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Thread: Do you clean your pen before selling?

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    Senior Member Rusty888's Avatar
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    Default Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I thought this might be interesting.

    If you were buying a pen what condition would you expect to receive it in. I feel there is two scenarios and one rule here.

    RULE You are buying a working pen.

    SCENARIO 1 You buy from here or a similar environment where there is a community sense

    SCENARIO 2 you buy from an anonymous place such as eBay.

    I'm mainly concerned with should the pen have ink in it, be cleaned or flushed or just ink pushed out of it and your left to flush it all if you want to change inks.

    I've had some interesting experiences and I wanted to hear others thoughts

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    From eBay, I have no expectations except as stated otherwise, sales from this forum I would hope the pens are clean. Thankfully this has been my experience thus far.

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    Junior Member Bart Willems's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I stopped selling goods on eBay as the double-dipping that eBay does (eBay charges, you're forced to use PayPal, and then PayPal charges...) made selling pretty much not worth it. But I always felt that I should deliver goods in the best state possible; so that would mean cleaning a pen before selling it.

    Personally I wouldn't like it receiving a pen inked up (it will rarely ever be the ink of my choice after all), but as Neo stated, I have no expectations lest I'd be disappointed. Over the years I've received various goods whose "good condition" was definitely not my definition of "good," but I digress...

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I've spent days making sure a pen is as clean as possible before selling it. I've only received one or two that had any evidence of having been inked. That said, I buy no vintage pens and just a few used ones from pen forums.
    "Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    It wouldn't matter who I was selling to. I would make sure the pen was in the best possible condition when it arrived with the buyer. Why wouldn't anyone want that?

    I want the person that gets the pen to be pleased with it and happy with their purchase. Even if I was giving the pen away I would make sure its in the best possible condition. I think it's a reflection of my personal standards.

    I have bought pens where the vendor has really impressed me with the care of delivery, the people that go above and beyond to make sure the pen is presented in it's best possible light.. Rolled in a velvet cloth, secured in a manufactured clear plastic tube. That on it's own doesn't make me go back to that vendor over another, the only thing that counts is the pen, but rest assured I have never received a bad pen from someone that made the effort to deliver the pen in the best possible light and it does leave me with a good feeling about the vendor.

    I would not expect to find the pen with any ink in it, and that the pen had been flushed properly, the nib cleaned and the exterior of the pen cleaned. That would be a basic requirement.


    If I buy a pen for $40/50 for parts etc, or then pen is obviously from an estate sale and just being passed along, then I don't expect much at all. If I pay $100+ for the pen, then I certainly would expect higher standards.

    Are you going to share your experiences?

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    Senior Member Bogon07's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I once rec'd a Pelikan M600 from a supposedly reputable eBay seller clogged with ink to the extent the piston would not move until I soaked it & cleaned it.
    Not what I would have expected from a $300USD+ pen .
    The clown who sold it didn't even bother to reply to my message about the state of the pen - probably too embarrassed.

    A few others have turned up with moisture from being flushed which is no big deal.
    sinistral hypergraphica - a slurry of ink
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I make the pens I sell as clean as I can make them. When buying, however, unless the pen is advertised as "never inked", I expect it to have dried ink, perhaps quite a lot of it.
    --
    Mike

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I always clean a used pen before selling it. The strangest thing I've experience was a pen I bought that came full of ink. It came with the original packaging but was inked and full. I'm amazed it didn't leak out during shipping.
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    Interesting to hear people's view.

    For me. eBay sales are clean pen so they can get it and ink straight away.

    Pens I've sold here are flushed cleaned and offered to fill a pen with a choice of the inks I have available and wrap in a zip lock bag. Never been told one had leaked as I fill it up but wrap it up in a zip lock bag so if it did occur damage is not an issue. In fact the last pen I even said check underneath as I couldn't fit the pen on top of the display tray as I put some extra converters and cartridges I had.

    My last pen was a $400 pen I bought. I spent 2 hours flushing it out as the seller had obviously left the black ink it although had emptied the ink from the pen. It seemed liked he hadn't used the pen for a few months then sold it so dumped the ink and boxed it up. It was from eBay and I got a good price however I felt disappointed. I still left good feedback as he shipped it quickly and the price was great however I'm still unsure how I should feel.

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    Always

    Cob

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I have only sold a pen once before it was on FPN. I spent half an hour cleaning it so it was spotless. The trickiest bit was cleaning the threads on the section as there was a bit of muck in them.

    I did this because I didn't want any hassle such as the buyer wanting a refund etc.

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cob View Post
    Always

    Cob
    Ditto. Clean as much as possible.

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I always fully flush pens out, including inner cap, and then remove moisture. I don't use an ultrasonic cleaner though. Do any of you?
    Will
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I personally clean all my pens thoroughly before selling much the same way I do before storing.

    But far as buying from others. If it's on ebay if they say it's cleaned I expect cleaned. If they don't say at all, I expect that it may arrive with a dried up ink cartridge with the nib and feed all dried up which will need cleaning, or the off chance that it just shows up with wet ink which gets all inside the cap during shipping.

