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"italianpens" On Ebay - What's Your Experience?


Lizzie

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I was wondering whether anybody here has got any experience with this seller. I remember we had a thread about this quite some time ago when this seller set up shop, and at the time the consensus seemed to be that he was identical to another seller who had folded and who was well known to a lot of our members, because he had banned many of them from his auctions and was generally rude and unhelpful.

However, I noticed that he has an increasing amount of rare LE Montegrappas for sale, which is very tempting. Oddly, though, an auction that had about four days left and that I was determined to bid in was all of a sudden ended and all the bids were gone. :angry: What's going on?

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I was bidding on an item with them and the item disappeared before the end of the auction. I assumed they had pulled it.

 

Generally, I found their prices too high, but I wasn't looking for a specific or a rare pen.

"I'm not superstitious -- I'm just a little stitious." Michael G. Scott

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Usually his reserves are higher than what Bryant wants for a similar pen, so I don't bother anymore. Plus Bryant provides service after the deal. This guy is now advertising No Returns and you can read previous threads about his gruff responses - IF he responds at all.

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it worked for me:

bought an Aurora demonstrator LE about 1-1.5 years ago from italianpens ebay store

buy it now price was not bad, had one efficient email exchange and the pen arrived

a few days later well packed. no complaints.

Whatever it is, I'm against it!

-Grouch Marx as Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff

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What surprises me is that he has a few old Montegrappa LEs on offer. Where would he get those from? Directly from Montegrappa themselves? I have no experience whatsoever with the pen retail market (or any other retail market for that matter), but these pens are supposed to be sold out. Did someone just discover a few old boxes in a warehouse in Bassano, go "Look what I've just found!" and then shift them on to some ebay outlet in the States? Surely, they would rather pass them on to some bona fide pen shop. :hmm1:

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A lot of these are surfacing at reputable pen dealers, too. I suspect, after Montegrappa's sale, the new owners realizes many of the LEs were frightfully overpriced and started offloading inventory at more reasonable prices to up their cash flow.

 

Marlen did it a few years back, to the point of flooding the market in the States.

 

Visconti cleared inventory in the last year, to the delight of many of us, so they could bring out new lines.

 

The pen companies ship to the sellers they know will move the most merchandise. Sometimes their choices don't make the most sense to those of us in pendom, but that's corporate for you. :headsmack:

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I didn't name the seller in a thread I started regarding his charging $32.00 shipping to Canada https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/155322-ebay-shipping-charges-us-to-canada/ but after reading the other threads I have no problem doing so now. At least I didn't get banned when I questioned him about it. Then again I haven't bid on anything so maybe I am?

Edited by mainoffender
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And I have just noticed that I couldn't bid on any of his pens anyway, because he ships worldwide with the exception of UK and France. Which seems rather odd.

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Usually his reserves are higher than what Bryant wants for a similar pen, so I don't bother anymore. Plus Bryant provides service after the deal. This guy is now advertising No Returns and you can read previous threads about his gruff responses - IF he responds at all.

 

I don't mean to be ignorant, who is Bryant?

 

thanks

"It ain't so much what people don't know that hurts as what they know that ain't so."

-Artemus Ward

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Bryant is Pentime.net and one of the nicest pen pushers, along with Ryan at Pear Tree Pens, J.M. Lewertowski at Pen Seller From France, Pam Braun at Oscar Braun pens, Chuck Swisher of Swisher's, etc.

 

We have a tendency to talk of them by first name on the board since they've grown to be our friends over the years. :embarrassed_smile:

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Bryant is Pentime.net and one of the nicest pen pushers, along with Ryan at Pear Tree Pens, J.M. Lewertowski at Pen Seller From France, Pam Braun at Oscar Braun pens, Chuck Swisher of Swisher's, etc.

 

We have a tendency to talk of them by first name on the board since they've grown to be our friends over the years. :embarrassed_smile:

 

Don't forget my favorite corner drug pushers enablers Mary Burke and Jorge at IguanaSell.

 

My Website

 

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I got a couple of sweet deals from him late last summer when he listed a few pens without his usual reserves. When the wrong pen was shipped for one of them, there was no problem with swapping it out for the correct one. Sure, it shouldn't have happened, but stuff does happen and he didn't give me any grief over it. When he first started selling the palladium nibs, I 'splained to him that it wasn't "palladium gold" and had a couple of nice exchanges on the subject. I must have caught him in a good mood.

I came here for the pictures and stayed for the conversation.

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I am one of the banned. Which is OK. While I really like many of the pens Italian Pens offers, I don't like his approach. Italian Pens starts auctions with a 99 cent bid for a pen but with a reserve that is typically higher than reputable pen shops that don't use Ebay.

I purchased a Pelikan M800 demo from Pam Braun for more than more $100 cheaper than I saw the same pen sell from Italian Pens. Also, I think he was charging $30 shipping or something like that. Pam charged $10.

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The only time he made a mistake with me in the next order he sent me a 3 pen Visconti case for FREE.I have been buying from Ben for close to two years now.

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Hi

 

ive had bad experience with this seller. He is very ignorant and never answers any messages. I was after a visconti divina limited edition ballpoint pen. But each time i was bidding for the pen, the same bidder who had previously won this pen, always appears and puts a high bid on the auction. The bidder has won 4 of these pens now, but if you look at his feedback it doesnt show a feedback given from italian pens, plus the quantity of the same pen remains the same on the sellers account and his listed another one today. The bidder who won the pen, from looking all his transactions has all been with italianpens. His bidded and won over 50 pens from the same seller and after the auction ends, italianpens relists the same pens again. It looks like shill bidding to me. Plus his blocked me from bidding on this particular pen now for no reason.

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Altho' a couple of years ago, there was quite a discussion on that very subject when he was still selling as "Outletline" or a similar name. A search in archives should turn it up.

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I wasnt implying that the seller was shill bidding, it was just a suspicion. Its so fustrating when your after an item and the same bidder keeps cropping up and winning the item. I guess i'll have to find a more reliable seller.

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Several years ago, I bought a (as Ben called it) "American made Visconti" from him. It took me a lot of time to get my money back. A very unpleasant experience for me.

 

C-H

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Several years ago, I bought a (as Ben called it) "American made Visconti" from him. It took me a lot of time to get my money back. A very unpleasant experience for me.

 

C-H

 

Can you elaborate on why you needed your money back in the first place? Was the pen never delivered? Was it delivered broken? Was it described inaccurately? Was it simply not to your liking?

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