Modified Pens - Increase or Decrease Value?

January 10, 2007

I have been seeing a few Parker 51s with modified caps, barrels, etc., whether to recover damaged items and restore the pen, or simply because the modifier likes the altered item better.

Now in many collector's activities (cars, watches etc.) originality bears a definite premium as far as value is concerned, yet with these modified 51s I see quite high prices being asked for the customised versions.

I'd normally expect a modified pen, even if the modification improved the appearance, to be worth less than an original in good condition, and I was wondering if these asking prices were representative not of the inherent value of the pen, but of the work expended on them by the modifier.

It's like a mechanic sticking a Chev engine in a Ferrari - no matter how neat and powerful the Chev engine is, the car will always be worth (a lot) less than a dead stock Ferrari. But that's not to say that the owner that has that work done doesn't get a big bill - just that he'll never recover that cost when he sells.

So are these asking prices (in the $300+ range) representative of the new value of the pens or just of the hours the guy selling them put into them (in which case the purchaser can expect to immediately lose a subnstantial amount of his investment as no one else would pay that much for the pen)?

Opinions?

January 10, 2007

I guess it depends on the modification. A Parker 51 does not want to be painted bright pink. If you love vintage fountain pens, though, and have a thing for bright pink things, maybe you'd be willing to pay extra for that if a decent job had been done on it.

I've done two 'mods' myself, but neither to a pen of much value, and both in response to 'damage' from use...

My Pelikan Go! had green accents and clip, which I scraped off.

A bit of the paint on the clip had got chipped anyway, and I prefer it that way. I'm not likely to sell it on anyway, so the resale value is no concern.

I've scrubbed an old Rotring Quatro Data Pen to it's brass.

The black paint was wearing off in lots of places, so I took an X-Acto knife to it and removed all the paint, then polished it up with wire wool. Looks nice and shiny now. I think I took some pics, but never got around to processing them and putting them online. If I find them, I'll stick them here.

OK, there's one more, but wrapping a Lamy Safari in gaffer tape probably doesn't count - and it's easy enough to reverse, too.

January 10, 2007

In regard to the 51's you're typically either seeing stock pens with fancy custom caps of various precious metals or colorful bodies with 51 caps and inards. Since a lustraloy capped aero is worth approx $50.00 in used condition and since they are fairly common doing modifications can enhance the value even though it isn't stock. Kind of like putting the Ferrari engine in a Chevy Nova. A serious collector might pass it up 'cause it isn't stock, but a lot of people will be happy to pay a lot of money for it. Just don't customize a mustard empire cap...

January 11, 2007

I have two custom "51"s, the first one was a beat up Vac in Cedar Blue that Ralph Prather cleaned up and customised for me with copper fittings and a smooth polished silver cap. Much of the extra price was in the workmanship. All said and done it cost less than $170 and you could pay that much for a good "51" Vac with a VG Sterling Silver Cap, fully restored.

The other modification is a restored "51" Lustraloy cap that is now a brushed finish, OK so not correct, but it looks good on a pen that was built from bits anyway so where is the issue? The bits were not 'Free', but they came with others that I bought so have a bonus value to me, the cap cost £8 so $15ish to modify?

I feel that as long as I declare what I have done should I ever sell the pens then what the heck?

I would not touch anything that I found that was mint though.

Jim

January 11, 2007

I feel that as long as I declare what I have done should I ever sell the pens then what the heck?

But really that just passes the ball to the next guy who probably agonizes over it for the 5 minutes it takes him to write the listing for the Rare and Unusual Parker Limited Edition for Ebay.

Unless you somehow mark the caps by engraving them as replicas or non-original, you are in the same class as the 19th century cabinet makers that ripped apart Georgian pieces to mate one base with another top because they could sell it more easily, thus posing all sorts of questions to the experts for the new couple of hundred years.

I see this all the time in the car hobby where out and out fakes (we call them replicas because that doesn't sound as bad as fake) pass from hand to hand and suddenly pop up at auction as the real deal at several times the price and with expertly created provenance.

I don't think that saying one would never mislead anyone completely absolves one from guilt regarding the almost inevitable future course the modified item will take.

This is another issue, but I'd be interested in opinions about this as well.

January 13, 2007

I also agree that expertly modified pens will fetch more than their original counterparts, at least with respect to the 51. The 51 is generally a very common pen (consider the millions sold over the prime decades of the 20th century), so a well done modification essentially becomes a work of art. The "true value" is now detached from the pen itself and is measured by the desirability of the artwork.

One can give strong argument against the desecration of the original item... every pen modified is another original lost. Imagine someday there's a law against modifying Parker 51's because they are considered "historic artifacts" or an endangered species like a Praying Mantis!

But where one person may think a pen is unrecoverable, another person may believe they can rescue it (of course, the question is whether or not the effort is worth the market value of the pen in good condition). I've been reading up on these cap dent removal tools--amazing stuff. I realize not every cap can be saved, but it's interesting to see what can be done to bring a cap back to acceptable condition.

Edited January 13, 2007 by MYU