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so i came accross this nice little montblanc 254, I believe from the 50's or 60's. so I looked around and I cant seem to find much information on the pen? any reviews, advice, info or opinions are most welcome and of course the contentious issue of pricing any help would be great

i found a pelican 140 for about $80 us. how do i know if i am getting a 40s or 50's etc pen? the nib says 14c 585, and has the pelican logo on it. is this a semi flex nib or the ultra semi flex? how do i know how flexie this nib is by looking at a picture? the seller claims it is in perfect working order, i am on the fence with this purchase, can anyone help?

Hi everyone! I have just been told by my cousin that I am going to be receiving a fountain pen from inheritance. The pen is a Swan 4660. My question is, what is a respectable price for a Swan 4660 that is near mint/mint possibly unused? I have NO intention of selling, and am not interested in the ridiculous amounts things go for on ebay - I'm simply wondering what a pen such as this is worth approximately given no unrealistic bidding etc? To me it is priceless and may or may not be used by me ever, I'm scared to use something possibly new old stock. While we're at it, what would a used but excellent condition one be worth being reasonable with pricing? Sorry that this is a weird question, I'd just rather know if I should protect this pen not only for personal reasons, but also monetary reasons. Thank you all! If I get the pen soon, I will upload photos!

I'm looking at buying a pilot murex for 160+shipping, and I wanted to see how you guys go about figuring out how to price a pen. Do I have any tips on how to evaluate an offer?

I recently had an opportunity to see a Rotring Core owned by a fellow pen enthusiast and while I understand some people find the design a bit .... off putting, I really liked it. I decided that I wanted one and started checking around online for these pens and I am a touch confused on the apparent broad range in pricing. On ebay I have found prices from $7-8 USD plus ~$18 shipping all the way into the hundreds. Even here on FPN I have found some people claiming to have picked them up for $10 while others say $40. At first I thought that perhaps some colors are more collectable than others, like the Lamy's, but have not seen a pattern of this nature. All this to say that I m in the market to acquire one and have no idea what is the going rate these days. Anyone have some insight / quotes? To the moderators, I was not sure where to put this as I am technically asking for pricing information, if this should go to a market place like part of the Forums could you please make the proper adjustments?

It looks like M800 Brown Tortoise prices have significantly dropped these days. The pens are regularly going for under $400 at auction which is a vast improvement from the $600 street price. The majority of the pens are coming from Regina Martini who is a fairly respected seller on this site. How is it that she can do this? Is this what they call the gray market? Have they reached market saturation? If she is able to do this and still make a profit, just how marked up are the prices on these pens? If Sailor is able to sell their piston filler Realo for $250, wouldn't the actual price of a Pelikan be comparable? This also makes me wonder just what the size of the fountain pen market is. Does Pelikan move pens in the hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? It's sometimes a bit frustrating that I have no idea what this community looks like as a whole.

Levenger and their True Writer series presents a bit of a puzzle in their value proposition. On the one hand, I have a Kyoto True Writer, gotten for a cheap price on a deal, which is a wonderful pen: lovely writer, well balanced, and very pretty. So I thought about adding a stub nib to it, as a fun option. Visiting Levenger, I discovered that regular nib units run $30, not great but not horrible either. Stubs, however, cost double! That's about what I paid for the whole pen! And seems like a total ripoff. So what's the deal? Is there some justification for charging double the price for a stub? Do they really cost so much more to make? Or is this pure price discrimination on Levenger's part where normal people get the "good" price on fountain pens, but those of us who love them get killed on "specialty items" like the stub. More broadly, does Levenger represent legitimate value or is it a ripoff?

Greetings, all, and welcome back! It's been a long week with FPN up and down, and probably like many I've been missing my on-line fountain pen fix. As a result, I've been browsing on Ebay a bit more than usual of late. One thing seems to stand out - I think Ebay pricing has increased significantly in the past 2 weeks or so. Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me?