The Economy

[stan]

Whether this is clickbait or not is not the question.

https://archive.ph/zijwT

 

There are undeniable economic constraints for American (and I assume overseas) buyers and collectors of pens.

 

How is the economy having an impact on your inky obsession?

Are you cutting back on purchasing new. Are you seeking used pens? Reduction in purchases? Ephemera?

Has ebay become your new playground? Purchasing from overseas incurs Customs fees - ouch, for some.

Have dealers and pen sellers become more competitive? Cutthroat? 

Are the addition of Customs fees driving used pen prices higher.

 

Are there new strategies in place to find what you want?

 

Please share.

 

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I wasn't able to access the link because I'm not clicking on the "verification" stuff for a site I'm not familiar with.  I've ben having too many issues with my laptop recently as it is (like repeated little pop up windows telling me to update stuff (even when it's for stuff like McAfee which I don't think I even have anything from them INSTALLED... ).

But I have bought a number of pens off eBay in the past, especially from a good seller in the EU that often has inexpensive and fun pens -- like the Parker Vector "Puss in Boots" pen from the _Shrek_ movies; saw that pen and who the seller was and liked the price and said, "OMG -- I NEED that pen!"  The listing said that the seller was away and buyers might not hear back right away, but I've had good experiences in the past (the couple of times where there were SNAFUs were NOT his fault and I know that).  So I hit the buy button, and then actually heard back from the seller the next day (he must have seen it was me ).  I also got my two most expensive pens (the Pelikan M405 Stresemann, and the M405 Blue Black) from Rolf Thiel's eBay store.  And the only hiccup there was the phone call from PayPal going "Did you know?  A charge of X amount was just sent from your account to a vendor in Europe...."  And I said, "Yes I did, but thank you for calling...."  Then got off the phone, looked at my husband and said, "OMG -- I really DID just spend that much money on ONLY TWO PENS!!"

But of course, at the moment, between the cost overruns on the new driveway (which we're STILL paying off) and then another huge expense for replacing all the water pipes in our house, plus having to have all the stuff in the living room put temporarily into storage so the plasterers can do their work -- plus all the OTHER replastering work in other walls as a result...  I'm not doing a lot of pen shopping at the moment in general.  I did get 3 pens repaired last weekend at OPS, and was able to get replacement converters for some others, and did buy one bottle of ink, and a cute pen rest.  But I was basically trying to limit expenses over the weekend....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[mke]

14 hours ago, stan said:

https://archive.ph/zijwT

Virustotal.com says: No security vendors flagged this URL as malicious    and they investigate with 98 scanners.

 

The linked article says - in short - many Americans are not doing well. 

 

IMO, a number of (stationery) companies will go belly-up, some will be sold to other companies. Just have a look how many companies have changed owners in Germany, recently: Pelikan, Bock, Lamy, Waldmann, OttoHutt. Some penshops agree, we are in a pen bubble. There are too many pens out.

Ink is also sold by more and more companies. That will colorful when this bubble bursts.

Papers, probably too.

 

Personally, I don't want more pens, inks, or papers - but sometimes, good resolutions are overridden by the wishes of the reward center in the brain.

 

 

 

[langere]

At this point, I am not buying any fountain pens from outside the United States.  I do not want to be stuck with paying tariffs on top of my purchase, especially if I do not know how much it is going to be .

 

Erick

[Lam1]

Things are BAD!

I am simply not buying any pens. The ones I like/collect, Pelikan, Montblanc and Pilot/Namiki all come from abroad and with the weak dollar + tariffs (and what the shipping companies charge on top of the tariffs to collect them, typically 5%) the price increases have been absolutely insane. eBay prices follow the same trend. 
 

With everything else going on, buying is on full stop. Good thing is that I don’t really need any more pens - which is not to say I don’t want them. (Particularly the latest M800s and the MB 149 burgundy. Alas, it is not meant to be.)

[jandrese]

All international purchases are on hold. ‘Merica is more of a (bleep) show than ever. Tariff and gold induced price increases, additional duties and fees, overwhelmed shipping companies disappearing packages, suspension of EMS shipments from Japan are all bad. For me it’s more than pens, it’s other urushi and maki-e items that are not being purchased. I know the vendors are suffering but there is too much uncertainty in the transaction and in the economy as a whole. Expenses are up, health insurance is up, wages are stagnant. We are not great yet. 

[Karmachanic]

Don't worry!  Soon you'll own nothing and be happy, and look back at these as the bad old days.  The future's sooooo bright ......... 😎

[stan]

Sources tell me a good number of Americans continue or have restarted bidding for pens on Yahoo Japan through several proxy services. A 15%-20%, or more, premium is not holding anyone back. Whether this is for 'quality' pens or everyday-type Japanese pens is not known. My assump0tion is for higher-grade pens that one might never see again.

 

Buyers from Europe remain active and they must pay VAT or whatever.

[Erad67]

I live in Japan.  I used to buy auction lots of dozens of pens, with the intention of reselling most of them to fund my hobby.  I sold around 50 before things changed.  The combination of the changes in the economy, exchange rates, and people outside of Japan using those services to use Yahoo Auction has pretty much ended my pen collecting.  Prices for used Japanese pens in Japan on Yahoo in just a few years has more than tripled and the amount people will pay for them elsewhere if you want to resell them outside of Japan has greatly dropped. 

The most extreme case was a group of bottles of Iroshizuku ink.  Some of them were partially used.  Nearly all of them were colors still sold.  The auction ended for more than 50% higher than it would've cost for a person in Japan to buy the bottles of ink in the store.

I rarely even bother looking at Yahoo auction now.   Can't compete with people whose money goes 50% further and think the higher prices are cheap.

[mke]

Another big problem was the drastic increase of Japanpost's shipping prices. After Japanpost increased the price, I couldn't sell the rest of my pens as many people who were interested didn't want to pay $30 for shipping. Fortunately, not too many remain. I will offer them on Mercari next year.