5 replies to this topic

[marcshiman]

I am referring to this auction

 

Um, yes - the price is a little ambitious. I saw these pens in Columbus, and depending on what you think of the big green hard rubber one, there are maybe $3k... maybe if you stretch it $4k worth of pens there. 

 

Our friend here was selling the big green pen for $3500. Since he's never seen one before, it must be a prototype (so says he). The orange-ish pen in the middle of the first shot is one that I have - I paid about $250 for it. Nice pen - very nice. But... not quite worth what he says.

 

I did buy from him a pen that is among my favorites in my collection - an Onoto Magna that I since had restored. very nice. But when I was asking about his olive and blue 94 ripples, he was shocked that I wouldn't offer less than $600 each for them.

 

This is what its like shopping for vintage Italian pens in Italy. Often at the shows, you see the same pens from the same dealers, with the same outrageous high prices and the same customers. We sip expresso, get a pizza... not conduct much business. 

 

So if you have $18,000 looking to find a new home, and you were just on the verge of clicking that buy-it-now, feel free to give me a shout first, and I'm pretty sure I can equip you with some pretty high quality pens too. 

Edited by marcshiman, 16 September 2014 - 05:46 PM.

[penpalace]

I saw the pens too Marc and they were nice, especially the green and yellow ripple pen. I have to admit if the pen had of been around half of its price it would have been tempting, now of course this is coming from someone that dabbles in Italian pens but they are not a core part of my collection, (to be honest I don't know that I have anything that's would be described as core to my collection).

 

I do know that while they are nice pens I still prefer my Colorado to any one of these pens, and I would sell it for 1/5 of the 18K these pens are listed at.

[marcshiman]

I admit the green hard rubber is unusual, but the others are really pedestrian. They would all go $300 - $700 each, and that takes into account the horribly inflated prices for Italian pens. The one good thing is that he has Tibaldi nibs in them, and those are very difficult to find. But they are discolored, and not really premium Italian pens, not even the best Tibaldi made. 

 

Methinks he is going to own those pens for a while.

Edited by marcshiman, 16 September 2014 - 11:40 PM.

[AltecGreen]

That's pretty optimistic.  Although I've seen worse pricing on some vintage American pens recently. 

[vintage penman]

With the way pricing seems to be going I'm out of the market entirely......except perhaps Wearever !

[RickB]

I believe I saw the same set (or something very similar) in DC - they caught my eye due to the remarkable similarity to Parkers of a similar vintage (out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a curious Deluxe Moderne and a bandless Victory).  It was a very brief conversation once I heard the selling price.

Edited by RickB, 21 September 2014 - 09:53 PM.