300. Now that I have more money than pens I am buying again some of the pens that I sold, but not making the same mistakes that I made first time round, perhaps not buying bargains but more like buying with discretion.

 

Even with a dodgy blind cap

Edited July 17, 2019 by Beechwood

[Honeybadgers]

How cheap is cheap for that 51? I kinda want one, but not enough to spend actual money, and I wouldn't mind an ugly duckling.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[Beechwood]

How cheap is cheap for that 51? I kinda want one, but not enough to spend actual money, and I wouldn't mind an ugly duckling.

 

 

I can only comment on UK Ebay or UK pen show prices. An Aero 51 would be around £40, a Vac 51 a little more. The grey colour isnt everyones first choice. I am expecting that it will need a new diaphragm which will cost me £15.

 

The condition looks very good with a deep and crisp implant, no scratches or personalisations or dings.

 

The game changer is the broad nib, if you want a broad nibbed 51 you will need to look hard, even in the UK where I think there are more such nibs than in the US. I have seen a broad nib on its own sell for £50. A good cap will be worth £10- £20.

[A Smug Dill]

I often buy what I don't need or crave, simply because the price is right. That doesn't mean I'll buy a Montblanc (in any condition) or "Western" vintage fountain pen (especially if anyone mentions the word "flex"), but while I don't need or crave (for example) another Aurora 88 and Optima pens in aurolide, if I see a 888 Marte, 888 Neptune, Optima Nero Perla, Optima O'Sole Mio, or even other colours at offered at half the regular price, I'd probably snap it up. Hell, I almost even bought myself another gold-nibbed Pelican piston-filler, even though I don't enjoy piston-fillers and I don't trust Pelikan's nib width, just the other day! Luckily the Platinum #3776 "The Prime" that I don't need or crave came along, and killed that urge by temporarily depleting my frivolous spending budget.

[TheDutchGuy]

Nobody _needs_ a fountain pen. It’s a hobby, with prospects of delight and quality time. I keep my humble collection around 20 pens and most are very very different, each filling a certain gap. Whatever I do not use will eventually be sold. Bargains don’t interest me, unless a certain pen fills another gap, i.e. offers something that none of my other pens do.

[inkstainedruth]

I saw this grey 51 with 5 bids at £19, on impulse I bid £20, 40 minutes later it was a win.

 

Turns out it has a broad nib, quite unusual on a 51.

 

Cap looks perfect, I would pay at least £10 for a good cap.

 

But do I need another 51, No.

 

Can I resist a bargain. No.

 

Ooooh..... An Aero or a 51 Vac? I LOVE bargain hunting -- especially when it comes to 51s.

As for me, I CERTAINLY have bought pens I didn't need. And fairly often at that. But I mostly bought pens I actually wanted. In retrospect, should I have passed on them? Possibly.

I have passed plenty of times on pens where the condition was poor or the price was for more than I wanted to pay/thought the pen was worth (or some combination thereof). Or if it didn't fill a niche in the stash: there's an antiques mall east of where I live, on the other side of the county, and one booth had a bunch of pens (a good number of Esterbrook J pens). And I think they were restored by the seller (which makes me now wonder if it's someone I know). But the pens were for more than I thought they should be going for (certainly more than I was willing to pay) -- and the nib units were all either ones I didn't want or already had.

But even pens that (in retrospect) I probably shouldn't have bought -- or done a bit more due diligence about, such as the re-issued Parker Parkette (think a lever-fill version of a Parker 21) I learned stuff and (mostly) didn't pay a huge amount.

I also don't (mostly) do the Pokemon "gotta gettem all" thing. Which is why you'll never see me sporting a black Vacumatic (the black Striped Duovac being an exception) or some colors of 51s (you couldn't pay me enough for me to want Cocoa, for instance -- it's an ugly color, and I don't freaking care how it's the second rarest color after Plum, because it's still ugly). The Forest Green one I scored at the estate sale last fall? Didn't know (or especially care) that it was one of the rarer colors; it was a color I didn't already have. And it was two bucks....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ISW_Kaputnik]

I don't believe that I have ever bought a fountain pen that I didn't want. It's possible that sometimes I no longer wanted it by the time it arrived. It's certain that there are pens I no longer wanted shortly after they arrived.

 

I could assemble several completely different sets of, say, half a dozen pens that would be fully adequate for anything that I could claim to need in the way of fountain pens. Or in other words, I don't actually need any single pen that I have. It's been some 18 months now since I've bought any fountain pen, but I'm just one careless glance at eBay away from relapsing.