What Was Your Last Impulsive Pen Acquisition?

[Bikerchick]

Bought this on a whim last night (emphasis on "night", I should stop browsing eBay at 3 in the morning):



I already have a green one making its way here that I got at half the price, but with a busted nib. This one seems in decent condition, but what really sealed the deal was the new ink sac, not to mention that color. That COLOR. Ooooooh. 😍

[inkstainedruth]

Oh that IS an attractive color!  Good thing for my wallet I didn't see the listing....

Instead of trolling eBay last night I was trolling the Best Buy website pricing new laptops -- the current one is sort of on its last legs.  I had been hoping to coax it on a little further, but have had three sets of chat windows/phone calls with Apple Support since Monday (all different -- but possibly related -- issues).  

Guy in the shopping help chat window suggested I buy the less expensive 256 GB  memory model, and use my backup drive to hold excess stuff; but my husband thinks I should just go ahead and pay the extra and get the 512 GB memory one.  

Sigh.  I'd been HOPING to use my 3rd round stimulus money for pens....  

But if I do get the higher memory laptop, I'd only have about $75 left after sales tax to go pen shopping with....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[mizgeorge]

36 minutes ago, Bikerchick said:

Bought this on a whim last night (emphasis on "night", I should stop browsing eBay at 3 in the morning):



I already have a green one making its way here that I got at half the price, but with a busted nib. This one seems in decent condition, but what really sealed the deal was the new ink sac, not to mention that color. That COLOR. Ooooooh. 😍

That looks to be in immaculate condition - the same colour as my favourite one (but I had to fix mine up a bit!).

 

I'm pretty sure I know who you got it from (I'd recognise that photo setup anywhere!), so it will be beautifully packaged, with little goodies in with it!

 

(I'm a small hours of the morning shopper too!)

[Bikerchick]

6 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

Oh that IS an attractive color!  Good thing for my wallet I didn't see the listing....

Instead of trolling eBay last night I was trolling the Best Buy website pricing new laptops -- the current one is sort of on its last legs.  I had been hoping to coax it on a little further, but have had three sets of chat windows/phone calls with Apple Support since Monday (all different -- but possibly related -- issues).  

Guy in the shopping help chat window suggested I buy the less expensive 256 GB  memory model, and use my backup drive to hold excess stuff; but my husband thinks I should just go ahead and pay the extra and get the 512 GB memory one.  

Sigh.  I'd been HOPING to use my 3rd round stimulus money for pens....  

But if I do get the higher memory laptop, I'd only have about $75 left after sales tax to go pen shopping with....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

That's the problem with MBP: you can't upgrade your hard drive later, unless you want to replace the entire motherboard. So you're stuck with hard decisions during your purchase, when you're already forking over a big wad of cash. I wish Apple would still make upgradable MBPs. It's one of the many, many reasons I'm holding on to my dinosaur. 

As an IT person, I'm going to side with the Apple dude though. These days, external SSD drives are dirt cheap and about as fast as an internal drive. Unless you're planning on installing a gazillion applications, of course. 

[Bikerchick]

15 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

I'm pretty sure I know who you got it from (I'd recognise that photo setup anywhere!)

Hahahaha! You know you've been looking at eBay too often when you recognize the seller based on the picture. Although I must admit that he has a pretty recognizable setup.

15 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

so it will be beautifully packaged, with little goodies in with it!

Ooooooh, now I'm even more excited! 

[es9]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

because I paid cash got it for a whole whopping $8 US

 

That's a steal.  The metal content of the nib would've been worth more than that.

[Driften]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

Wow.  That's really pretty -- not normally a color I'd go for but that is really nice.  But I can't tell the size from the photo, and would be afraid of it being too big or heavy a pen for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

The model 19 is one of F-C's largest pens. Since it's acrylic isn't too heavy at 24g. The max body size is 15mm and tapers. The section is 10.7-12.3mm. The barrel to the tip of the nib is 129mm long.  

 

Their model 3 was offered in the same material and is a much smaller pen. In any case Franklin-Christoph is a great company to work with and allow you to use a pen for 30 days and still give a full refund or exchange for a different model or nib. I own eight of their pens and the model 19 was the last model I didn't have that I wanted.

[Geslina]

6 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Wow.  That's really pretty -- not normally a color I'd go for but that is really nice.  But I can't tell the size from the photo, and would be afraid of it being too big or heavy a pen for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

It’s a big pen!

[Geslina]

How is this for impulsive?  To be honest, I bought the Franklin Christoph on Tuesday, but it arrived today, so...

The other three, I just couldn’t decide.  Do I get the Pilot Custom 74 or the Pilot 823 or the Pelikan?  Or do I get the 74 AND the Pelikan, or do I just get the 823?  By the time I got to the store, I was thinking the 74 and the Pelikan - but in the end, I got all three.  Certainly impulsive, because getting all three was not in my game plan, and I just spent $175 on the FC.  And, of course, I spent another $75 on ink and notebooks...yikes!  
 

I’m feeling a little guilty, even though the seller gave me a good deal...and I would have bought them all eventually anyway, so what the hell!

[maclink]

14 minutes ago, Geslina said:

How is this for impulsive?  To be honest, I bought the Franklin Christoph on Tuesday, but it arrived today, so...

The other three, I just couldn’t decide.  Do I get the Pilot Custom 74 or the Pilot 823 or the Pelikan?  Or do I get the 74 AND the Pelikan, or do I just get the 823?  By the time I got to the store, I was thinking the 74 and the Pelikan - but in the end, I got all three.  Certainly impulsive, because getting all three was not in my game plan, and I just spent $175 on the FC.  And, of course, I spent another $75 on ink and notebooks...yikes!  
 

