Vintage Pen Price Guide

[vincharlie]

I am thinking of building a small collection of vintage pens. Is there a price guide available anywhere (similar to those released for antiques/other collectables)?

 

Thanks

[jmkeuning]

No.

 

ebay is a great place to start, but you need to watch for a few months.

 

There was someone here looking for similar info a few weeks ago; pricing guides just do not exist.

 

However, this is a good place to ask!

[finalidid]

Interesting. Here's where I'm at right now.

 

I learned from dealing in antique and collectible books and early printed ephemera, that there are about eleventeen umptillion different ways to attempt to gauge a price for a collectible item. In the long run, there's really more "truth" to the free market of supply versus demand in collectible pricing than in pricing in almost any other field. In, say, oil or automobiles, there's advertising and overhead and general economic situations and politics and taxes and labor unions and so forth. But in fountain pens, there's one thing only: what the market will bear.

 

So, I says, if you wants it and you likes the price, then you buys it. It's very honest that way. Worst that can happen is that you get "taken" by paying more over there or up under there, than you would have over here or along 'bouts there. Still, you'll get what you want at a price you agreed upon. Doesn't sound so bad to me.

 

My advice? Start out by spending $50 per pen, no more, for three pens maximum from a reputable seller here at FPN or one of the other reliable boards. Shy away from EBay and other "generalized" locations, at least for a while, for buying and selling -- but you can look all you want! Find the many eye-candy locations on the internet. I recommend you look at Richard's Pens, then find his links page, where there are a lot of different vintage pen sellers. Richard's Pens is a website worth reading in its entirety, in fact: all the wonderfully illustrated reference material, and the profiles on different models, and so forth. Great stuff!

 

When I started, I kind of "lost money" on one of my first pens, by buying something I don't really want, at a price that's really higher than I really wanted to have paid. I still have it. It annoys me a bit, but then, it works like magic. Why complain about a new-in-box Pelikan M200 in blue? Soon enough I got better at it, slowly, and now I kind of know what I'm after (sword-clip Challenger, anyone, anyone? toothbrush geometric Duofold, anyone, anyone?) but I'm delighted to continue to learn. I'll probably blow $100 on a P51 some time soon, probably be happy-ish about it. Recently I culled an item from my collection because I thought it wasn't getting appreciated, gave it to an ex-girlfriend for her engagement (to another man, thanks be!). Later looked through the computer records and found out it had cost me a lot more than I'd thought it had cost when I decided to give it away. Ooops, probably wouldn't have given it to her if I'd known I was expending that kind of cash on her, oh well ...

 

That's another thing to keep in mind. A beautiful vintage fountain pen is a nice gift for anyone for any occasion. Get a bottle of new ink, wrap 'em up together, include a hand-written note about its provenance and how to use it, and people think they're being treated like a king or queen. So any purchase of a pen can be viewed as an item of stock placed into potential gift-giving inventory. I know, that sounds like an excuse, but you can't say that about ham-of-the-month club, or fruitcakes-R-us, now can you? Especially if it's pretty. And what you consider to be pretty is, really, something you are already an expert on.

 

See, it's all about going with the (medium-to-fine toothy stub flex) flow.

 

Edited December 29, 2007 by finalidid

[Bill]

Pen shows that have a wide variety of vintage pens can help quite a bit. You can closely examine a pen that costs twice its identical neighbor and learn the nuances, much more so than any price guide could catalog. Based on my experience, I believe price guides for less mainstream collectables are worthless.

 

Experience and patience are important. And don't be surprised if you occasionally overpay as part of the learning process.

 

Good hunting.

 

Bill

 

 

 

[vincharlie]

Thanks for the advice.

 

At the moment i've mostly just been tracking sales on eBay although I do admit to making one purchase of a, I think, reasonably priced Italian celluloid FP which is around 70 years old. It writes very well. I also have a Parker 51 so my collection totals 2! The parker 51 writes beatifully and I can understand why it's such a legendary pen.

