I observed the same thing, which prompted me to ask in this thread: https://fpgeeks.com/forum/showthread...An-Observation
I observed the same thing, which prompted me to ask in this thread: https://fpgeeks.com/forum/showthread...An-Observation
724Seney (April 22nd, 2022)
I’ll answer vintage questions as they appear though I’m less inclined to play if it seems like the answers are being ignored.
As to pricing on sone pens, I’ve noticed a few sellers capitalizing on new to the hobby buyers with glamorously overstated and often inaccurate descriptions bordering on lies with unreal high prices. Sadly I think the sellers usually don’t know much more than the unsuspecting buyer.
The end result is the buyer gets taken and swears off vintage pens.
One of my favorites of recent were a pair of dirt common Waterman Ripples at high retail for Cardinal pens that had obvious condition issues and faults. My comments were summarily dismissed and I was told I don’t know much about these pens.
Same person told a club member Sheaffer pens are known to leak and it is accepted that they do. Intervention did get the buyers money returned. But said buyer isn’t so interested in vintage now.
eachan (April 23rd, 2022), Jon Szanto (April 22nd, 2022), welch (April 26th, 2022)
Agree 100%+++ about buyers getting ripped off "with glamorously overstated and often inaccurate descriptions bordering on lies with unreal high prices." Just egregious & infuriating. It gets worse & worse.
Can you please provide a link to the site / place where the Ripple conversation took place and your comments got shut down?
Facebook and Slack.
724Seney (April 22nd, 2022)
[]I’m pretty sure prices for pre-sixties ( just to name a few..) have been going up and up. I have had a 'buying filter' that cuts in when I go ..
WTH !! That’s ridiculou$ … and that filter has been going off more and more for ages.
Ripple Watermans seem to have gone totally ballistic… and nibs are mostly crazy prices now.
Add 'flex' to your listing , even if it seems you have no idea what it means, and you can double your price it seems.
Don’t know if I’m allowed to post this pic, and …shame on you if it’s yours ! But …….
ATTACH=CONFIG]69281[/ATTACH
It's mostly unrestored Mabie Todd pens that I buy and the prices have risen steeply over the last couple of years. It doesn't seem to be due to a shortage of these pens; there are plenty around. My guess would be that there are more people buying to restore, whether for themselves or for sale. Anything out of the ordinary is often presented BIN in eBay with a ridiculous price. Checking the "sold" listing in eBay indicates that those things hardly ever sell, whereas anything labelled "flexible" with a very steep but not utterly ridiculous price does sell.
It's good that vintage pens are reaching their true value. Many are at least the equal of any modern pen. Some are superior.
Robalone (April 23rd, 2022)
All you need to do to bump your sale up into the "utterly ridiculous" range is to label the nib "wet noodle."
There are some young, inexperienced entrepreneurs who have figured this out and they are making a killing right now on eBay.
There are some examples of pens which they've purchased (on eBay) for a reasonable price and then, in less than a week, sell it for an outrageous sum of money. All they do it is dress up the sales post narrative and use the term "wet noodle" in it a few times.
As best as I can discern, they are terrific marketers but they have no ability to restore / repair..... other than some very elementary tasks like clean & polish. Some of their flips don't even get that.....just a new narrative and a new price.
I suppose one could make the case if there is someone stupid enough to be willing to pay their prices, why not do it? After all, there is nothing illegal about what they are doing....... But, it sure is annoying!
eachan (April 23rd, 2022), Jon Szanto (April 26th, 2022), Robalone (April 23rd, 2022)
It does surprise me that what seems to be an increasingly popular sales ‘gimmick' as has been pointed out, …..the WetNoodle nib angle, is actually working to hyper inflate prices, when the users it has to be aiming at are , I would surmise, in a fairly small ( if not huge !!) minority.
If used carefully,with a very light hand, one of these nibs will produce a serviceable, wet line , depending on the width of its grind.
But one has to be extremely careful…..and if that was all one was wanting to do, it begs the question…why spend what has become an exorbitant amount of money on a 'noodle' when there are much cheaper and far more easily available semi flex or even just a softish fine/ medium nibs.
It takes quite a practiced hand to exploit the potential of these nibs, and usually even this has to sit on top of a desire to achieve script that is much more than just the odd shopping list, or letter dashed off .
Even more that just the writing that an expressive soft , semi flexible nib can achieve, there must be a desire to take one’s script to almost a calligraphic extreme… albeit not necessarily to the medieval or diploma degree.
And one wonders just how big the demographic is , of folk that want' wet noodle' nibs for these reasons.
Attachment 69389
Not sure why this didn’t show …..
My point, for what it’s worth, is there doesn’t really seem to be much point in buying a 'wet noodle', if one doesn’t want to try writing in a similar manner.
Last edited by Robalone; April 27th, 2022 at 04:10 AM.
Hmm, interesting point.
I have a few nibs that I would have classified as simply very soft, but which don’t spread that much.
I imagine that distinction is not as well known to many ….or, was it just me..
I not eat the stuff but I take boiled pasta to pen shows that I can drive to. TSA is just to much to deal with when flying.
Some terrific information in these past few threads....IMO, exactly the reason for a place like FPG and I am grateful.
The sad fact is the current group of inexperienced, unknowing sellers who are hawking their "wet noodles" on a daily (if not multiple times per day) basis have no clue as to any of this.... They force their nibs to do egregiously bad things, in the name of demonstrating "flex," in order to get a photo of the abused nib's spread tines and/or with their caliper next to the line laid down by the nib. It is a shameless, sophomoric, money making scheme which preys upon those who know enough about fountain pens to know what they think will impress their friends when they pull it out of their fancy pen case but not enough to know that they are throwing their money down a rat hole. With so many terrific role models in this hobby, they decide to idolize people like the guy who lists his #7 Pink nib for $1,500.
fountainpenkid (April 28th, 2022)
Forum websites have a goldilocks principle. If the forum goes too small and dies completely, good information can be lost when it goes down. I've used old threads on several boards for researching some very helpful information. On the other hand, if a forum is too successful, there is an influx of members whose posts tend to bury the most valuable ones with one-off "what is this worth", "am I paying too much", "I found this old bic pen" kind of thing. The good stuff then gets buried in superficial stuff.
Fountain Pen Board was a good site and had some nice information. The people there knew a lot about vintage pens. Lion and Pen was also very good. Pentrace had a lot to offer as well. I look on Fountain Pen Network as a cautionary tale where a forum outgrows itself and becomes somewhat mismanaged. I don't do a whole lot in the Facebook groups or on Instagram - too many platforms to chase with all that. After 25 years of mucking around with fountain pens, I've kind of settled into daily users and a solid but not extravagant collection.
The points about glamorized and overpricing pens or arguing and turning people off are spot-on. I can think of at least a few sellers who fall into that category. They sometimes cross the line from puffery to outright BS.
724Seney (May 13th, 2022), dneal (May 13th, 2022), eachan (May 13th, 2022), Jon Szanto (May 13th, 2022), kia (May 16th, 2022)
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