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Just spotted: Sailor TUZU ADJUST in Grey with F nib for AUD $36.06 (including 10% GST and delivery to Australia) on Amazon.com.au, sold and shipped by Amazon Japan. I already have one of those, for which I paid more earlier this year but fortunately can claim back the price difference (on account of price protection insurance). Still, I couldn't help myself but ordered another just now at that price, when it's such a good pen with which to penable someone.

Browsing on Amazon.com.au just now, in addition to the offer on Faber-Castell Neo Slim Aluminium fountain pens in Olive Green, which being recently new in the market, cannot be reasonably benchmarked against previously seen sale pricing, I see: Teranishi Chemical Industry (‘Guitar’) Taisho Roman Haikara Opera Rose ink, 40ml bottle, for $17.44 — certainly not groundbreaking in terms of low pricing, but I haven't seen it fall to or below that level in the past twelve months or longer Nakabayashi Yu-sari A5 blank notebook (with brick red softcovers) for $15.94 — the ship has sailed on being able to get these for less than $10 a long while ago now, and only the gridded notebooks (with blue softcovers) have been offered at lower prices than $15 in the past twelve months or so LAMY AL-star fountain pens in various colours, sold and shipped by Amazon Germany, around the $30 mark — again, not groundbreaking, and in almost every major sales campaign some LAMY AL-stars are offered around or below $35, but if there's a colour you like on offer, they aren't likely to go much lower, either coming from Germany or out of Amazon Australia's local stock, and doing much better than that will have to come down to clearance sales LAMY Safari Pink Cliff special edition fountain pen, F nib, for $30.40 Prices are in Australian dollars, inclusive of GST and free shipping due either Prime membership (specifically with Amazon.com.au) or reaching the order value threshold of $59 on goods from the Amazon Global Store. (I had a quick look, and it appears that even having $30 on Amazon Germany items and $32 on Amazon Japan items in the same cart qualifies.) I can't see much else of interest or astounding value to me personally at this point. Not only am I not that interested in the plain (or any, really) Sailor Profit King Of Pen models, I'm sure they have been offered for significantly less not so long ago.

Not nearly the cheapest price I've ever paid for a 40ml bottle of Teranishi ‘Guitar’ ink on Amazon.com.au (sold and shipped by Amazon Japan), but it is the cheapest price I can recall seeing Night Time Soda in the past year and a half:

This Prime Day deal just kicked in 60 minutes ago:

The Lamy 2000 in black (‘Makrolon’) with EF nib is currently being offered at AUD $201.84 (sold and shipped by Amazon Germany) on Amazon.com.au as a Black Friday deal. That works out to US$132.40. With the days of EndlessPens selling that pen model for just under US$100 long gone, it isn't a bad price, considering 10% GST and international delivery are included. EndlessPens is listing it at US$322 now, when I just looked; so, even if there was an unseen (by me, as I didn't sign in, and it's been a long time since I've been a ‘loyal’ customer with perks) 50%-off discount that could be applied, Amazon's offer is still cheaper. 9% of the Black Friday Deal has been claimed, when I refreshed the Amazon page just now.

The tea leaves, so to speak, have been suggesting that Amazon was gearing up for some products listed on Amazon.co.jp and sold by Amazon JP to be available for ordering on Amazon.com.au. A few weeks had gone by, but it finally happened! That means I can now order (for example) bottles of Sailor Ink Studio and packs of Sanzen Tomoe River paper on Amazon.com.au, and take advantage of free shipping on account of my Prime membership. Between that, and Amazon offering (effectively) a much better exchange rate than what XE.com tells me is current, makes it significantly more favourable economically, and with much less hassle, than shopping and ordering on Amazon.co.jp directly, which would still have been cheaper than buying from Australian stockists. Product returns would be hugely easier to deal with, too, should it be an issue. To give you a more concrete example, a ¥1,320 bottle of Sailor Ink Studio ink, with an incremental AmazonGlobal International Shipping (Standard) charge of ¥200, now only costs me A$13.42 all up to order piecemeal on Amazon.com.au. (XE.com tells me that ¥1,520 works out to A$16.56.) No more having to order in bulk to spread out the flagfall or basic shipping charge from Japan, which has increased several times the past few weeks and is now about ¥1,400. Right now there seems to be some IT issue that is causing a lot of the listed products apparently not available to order at first glance; but I discovered last night, after a lot of trial and error, that they can be successfully ordered — even if it seriously tested my patience and limits of perseverance. Incredibly, even some of the products that have stopped being available to me on Amazon.co.jp very recently are available (as sold by Amazon Japan) on Amazon.com.au, at prices I expect or even less. (As a result, I'm now $300 poorer.) Pricing fluctuations on Amazon.co.jp for those items are reflected directly here, as long as I'm still looking at what is sold by Amazon Japan (as opposed to the actual seller changing in what Amazon Australia presents to me).

I thought I snagged myself a bargain last week, when I ordered a Diplomat Elox Matrix on Amazon.com.au (sold and shipped by Amazon Germany) fitted with a steel EF nib; and it felt so ‘special’ that it was only the EF-nibbed variant (which is really the only one I'd want to write with) that was offered for as low a price as (the now-defunct) La Couronne du Comte would have offered me even with my unlimited-use personal discount code, then doubly so when the price shot up by over 36% shortly after I placed my order. Imagine my surprise, although not quite dismay, to see the same pen now available again for nearly 5% less again on Amazon just now.

There are a hand of last year's Platinum #3776 Century ‘Shape of a Heart’ limited edition (of 2000 units worldwide, if I'm not mistaken) fountain pens, in black and fitted with M nibs only, available on Amazon Australia's web site for ~A$304 at the moment, sold and shipped by Amazon Germany. Shipping is free to Australian delivery address. I checked on Amazon Germany's web site, and Amazon itself is listed as the seller, not some third party that the Amazon Global Store has obscured when viewed on the Australian-facing store. That price does not apply to the listings for units fitted with EF (~A$400) or F (~A$518) nibs. You may see minor adjustments to the price as a result of fluctuations in the currency exchange rate; but, as my experience as a shopper tells me, it could jump quite a bit as soon as one unit of it is sold at the low price. (Alas, the M nib is not for me… and I already ordered five new pens in the past 24 hours or so.) The model, upon release this time last year, was ¥31,000+tax. I recall some bloggers in the US mentioning they got the pen about US$312? It is not currently listed on Platinum Pen's website, so I cannot check how the general increase in the brand's retail prices effective 1 January 2023 may have affected it. (It wasn't in the list of pricing changes in last December's advance announcement, either.) Australian retailer Pen City's current price for the model is A$550.