 

I'm finding it hard to rein in my enthusiasm to buy but so far so good. I'm also started to find a few good sites for new and vintage pen sellers wqhich I have mostly come accross via this forum.

 

One thing that i have noticed is that my local stores in Australia are hugely overpriced when compared to buying over the net and I'm not just talking ebay. So i think the net is the way for me to go.

 

My real dilemma at the moment is working out what i like, what I don't like and what i want to collect. I guess it's not a bad dilemma to have.

 

Are there any Aussies out there that can recommend any local stores/websites or pen shows/clubs?

 

Thanks

 

 

[Shangas]

My places are all in Melbourne, I apologise...

 

Melbourne Vintage Pens, in High Street, Armadale. Part of the Armadale Antiques Center. It's run by a very nice, very knowledge and very tall Englishman named Peter Ford. He's open every FIRST and THIRD SUNDAY of EACH MONTH. Give him a visit.

 

From him, I got information about the MELBOURNE PEN SHOW. The 2007 one has already passed, however. But keep an ear out for the 2008 one, perhaps.

 

And the Melbourne Pen Depot, at Chadstone Shopping Center. Shop #400.

[vincharlie]

Thanks. I found the web site for Melbourne Vintage Pens and they have a great range.

 

 

[finalidid]

Another place to look, which I just ran across today:

 

http://www.vintagepens.com/books.shtml

 

 

[CAA]

An excellent resource is "Fountain Pens: Past & Present--Identification & Value Guide" second edition by Paul Erano. It not only has useful histories but also great photos and price ranges.

 

 

[vincharlie]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I ordered Paul Erano's book from Amazon this morning! I have also heard that Andy Lambrou's book is excellent.

 

The question is still what to focus my collection on!

 

 

[Buzz J]

Prices are soooo hard to nail down. It just ain't the same as running down to the Piggly Wiggly and getting a bag of Lays potato chips.

 

Probably a better guide would be a number representing relative scarcity, popularity and durability. This would give you an idea of where a model/color/condition would go relative to others. Even this would get perverted by what is currently in fashion and currency fluxuations.

 

Truth of the matter is prices on Ebay will confound you. Like others, I watch what I like a lot, and what sells today for $50 may sell tomorrow for $100 or $25. Go figure & try to hit it on the $25 day!

 

John

[AnnieB123]

What I've found is that ebay prices are almost universally 1 bid over my highest bid. I'm not joking. I'm some sort of ebay weathervane. I have bid on literally dozens (hundred(s) at this point? close anyhow).. of FP and ephemera auctions on the 'bay... and I would say fully 80% of them sell for 1 bid over my max bid.

 

Not that that helps you a lot ^^

 

My mantra is, it's worth what it's worth to me. I don't resell my pens (yet, if ever), so paying too much doesn't happen to me (yet). I also try not to impulse buy too often... I find that when I feel a compulsion to buy something RIGHT NOW, it winds up being a bad purchase.

 

In some ways I wish there was a more recognized value guide for pens (like the Overstreet comic buyers guide or the red/blue books for coins)... on the other hand, I've found with comic books at least... having a 'bible' of values make people inflate the grading/quality a lot and makes it a LOT harder to find fair prices for comics (letalone bargains).

 

I agree with what everyone else has said about dealing with other pen people. They're almost universally honest, friendly folks who really truly love the hobby and have a vested interest in turning you into a fellow fanatic fancier If you find a type of pen that really appeals to something inside you (for me, lately, it's been Waterman's 452 overlays ) quite often your pen enablers buddies will keep an eye out for you if you ask nicely. They wind up going to a lot of shows also... so it's a godsend for people like me who live in the back end of the pen collecting world.

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/VINTAGE-WATERMAN-IDEAL-452-FILIGREE-BASKET-STERLING-SILVER-OVERLAY-FOUNTAIN-PEN-/00/s/MTYwMFgxNjAw/$(KGrHqR,!roE+m9I5tHJBQEOkbKE2!~~60_12.JPG