Nibs Sold For Their Gold

[Beechwood]

Sad sight to see a large pile of (mostly) fountain pen nibs sold for their scrap gold price.

 

This pile of nibs was sold for over GBP1200 for 58 gms weight.

 

 

 

[mana]

Seems that most are damaged (most likely all are out of commission), still a big 😢 from me.

 

What I do not understand are people who have pulled entirely functional nibs and sold them for scrap, now that is true sacrilege. Have heard horror stories from various people over the years... unthinkable!

[txomsy]

Weeeellll... just go out and look at auction and Buy it now! prices for pen parts. You can make a lot more selling a pen in pieces than selling it whole. Sad? Worst, truly terrifying. Greed knows no limits.

Edited August 6, 2019 by txomsy

[doggle2]

I see an extremely rare Sheaffer Triumph music nib in there...

[joss]

A selling price of £1200 appears to be the 14K scrap gold price so a scrap-gold-buyer will not make a significant profit here.

 

So let's hope that it was a nibmeister who made an excellent deal, planning restoring some of the scarcer nibs in the pile.

[sidthecat]

Fingers crossed.

[Sailor Kenshin]

A selling price of £1200 appears to be the 14K scrap gold price so a scrap-gold-buyer will not make a significant profit here.

 

So let's hope that it was a nibmeister who made an excellent deal, planning restoring some of the scarcer nibs in the pile.

Amen.

 

Is that some sort of Lamy nib in there, too?

[Aysedasi]

Amen.

 

Is that some sort of Lamy nib in there, too?

 

Is it an Aurora 88?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Ball point users....can get a fortune for a one of those obsolete fountain pen nibs...a three pack of beer now with the higher price of gold.

A while back it was only a 2-pack.

 

Do remember the gold buyer will take off at least 20% the scrap worth in it's got to be melted down.

[tim77]

This pile of nibs was sold for over GBP1200 for 58 gms weight.

 

There must be 100-150 nibs in that pile. Do they really only weigh 58g? Or is that the equivalent amount of gold?

[Addertooth]

I can only hope that Keyhole Waterman Nib, didn't have the word "pink" stamped on it.

[A Smug Dill]

Better sold than in thrown out with the rest of one's trash.

 

I don't understand why anyone would think it's "sacrilege". If you think it's more valuable than just the "worth" of the raw material, then feel free to make an offer and get a "bargain" by paying just (perhaps a tiny bit more) for the raw material's market price and getting in exchange what you think is "worth" significant more. There is nothing that "we" have all agreed to preserve or treat as valuable (or worth preserving... for whom, anyway?)

[Bo Bo Olson]

58 grams is about right......$1,628...............which is less than pounds or Euros of course.

and just think of the 'old' worthless pens tossed. Antique Waterman, Aurora, Sheaffer............sold for peanuts,

Well lacking a nib are worth less.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Such nibs are valuable to us who care about nibs with some flex or other scarce nibs.....in such grand nibs are not made any more.

I'm sure there were also nothing special outside of being made of gold nibs there also.

 

And I thought I was grumpy.....

 

I don't know the scrap iron price for a Parker AAHE shotgun......could get more for the barrel if they hadn't chipped iron out with them squiggles. A '36 Auburn has lots of heavy duty sheet steel. A couple crossed swords on the back, will not make a difference on the plate you are eating from....truthfully.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson

[Dutchpen]

I have a small lot with 14k nibs for sale in the classifieds section here on fpn. It seems that some nibs are more valueable in scrap than the nib itself. These are mostly warranted nibs.

 

I’m selling these nibs for about the scrap price so if it does not sell, I might consider selling them as scrap too (no scarce nibs of course).

[A Smug Dill]

Such nibs are valuable to us who care about nibs with some flex or other scarce nibs.....in such grand nibs are not made any more.

I'm sure there were also nothing special outside of being made of gold nibs there also.

 

But which of "you" or "us" are jumping in to say, "Hey, don't do that, I'll pay you twice the price of the scrap material and make it worth your while, or at least I'll find you a buyer"?

[Parker51]

Yes, no thing is worth any more than what someone believes it is worth at one point in time, when one is selling that item.

However, if the items are highly valued by persons in a market which can be accessed and the items are not sold in that market due to ignorance on the part of the seller and those items can not be manufactured at this time and thus the supply of them is limited, well of course anyone who wants that item is annoyed and views the seller badly for not selling the items to them, or even offering the items to them to purchase.

Now, on to nibs. They fit the above argument, and more.

Their destruction permanently removes them from the marketplace and as a resource to be used in the future.

And yes, many people, including myself feel human beings who stupidly destroy valuable products, be they things of great natural beauty, or of human manufacture are despicable beings,

The gold in those nibs will not be used to make life saving instruments. It will not be used to create items of greater beauty or utility. They are not being destroyed accidently due to the need to defeat an evil. They are being destroyed and the gold will be likely used for some simple easily mass produced jewelry. Jewelry which based on utility and appearences could be made out of something else, something not valuable, something not created by a generation of craftsman long dead and of skills lost.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Parker51

[PaulS]

it's only us penologists that are bemoaning this issue because, simply, we're keen on f.ps. …………….. the guy up the road who collects cars, or coins, or stamps, wouldn't give this matter a second glance, and would think only of the melt value.

We're all sitting here thinking …………. what a shame, just think of the pens I could revitalize with that lot.

 

Fortunately, there are enough pens left if sensible hands, and retaining their nibs, such that posterity will have plenty of them to look at if they wish.

 

But I can't go entirely with the generalization that ............…. "Nothing deserves to be immortal, everlasting, or treasured by generations to come."

If our entire social and artistic history was treated thus then most of our museums and galleries would not exist - it is the very fact that we value the past massively for its wealth of examples of how our forebears lived etc., that makes us keep our museums full, for which attendances seem to be growing. Long live nostalgia and all who sail in her

[Bo Bo Olson]

Market research takes, the intelligence to know it can make a difference. The willingness to waste a lot of time finding out that nibs are worth more than gold price......some six minutes to stumble over FPN. Time is drinking money and some pubs are nor really where one would take a laptop to find out how much more money one could make by slow selling.....well........it hurts some folks to learn, always has.

 

But most important the ability to sit on one's greed long enough to not Sell Now low bid and go.

 

Some one did spend enough time buying gold nibbed pens at back of car trunk sales to have known nibs were worth more than gold, but didn't give a dam about money enough to sell some nibs for the big money folks have seen.

Barbarians are everywhere.......... everywhere. Not even the excuse he was drunk, willing to be yes, but wasn't. Is now!

[Ray-Vigo]

People often unduly overlook those old Warranted 14k nibs. Some of the Warranted nibs I've come across are excellent writers with a lot of feel and a good deal of flexibility. Just because it's not a "brand name" nib, does not mean it should be written off.

[katerchen]

the guy up the road who collects cars, or coins, or stamps, wouldn't give this matter a second glance, and would think only of the melt value.

 

Yet the same guy (let's assume he's a coin collector) would be horrified if a bunch of gold coins -- someone else's and not even super rare ones -- would get melted down to sell in bulk. And funny enough a gold coin's only significant attribute was their weight at the time they were minted. So why would anyone care if their form factor is optimized a bit ...

 

-k