    The latter only bothers me if it comes from someone who primarily sells pens (especially if they say it's been cleaned, had it twice from two known pen sellers, but pretty much 90% from people who just sell estate type of items).


    edit:

    I have an ultrasonic cleaner, works very well, only ran me $40 with 3 power settings. I never put a whole pen in there, and only disassembled pieces, then dry them off individually. I rarely put a cap in there because the ultrasonic may penetrate the inner cap letting water in, and you can't get that dry unless you can disassemble the cap. The ultrasonic is most useful in metal/gold parts, but does a rather nice job getting some surface stains or cloudiness off of plastic surfaces (depending on what exactly was on there to begin with)

    Usually if I'm planning on selling or storing, I'll move some of the dried parts/etc over to a pencil case that has nothing but paper towel and silica desiccant in it for a couple of days to draw any additional moisture out.
    Last edited by KBeezie; January 2nd, 2015 at 11:21 AM.

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    Senior Member tandaina's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I flush pens, same as I would before storing them.

    But I do not own an ultrasonic cleaner or anything like that so I'm sure there is occasionally a drop or two. Especially in say the old lever fillers, actually I think I'm going to sell off the majority of those I have left partly because they are such a pain to get clean. :\

    I've bought pens lots of places and almost all have arrived nice and clean. From an estate agent on ebay? I don't expect that, I expect I'll get hte pen just how they found it, which sometimes is with old ink dried up inside. Not a big deal. I did once get a pen from a fellow collector who sent it filled with an ink he thought I'd like. Which was nice, but it made a royal mess inside the package that flew around the world.
    ---
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    Quote Originally Posted by tandaina View Post
    But I do not own an ultrasonic cleaner or anything like that so I'm sure there is occasionally a drop or two. Especially in say the old lever fillers, actually I think I'm going to sell off the majority of those I have left partly because they are such a pain to get clean. :\
    Here are a couple of tips for speeding up the process (also good for Vacumatics):

    1. After flushing the pen a few times, fill it with water and invert it. Shake it to get the water to the rear of the sac. Then flush normally again. The principle here is that water doesn't reach the back of the sac effectively, so you're just chipping away at what's back there unless you invert the pen to make the water get there. Using a surfactant (e.g. Kodak Photo-Flo) or a pen flush helps a lot, but you still need to invert the pen to clean the back of the sac if you want things to go as quickly as possible.

    2. Some inky water stays in the feed, so if you just flush, flush, flush, you're progressively diluting that. Consider removing more of it at intervals during the flushing. I need to make myself a salad-spinner centrifuge, but for now I just take a paper napkin, paper towel, or toilet paper, fold it and wrap the nib, feed, and grip section with it. Then I hold the pen and paper firmly while I shake it out like a thermometer. The inky water on the paper will tell you how close you are to having the pen clean. Then I resume flushing.

    The last source of ink is common to most fountain pens, and it is hard to clean without an ultrasonic or perhaps a little soaking. This is ink that wicks into areas outside of the normal flow of ink/water such as above the nib. There's nothing special about lever fillers in this regard. The thermometer shake with absorbent paper helps with this, I think.
    --
    Mike

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    Senior Member Cob's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    Quote Originally Posted by mhosea View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by tandaina View Post
    But I do not own an ultrasonic cleaner or anything like that so I'm sure there is occasionally a drop or two. Especially in say the old lever fillers, actually I think I'm going to sell off the majority of those I have left partly because they are such a pain to get clean. :\
    Here are a couple of tips for speeding up the process (also good for Vacumatics):

    1. After flushing the pen a few times, fill it with water and invert it. Shake it to get the water to the rear of the sac. Then flush normally again. The principle here is that water doesn't reach the back of the sac effectively, so you're just chipping away at what's back there unless you invert the pen to make the water get there. Using a surfactant (e.g. Kodak Photo-Flo) or a pen flush helps a lot, but you still need to invert the pen to clean the back of the sac if you want things to go as quickly as possible.

    2. Some inky water stays in the feed, so if you just flush, flush, flush, you're progressively diluting that. Consider removing more of it at intervals during the flushing. I need to make myself a salad-spinner centrifuge, but for now I just take a paper napkin, paper towel, or toilet paper, fold it and wrap the nib, feed, and grip section with it. Then I hold the pen and paper firmly while I shake it out like a thermometer. The inky water on the paper will tell you how close you are to having the pen clean. Then I resume flushing.

    The last source of ink is common to most fountain pens, and it is hard to clean without an ultrasonic or perhaps a little soaking. This is ink that wicks into areas outside of the normal flow of ink/water such as above the nib. There's nothing special about lever fillers in this regard. The thermometer shake with absorbent paper helps with this, I think.
    Hmm; I'm not sure, having read this marvellous contribution that my pens are all that clean!
    They are however a lot cleaner than some of the junk that I have bought...

    Cob

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    I clean the pens and include an open 2ml ink sample in the package (no extra charge!)

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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    Quote Originally Posted by ainterne View Post
    It wouldn't matter who I was selling to. I would make sure the pen was in the best possible condition when it arrived with the buyer. Why wouldn't anyone want that?

    I want the person that gets the pen to be pleased with it and happy with their purchase. Even if I was giving the pen away I would make sure its in the best possible condition. I think it's a reflection of my personal standards.
    ^^^^^This.
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    Default Re: Do you clean your pen before selling?

    This was an interesting thread that also turned into a learning's thread. Thanks all for your opinions and experience. I also probably have pens not as clean as I thought, I can be somewhat anal about things like this.
    Sandy
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