&%*$#ing Engraved Pens

[gregamckinney]

"Wow, that's a cool pen on ebay... damn, it's got someone's initials cut into it."

 

Poor helpless pens. I have two which I bought for myself from Things Remembered. I look at them now as if I rescued puppies from a dogfighting ring.

 

No ma'am, I do not want anything engraved into my pen. I try to hide my disgust at her for asking.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

At last a person that thinks like me

 

A pen maker designs a pen in a certain way and engraving your name, initials or anything on it just destroys the pen.

I always use the analogy of buying a new car and then scratching your name on it just so it will be "mine"

 

Goodguy, what about pens with a cartouche- specifically intended by the designer and maker to be engraved?

It could be argued that you are "destroying" the pen by NOT engraving it.

 

On pens like that, I think the better car analogy is buying a new car and then putting a vanity/personalized license plate on it.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but still intended as embellishment.

 

Best, greg

[gregamckinney]

Well, as long as the previous owner's name wasn't something like Rich Hooker or Arthur Sandford-Smith in initials then I guess I wouldn't mind. Also, as long as the engraving was done nicely- no Comic Sans please!

 

Still having some mental tendencies of a teenaged boy (even decades later) I find odd/unfortunate names amusing. I bought a Parker Vac solely based on the imprinted name, "Ly-King Phuc." (seriously.)

 

Best,

greg

[wspohn]

On pens like that, I think the better car analogy is buying a new car and then putting a vanity/personalized license plate on it.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but still intended as embellishment.

 

I wish people would limit their customization to a vanity plate. I tend to keep my cars pretty stock looking (if often substantially improved mechanically).

 

Anyone old enough to recall the Datsun 240Z? Few of those made it a week out of the dealere without having the stock steel wheels and hubcaps replaced with mag wheels - to the point where people restoring the cars now have a very hard time finding the original parts.

[Glenn-SC]

I have two engraved pens given to me by people I love dearly, and I like the pens even more because of it.

 

I have pens with others' names on/in them.

I have Bess' Double Jewel Yellowstone Parker "51" and I think of her when I pick it up.

 

It reminds me of a time when possessions were permanent and people were proud to give them to someone special.

[jniforat]

er, it's my pen yo', i do what i want. actually, if i get a pen engraved, i'm not thinking about the next owner....

 

also, if i buy a pen w/ someone's name, then i put my name on it too. i started doing this when i bought a 51 with 4 tiny names engraved of previous owners, and now it has mine. i think that's cool and special.

[FOX]

Many people don't want the name of the previous owner engraved into the item, unless that previous owner was famous, because then it makes it more valuable.

 

"What? You were never well known in history and you had the NERVE to etch your name on the pen I just bought?"

 

I was lucky enough to come across a cover letter that had flown across a famous airship. At first, the value to me was in the historic artifact that it was, and not the name or address of the person that was written on it. But the first thing I did when I got home was to look up the name and address and see if I could find anything out on the person.

 

I hit the jackpot, and found the entire life history of the person, confirming they lived at the address on the cover, where they were born, where and when he died, who he married, and every job he ever had in his life, including his hobbies and interests.

 

Suddenly, the historical value of this artifact had greatly increased for me, forget about any monetary value, you can't put a monetary value on historic artifacts, they are priceless.

 

All too often, 99% of the time, when I end up with some vintage item, I never get to know the history of the item.

 

Who originally purchased it? Who used it, how many owners had it before I did? Who kept it all their life, and now it just ended up being bought by some reseller at an estate sale that was only interested in how much more they could sell it to me for, than for what they paid for it, so they can make a profit.

 

How many other items did that person have, that they treasured all their life, that no one thought they could make any money off of, and so it ended up in the trash after the estate sale was over?

 

I remember when my grandparents died and my mother was going through their stuff seeing what was worth keeping, and what she could just throw away. There would be a box full of little items that my mother thought had no worth and to just throw it away. I figured, why did they hold onto and keep these items all their life, just so that now they could be thrown away? So I kept them, and saved them from the trash. Every so often, I take the box out and look through the items and wonder where they got each piece and what great memory was attached to them that they were saved in this box of "junk".

 

One of the items I came across when my mother was throwing away most of their stuff, a "worthless" fountain pen. "You can't use those today, where are you going to get ink for it from?" Still, I insisted I wanted it. I could always throw it away at any time in the future, but if it was thrown away now, I could never get it back.

 

In fact, there was more than one fountain pen, but I was made to feel like such a trash collector, that I just kept the one, and let my mother throw the rest away.

 

She LOVES to throw stuff away. Thus why I don't have most of the stuff from my childhood that I constantly see show up for high prices in antique stores or on Antiques Roadshow.

 

Turns out this year I get into fountain pens for the first time, and finally take that pen out to take a look at it, and find out it is a MontBlanc. Now I wonder what brands and models the other pens were that are now buried deep in some landfill. Not because I could have sold them on eBay and made money, but because I like writing with fountain pens now, and found out that they still sell ink for them. Imagine that.

