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.

I think I have seen it written elsewhere that FPN is the 'elevator music' of online pen discussion and this sums it up perfectly. There are no doubt thousands of FPN members who hold no strong opinions and will never fall foul of the admins - accordingly, they will be happy with their experience. Personally, I hate elevator music.......

Jon & Hugh (especially) despite their experiences have generously expressed the opinion that they hope FPN recovers from all this. I'm not so sure - though I have personally been affected less, and a long time ago, I obviously feel a very much greater sense of indignation. As I said above, I hate elevator music - to me, complete silence is preferable!

Andy

Maybe. Or maybe it's useful to think of it as the light beer that serves as the gateway drug to the mainline speedball represented by this forum. I don't presume to think I belong here, yet, maybe ever. You guys are way too intense. But at least I can read the conversations and find some of the points interesting, thanks to the background I had gotten from reading lots of FPN. If this had been the only option when I was even more of a noob, I doubt I'd have bothered to stick around.

If you have any of these, send me a PM and hopefully, we can work out a deal.

I live in Canada so I am willing to pay extra for the shipping.

I am looking for:
Montblanc 146 or 149
Pelikan (400s, 600s, 800s, or 1000s)
Waterman Expert Precious
Lamy Dialog
Namiki Metal Falcon
TWSBI (Vac 700 or Micarti)Franklin Cristoph 27 or 29

Is what he was trying to say.

Looks to me like the seller used a photo editor to bump up the contrast a LOT to try to make the "bronze" part of the material more obvious. I expect that In real life, the contrast will be less pronounced.

I think the Wall Street LE (the Double Reserve Power Filler model, versus the C/C version) would be my candidate. It came in striped celluloids very reminiscent of Vacumatics, in Grey, Red, Blue, and Green.

I like how the "BEAUTIFUL CONTRAST OF THE BURGUNDY, GREAN AND PEARLESCENT STRIPING" is extolled as a good thing. I'm sure if the celluloid were crazed it would be even better for the additional contrast.

with the high tech octagon barrel

Really? I was under the impression they had six sides.