Amazon Prime Day 2021

[Preethi]

Hi,

 

I am a Fountain Pen Newbie. Does Amazon prime day have good deals on fountain pens, notebooks and Inks?

[Dione]

They used to many years ago but not recently.

[christam]

I agree with Dione.  There are bargains to be had on Amazon on fountain pens, notebooks and inks, but you need to be patient and spend some time regularly checking on brands you're interested in buying.  I'm in the UK and have seen bargains on Pilot Capless (VP), Visconti Van Gogh, Montegrappa Elmo, GvFC, to name a few that I actually bought (and in some cases later returned).  Each of the pens I bought went up in price within hours of my purchase so it was luck and patience that brought the rewards, not special occasions like Prime Day.

[inkstainedruth]

I have not bought pens or ink on Amazon.  But my experience (in general) has been that I do better with customer service, overall (if not necessarily price) for other things (books, CDs, movies) if I buy them directly from Amazon -- or at least fulfilled by them -- than if I buy from 3rd party vendors.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

5 hours ago, christam said:

There are bargains to be had on Amazon on fountain pens, notebooks and inks, but you need to be patient and spend some time regularly checking on brands you're interested in buying.

 

Absolutely so.

[Frank C]

I recently purchased a  Parker Duofold Big Red for about $375.00. They are normally $650.00. I saw one in the in the used, like new section for 275.00, shortly thereafter, but it disappeared when I put it in my cart. I just looked; they want $979.00 now, for the same pen. 

[A Smug Dill]

32 minutes ago, Frank C said:

I recently purchased a  Parker Duofold Big Red for about $375.00. They are normally $650.00.

 

Something like this one?

 

[Frank C]

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Something like this one?

 

You got it! I followed the vicissitudes of the price of this pen for a few weeks. When it hit a new low, I bought it. When I saw it go even lower I tried to buy another one, but it was a mythical creature; it just disappeared when I put it in my cart. 

[bunnspecial]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:07 AM, Frank C said:

I recently purchased a  Parker Duofold Big Red for about $375.00. They are normally $650.00. I saw one in the in the used, like new section for 275.00, shortly thereafter, but it disappeared when I put it in my cart. I just looked; they want $979.00 now, for the same pen. 

 

The Duofold, in general, seems to be a pen that's all over the place in price.

For one thing, it seems like a lot of the decent sized dealers, even those who sell Parker, don't stock it. It's a shame IMO as the Duofold is an absolute beauty of a product. It's the only pen I've ever used that I consider better than its vintage equivalent, which is saying something because I LOVE Duofolds in general.

 

~$300-400 seems a common "street price" on them. I paid $350 for mine, a Big Red(not one of the special editions) from the classifieds here, new in box and unused.

[Frank C]

25 minutes ago, bunnspecial said:

 

The Duofold, in general, seems to be a pen that's all over the place in price.

For one thing, it seems like a lot of the decent sized dealers, even those who sell Parker, don't stock it. It's a shame IMO as the Duofold is an absolute beauty of a product. It's the only pen I've ever used that I consider better than its vintage equivalent, which is saying something because I LOVE Duofolds in general.

 

~$300-400 seems a common "street price" on them. I paid $350 for mine, a Big Red(not one of the special editions) from the classifieds here, new in box and unused.

 

I think that part of the problem for regular pen dealers is that these pens are available, at a discount, from many sources. The same is true for Pelikans—another great pen. 

 

I just looked, they have the PARKER Duofold Centennial Fountain Pen, Prestige Blue Chevron, Fine Solid Gold Nib, Black Ink and Convertor (1931369) for $509.62 USD. This is a bit lower than some other online retailers I just checked. 

 

The new Duoflod is one of my favorite pens. I prefer the ones made in England, the more recent ones are made in France. They are very similar pens. 

[bunnspecial]

7 minutes ago, Frank C said:

 

The new Duoflod is one of my favorite pens. I prefer the ones made in England, the more recent ones are made in France. They are very similar pens. 

 

I'll have to check where mine was made.

 

One things I have noticed is that a lot of folks complain about dry out, both capped and even between lines when writing. When I talked to Dr. Leighton-Smith, who was at Parker when the pen was developed, I was taking notes with one(along with a Vac Maxima) during our meeting and he commented on the dry-out problem from the cap design.

 

The thing is I just haven't noticed it. Mine starts every single time as soon as it's uncapped, even left a week(some of my pens handle being unused longer, but I know it's good for a week). I often pause for several seconds or a minute when writing, whether it's a pause between note-taking in meetings or a just thinking. It's pretty unusual that it hard starts after pauses like this. Most of the other pens I use regularly are just as good(hood nibs like the P51 excepted, which can handle a couple minutes uncapped easily).

[Frank C]

7 minutes ago, bunnspecial said:

 

I'll have to check where mine was made.

 

One things I have noticed is that a lot of folks complain about dry out, both capped and even between lines when writing. When I talked to Dr. Leighton-Smith, who was at Parker when the pen was developed, I was taking notes with one(along with a Vac Maxima) during our meeting and he commented on the dry-out problem from the cap design.

 

The thing is I just haven't noticed it. Mine starts every single time as soon as it's uncapped, even left a week(some of my pens handle being unused longer, but I know it's good for a week). I often pause for several seconds or a minute when writing, whether it's a pause between note-taking in meetings or a just thinking. It's pretty unusual that it hard starts after pauses like this. Most of the other pens I use regularly are just as good(hood nibs like the P51 excepted, which can handle a couple minutes uncapped easily).

 

My English pens have a very small hole underneath the clip; the newer French on doesn't have the hole. The English pens have multiple trim rings on the body and cap, the French pen has fewer rings. 

[MHBru]

I never really expect to see pens in there but do keep an eye out for ink and letter writing paper.  (I'm retired now and dont go through notebooks the way i used to or they'd be on the list, too)  I'm also a wet shaver and look for that stuff as well... similarly, not so much for razors/brushes as blades and soap.  In both categories, the pickings are slim.  I suspect that's true for most hobby items on Prime Day.

[A Smug Dill]

So, what — if anything — did everyone buy on Prime Day special offers this year? I managed to pick up several bottles of Waterman Tender Purple, which I've never tried before, for A$6.40 apiece including (free Prime) delivery. By that, I didn't mean ordering in bulk the way I often do with other retailers, since for one thing I don't think Waterman ink is something I'd want to stock up on; but I placed several separate orders and got Amazon to send individual bottles directly to some of our friends that we don't physically visit very often these days, so that they don't have to wait until next time we catch up when the COVID coast is clear. (Sydney has been getting into a growing spot of bother this past week.)

 

22 hours ago, MHBru said:

I never really expect to see pens in there but do keep an eye out for ink and letter writing paper.

 

Some of my Platinum #3776 (and I don't just mean the small selection of coloured resins at the entry level) pens, including at least one Kanazawa-haku and one Celluloid, was ordered from (and sold and shipped by) Amazon US. If I recall correctly, two of my Pilot Elabo (aka Falcon) pens were ordered on Amazon Australia. Quite a few of my Sailor pens were ordered on Amazon Japan, but since it won't ship to Australian delivery addresses, I'd had to use a forwarding service to get those home to me.

 

Obviously, I wouldn't have done so if Amazon didn't beat my usual list of trusted retailers hands down and selling less than the prevalent market prices of the day.