 

All of this got me to thinking about all the stuff I have now. When the estate sale comes to sell off all of my stuff, what will the greedy resellers all fight over, and what will end up in the trash?

 

It's the stuff that would normally end up in the trash that I worry about the most. So any stories and history related to the items, I write down and keep with the item. In hopes that if I can bring the "monetary" value of the item up enough to make a greedy reseller buy it, that hopefully some caring person will end up paying some high price for it, and thus treat the item well, considering they paid a lot of money for it, so it's not just going to end up in a box or get banged up. It will be put in a special spot and admired. Until that person dies and the next curator takes temporary care of it.

 

It disgusts me to watch someone on TV get an appraisal for an item that was in their family, handed down for generations, and this last family member starts drooling when he/she hears the monetary value of the item and wants to SELL it and get the money for it. Sometimes, they even say so they can use the money to blow in Vegas.

 

But then, at least the person willing to PAY that amount for that item is at least going to give the item the respect it deserves. So better it goes to someone who will appreciate the item.

 

We don't always get a great story of the history behind any vintage pen (or other item) we come across, but sometimes if a name is engraved on the pen, you might be able to find out who that person was, and if they lived around the time that pen would have been sold and used.

 

Perhaps it belonged to an important business man who started an iconic store or manufacturing company. Perhaps he is not so well known today, but was important to something that had to do with how your own local area was developed. And you could be writing with that person's PEN today!

 

If you find any of this out in your research, be sure to write it all down (preferably with the very pen in question, and noting so in your document) so that the next caretaker of that pen will have that history to keep with the pen.

 

 

Because no one ever owns anything. We are all just temporary caretakers of the items until it's passed on to the next person who takes care of it for a while.

 

 

Don't like that the pen you now have is engraved with someone else's name?

 

Well, perhaps someone that is in possession of the pen 200 years from now will be overjoyed that it is engraved with a name.

 

If it can be saved from a landfill for that long.

 

Then again, perhaps it will become a fossil someone will discover millions of years from now... with a name on it.

[Lsarios]

"This was supposed to be buried with me!"

 

How about "I had this pen buried with me - how did you get it?"

 

I like it!!! Now Should I just go at it with a Dremel or should I find a professional?!!

[ethernautrix]

In (however many years) should this be found somewhere, maybe it will elicit wonder: "Ooo? What does it mean?"

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3618/3332044626_a9a2d28517_m.jpg

Montblanc Starwalker ethernautrix by ethernautrix, on Flickr

 

But, seriously, who cares? Out of the hundreds of thousands of Mb StarWalkers out there, this one has an engraving. So what?

 

And the, ah, the Mb Hemingway, heh. Ha ha ha. What's that? One out of 25,000? Oh so rare! Rarer still with my now-defunct name engraved in cursive.

 

Anyway, I've had many, many, many pens and engraved a few, including three of four Nakayas. In maki-e -- my last name in kanji also translates to "capital" or "metropolis" or "city," so I think it's cool that this urushi pen that is otherwise completely unadorned (with not even a brand imprint; the only "extraneous" ornamentation is on the nib) has this kanji character on it. It makes sense in my mind pre-analysis. Most importantly, I think it's pretty.

 

 

[goodguy]

Goodguy, what about pens with a cartouche- specifically intended by the designer and maker to be engraved?

It could be argued that you are "destroying" the pen by NOT engraving it.

 

On pens like that, I think the better car analogy is buying a new car and then putting a vanity/personalized license plate on it.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but still intended as embellishment.

 

Best, greg

Fair question, no doubt if there is a specialy designed place on the pen then the damage to the pen is considerably less but still for me its like destroying the pen.

[Silvermink]

Well, as long as the previous owner's name wasn't something like Rich Hooker or Arthur Sandford-Smith in initials then I guess I wouldn't mind. Also, as long as the engraving was done nicely- no Comic Sans please!

 

What, you mean I shouldn't get "Silvermink" engraved on my Divina LE in Comic Sans*?

 

Man, you won't let me have any fun!

 

I generally don't like engravings, but if it's an old pen with a tasteful engraving I do think it's interesting, especially as a window to a time when pens were important to regular folks instead of just eccentric pen-collecting weirdos like us**.

 

I have a trashed Lamy 27 somewhere with a... Finnish, I think, name engraved on the cap.

 

 

 

* I would be lynched by the rest of the local pen club, and rightly so!

** Yeah, yeah, I know, speak for yourself...

Edited November 4, 2010 by Silvermink

[eli]

While I have bought a few pens that are engraved, I don't personally care for the practice, and will only buy marked FPs if I know the pen and want the nib/pen as a writer. I buy most of my pens off ebay, and if I know, from the sellers description or message in response to a question about condition, that there is an engraving, fine.

