Greg Minuskin Service. NG.
I’ve heard the horror stories about Greg and admit I found him really blunt and unpleasant to deal with but I mostly was pretty happy with my purchases from him. Not all was roses but the success rate was fairly high. I mostly got good pens from him and occasionally great ones.
Yes there was the occasionally bafflingly measured nib but mostly you paid (and I mean you paid immediately. holy cow) and got your pen. Once or twice he awarded me a pen and then had to take it back (no apology or admission of error), okay whatever, wires get crossed. So he isn’t perfect, and isn’t pleasant to deal with. But that’s okay, he’s selling me a pen, not marrying into the family.
I did occasionally get bum pens, two stand out. Both very poorly plugged Sheaffer vac-fils that crapped out quickly. I subsequently restored them elsewhere (a story for another day/post).
Truth be told I got about 15 pens total from him over the last 4 years or so and was happy with most of them. A couple are amongst my best pens and I think his stub grinds are very good indeed and I know that he hacks the feeds sometimes to adjust for flow, so you usually end up with a nice nib cut and good juicy ink flow. He isn’t a pen restore person, he’s a nib tech, so yeah. That is the main thing you go to him for. But he does sell pens.
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So now we come to the present predicament. I bought a Waterman from him. User grade. Some cosmetic issues but a decent price on a pen I always was curious about so I raised my hand. He told me I was second in line. The first person backed out, he did his usual bothersome “waiting for your prompt payment” deal and I paid. The pen came (he ships pretty quickly) and I soaked it some water quickly, rinsed everything out, filled it and was off to the races.
So issue one:
It is just a F nib. He advertised it as a .7mm signature (implied stub since that is how that word is always used, but he doesn't say it). It isn't at all it is a round nib. Let's be honest, we all know what happened here. He got one of these in a pile, figured he could flip it. Looked at it for a few minutes, seemed like it was okay, took some pictures and threw it on his site. His listing implies (esp. given the context) that he did nib work on it. He didn't. It is a bone stock F nib. Not stubbed, but re-tipped, not ground.
Then:
The pen had ink starvation issues. It wrote great for a paragraph and then dried up. You can prime the feed and all is good again but in a paragraph or two you have to prime the feed again. So that sounded like it was not really clean. Further violet ink was all over my hands. I put blue ink in it and this is that classic old Waterman Violet … at this point I am not sure why it is on my hand but what starts now is 4 days of distilled water and endless violet ink.
After 4 overnight soaks I let it dry, put it together again, ink up and the same story. Unbelievably there is violet ink all over my hand still and I look and can actually sort of see the ink oozing out of both ends of the section, where the section connects to a brass collar that connects the section w/ the barrel of the pen and at the end of the section where the lacquered brass section meets the collar that holds the nib and feed (This is a Waterman man 100 style pen).
So very very clearly this pen is leaking. I do not know how to make it not leak, it does not appear to be screw together and despite warm water soak it isn’t an easy friction fit. So I begin to think, yeah I need a pro to look at this. Let me see if Greg can repair it or if it can’t be repaired I can get a credit. Not a refund, a credit. I don't even mention that the listing was misleading, that the nib is not stubbed, and that the pen has ink starvation issues. I mention only that is is leaking.
The emails that transpire are frankly hard to believe. Passive aggressive, insistent about things he couldn’t possibly know about on my end. Just insane. He claims it is impossible that the pen was not entirely clean and not leaking when he sent it to me. I 100% swears there is no way violet ink is coming out of the pen, impossible he says. Then he says he will not take the pen back but initiate a postal investigation since it is impossible he sent me a messed up pen and if there is a problem it must have happened in transit. He will call the post office and start a claim and postal people will come to my house. I will have to show them the packaging. If the claim is settled in my favor then I must ship the pen back to him and there will be a 15% restocking fee. I live 7000 miles away. The pen was not damaged in shipping in a way that was at all visibly verifiable. The restocking fee and the return shipping are already probably half the value of the pen.
All of this is to say that Greg will pretty much not take returns. He puts up as many barriers as he can so that you can’t return the pen, disputes you every step of the way, even about things he can’t possible see happening in your house from his. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you are a many many time repeat customer, sang his praises all over the net, sent him a written thanks that he then posts to his site (he asks you first, thankfully) he is determined not to take the pen back.
Really super unhappy. Making it worse is he is pretty much one of only 3 people on the globe who does what he does so I hate to burn bridges.
I guess I am done. If I buy 10 -15 pens from someone over a period of many years and JUST ONCE get a pen I really feel I need to return, I want to know I am not going to get shit all over.
So be warned. You buy a pen from Greg, you roll the dice. Mostly, it will work out, but if you get that one in 10, 15 that goes south you are stuck with it. He isn’t taking it back. No matter how good a customer you are.
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Re: Greg Minuskin Service. NG.
Originally Posted by Deb
I really hope we see a happy ending for this. This has to be an easy fix for someone out there that thrives on perplexing problems.
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