opus7600

All I need to do now is hold out for another 10 days...

Probably customer service, or, to be precise, their response when they make mistakes.  I've dealt with some who went out of their way to make me happy after providing an imperfect product, and I've had one notable experience where the person responsible refused to admit the problem, blamed me, refused to make any reasonable accommodations, then sent out email to other repairpersons claiming I was trying to scam him.

Cap top shows celluloid degradation?

Tricky question. I will preface this by mentioning I am not an insurance agent and I only offer this as advice for further investigation, especially because I give this information from a U.S.A. point of view.

Most insurance companies I'm aware of don't have any awareness of fountain pens. Depending on how customer friendly your carrier is, you might or might not get full coverage for loss of pens under Coverage C of your typical Homeowner's policy. It depends on whether or not the adjuster thinks they fall into one of the categories with a sublimit imposed. I'd guess the most likely sublimit to impose would be Jewelry, though Fine Art might be an option, too.

You can ensure you get full coverage by buying an endorsement to specifically cover your pens. There are two options. The first applies if you have a large value for the total collection, but the value of any individual pen is not too great. This type of coverage is called "Increased Special Limits of Liability" or ISO endorsement HO 04 65. This does not always require an appraisal. The second applies for the situation where you have individual pens with large value. You'd need to get a Scheduled Property endorsement (ISO HO 04 61), which nearly always requires an appraisal, and for particularly large value items, the insurance company may take a keen interest in making sure the items actually exist and that you are treating them well.

I don't imagine I know the answer for the question of making this place less intimidating, but I can say I sincerely doubt you *really* want that to happen. Having Brandon around has been super fun for all y'all, now that it's clear he's either unwilling or incapable of learning, you've got a little catnip mouse to bat around. But imagine 10 of them. Or 100. Or 77,000. Yes, not everyone will be as clueless as he is. But surely he is not too much more than one standard deviation below the mean.


No, enjoy the rarefied air here. I do, honestly, I do. But understand that there's some training required before you can breathe up here.