 

That said, I've asked for partial refunds from sellers whom have omitted that particular (or other important issues) detail from the description or photographs. I consider an unexpected engraving a serious fault and I will not hesitate to let the seller know that they've got a problem.

 

Perhaps is I ran across an engraved pen owned by someone I admired I might jump at it, however I am not a collector so it'd have to be a user.

[riff raff]

I really don't care as long as the price is reflected accordingly

I rather there be initials there than an attempted removal using non kosher methods...(e.g.- sanding down the spot)

 

Then there's the cool stuff engraved on pens "Bell Systems Property"

I'm thinking of having ALL my pens engraved with that!

[kazoolaw]

A pen maker designs a pen in a certain way and engraving your name, initials or anything on it just destroys the pen.

I always use the analogy of buying a new car and then scratching your name on it just so it will be "mine"

 

So, how do you respond to the fact that some pens sport a specific location for the placement of a name or initials?

 

The car analogy is both old and off point: we're talking engraving, which is more analogous to a custom paint job than keying a car with some letters.

 

gary

[Silvermink]

I wonder if there is a positive correlation between the 'markers' and those who like tattoos? Personally, I find tattooing to be a pretty bizarre practice (any Maori readers excepted), often done by young people in an attempt to show their individuality, (ironically it usually shows exactly the opposite, their need to conform with their group/tribe).

 

If so I'm an outlier, as I don't like engravings (except as stated in my earlier post in this thread) but find tattoos interesting. I've considered getting a little pawprint on my shoulderblade, but I'm kind of a wimp and getting my ears pierced was painful enough (note to all: if anyone ever tells you that doesn't hurt, they are wrong!)

 

A friend of mine has jaguar spots tattooed across her shoulders (those furries, right?) and it looks way cool.

Edited November 4, 2010 by Silvermink

[Silvermink]

"This was supposed to be buried with me!"

 

How about "I had this pen buried with me - how did you get it?"

 

"I apologize for having engraved this pen but it was important to me that, if it were ever lost, it could be returned to me with a minimum of fuss and bother, and this seemed like the best way to achieve that."

 

In letters big enough to cover the entire body, of course.

[rhosygell]

I have a few pens with engravings, none of which bother me particularly. It adds provenance to the pen. Anyway, it allows me to buy pens that I could not otherwise afford particularly as I intend using them.

[jgrasty]

I won't buy an engraved pen in general, but I did buy a Pelikan M400 with a name engraved. The seller moved the clip so that it completely covered the engraving. If I hadn't known when I bought it that it was engraved, I would have never known.

[Belles-lettres]

Hmmmm, I must have followed different career choices than most of you - worked in an office in the 70s and 80s. Your name had to be on everything (especially scissors and the big metal desk sized tape dispensers) or you would never see them again. They were now the property of someone else and when you reached for that object in a moment of need, you got a really deflated feeling - and now you'd have to 'borrow' someone else scissors or paper punch.

 

My boss had pencils made one year as holiday gifts to us with our names on them - so we'd spend less time looking for our pencils and more time actually working. It didn't shame the kleptomaniacs (there were 120 people in the department) but at least you could hold on to them longer and track down the offenders beyond any reasonable doubt. I owned a MontBlanc in that era but would never ever have taken to the office... if I'd known where to have it engraved, I would have had the pleasure of its use eight hours a day more.

[Imzadi]

"Wow, that's a cool pen on ebay... damn, it's got someone's initials cut into it."

 

Poor helpless pens. I have two which I bought for myself from Things Remembered. I look at them now as if I rescued puppies from a dogfighting ring.

 

No ma'am, I do not want anything engraved into my pen. I try to hide my disgust at her for asking.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

At last a person that thinks like me

 

A pen maker designs a pen in a certain way and engraving your name, initials or anything on it just destroys the pen.

I always use the analogy of buying a new car and then scratching your name on it just so it will be "mine"

 

People do scratch their names into new cars. They change the wheels, add pinstriping, change the stereo, and countless other ways of customization.

[Imzadi]

A pen maker designs a pen in a certain way and engraving your name, initials or anything on it just destroys the pen.

I always use the analogy of buying a new car and then scratching your name on it just so it will be "mine"

 

So, how do you respond to the fact that some pens sport a specific location for the placement of a name or initials?

 

The car analogy is both old and off point: we're talking engraving, which is more analogous to a custom paint job than keying a car with some letters.

 

gary

 

I'm not sure the car analogy is too far off point. Perhaps the custom paint isn"t the best choice because it can be undone (stripping, sanding, and repainting), but how about mangling the fenders so wider tires will fit, or adding hood scoops (lame, I know) or some other sheet metal work which cannot be undone without lots of money and / time.

 

As for me, I don't mid engraving at all. I found 2 pens from a doctor and I'm trying to find out who he is. I would sell anything to have a pen from my Papaw. I miss him so much.