I’m feeling a little guilty, even though the seller gave me a good deal...and I would have bought them all eventually anyway, so what the hell!

Why congratulations on your new pens!!  We will surely not make you feel guilty about your new friends.  😈

[mizgeorge]

Why feel guilty if they make you happy. I just gave the same Pelikan to my daughter for her 18th and have now spotted it on amazon for a really good price, so I might have to have one myself. It is pretty...

 

It must be nice to go to a store. Even when our shops do reopen, there aren't any anywhere near me, so I'll stick to vicarious pleasure in other people's shopping! And of course a bit of online excess!

[A Smug Dill]

I couldn't be impulsive about getting the Pelikan M205 Petrol-Marbled even if I wanted to be, even if I knew from the first look that I gotta have it, because the retailer from whom I'm going to buy it doesn't have it in stock yet.

 

Now I'm just working on how to pad that order for free international shipping…

[Addertooth]

As hard as it is to believe, my last purchase posted here was in April of 2020, and that was a mechanical pencil (I still haven't found the matching fountain pen for that one).

This was not an impulse purchase, it was a panic purchase.   Years ago I bought a Faber Castell E-Motion in Black Parquet finish.   It was my every day carry workhorse pen.

I had plenty of other pens, but this one lives alongside a matching ball point pen on my work lanyard.  They get knocked around, and bumped.  They also get used everyday.

 

To make the story less long, the Fountain pen became separated from the lanyard, and is gone forever. I had tasks which each type of pen was used for. I felt short of a vital

tool when the pen went missing.  The pen was out of production; so it might be unavailable for purchase.  But I found an e-Bay vendor who had New Old Stock of the exact

same pen.  It was ordered ricky-quick (one remaining in stock), and it arrived a few days ago.  

 

These pens are in the category of a Faithful Dog.  They are some of the least ornate pens in my collection, but I had no fear of getting scuffs on them.. they could be used 

on a daily basis, which is what made them indispensable. The fountain pen is pictured above the mating ball point pen.  You will note the Parquet pattern is quite worn on 

the ball point pen.  It was even more worn on the original fountain pen which was lost. 

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

10 hours ago, Bikerchick said:

As an IT person, I'm going to side with the Apple dude though. These days, external SSD drives are dirt cheap and about as fast as an internal drive. Unless you're planning on installing a gazillion applications, of course. 

Well, I'm hoping that a newer OS will support Zoom so I don't have to depend on my husband running stuff for me on his work computer all the time.  Especially since he's gonna be laid up for a couple of MONTHS after the surgery he had today (so NOT the year to try digging up and replacing the soil in the rose garden; when it originally got put in, he was recovering from a rhinoplasty, and while he can now BREATHE, digging up several feet of "Pittsburgh clay by myself wasn't so good for my back -- and that was about a decade BEFORE I had the ruptured disc).  

Plus of course updates to my adblocker software, Malwarebytes and Ghostery.  I'd be more than happy to make Siri walk the plank into shark infested waters to make room if necessary....  and maybe also iBooks because I much prefer REAL books -- I'm less paranoid about accidentally dropping a real paperback in the bathtub.  I'd be PO'd about it of course, but I wouldn't run the risk of, oh, getting electrocuted (because electrocution doesn't sound fun at all...).  And I didn't really appreciate the person on the 3rd call to Apple Support in about two days try to proselytize for the iWallet app or whatever it's called, either....  Any more than the constant pressure I get from PayPal to link my checking account to my PayPal account [Uh, no....  Now what part of "No" did you fail to understand the FIRST eight times I said "Oh, no -- H#LL no!" on that plan?]

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[Sk33t3r]

3-Jinhao X750 pens from Amazon plus 100 ink cartridges to give to my co-workers and buddies!!!

[Geslina]

7 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

Why feel guilty if they make you happy. I just gave the same Pelikan to my daughter for her 18th and have now spotted it on amazon for a really good price, so I might have to have one myself. It is pretty...

 

It must be nice to go to a store. Even when our shops do reopen, there aren't any anywhere near me, so I'll stick to vicarious pleasure in other people's shopping! And of course a bit of online excess!

I don’t feel TOO guilty...just a little bit guilty.

was it the Pelikan in Pastel Green you saw on Amazon?  I’ve been looking, but didn’t see that particular color.  I was going to get one of the other colors, due to them being so much less expensive...but really loved the Pastel Green.

 

Yes, it IS nice to go to a store and be able to see in person before you buy.  It’s fun just browsing around.  This isn’t a full time store, though, just a space a local online seller has been renting out one weekend a month, since Covid and the cancellation of pen shows.  Now that the shows are starting up again, he won’t be doing the monthly thing 🙁.... I think he scheduled one more weekend.  I might go.  I told myself after today’s spending NO MORE PENS for a long time...but I saw an Esterbrook Peacock and the Platinum 3776 Nice in pink today, and I think those might be my next “impulse” purchases.

[mizgeorge]

5 hours ago, Geslina said:

I don’t feel TOO guilty...just a little bit guilty.

was it the Pelikan in Pastel Green you saw on Amazon?  I’ve been looking, but didn’t see that particular color.  I was going to get one of the other colors, due to them being so much less expensive...but really loved the Pastel Green.

 

Yes, it IS nice to go to a store and be able to see in person before you buy.  It’s fun just browsing around.  This isn’t a full time store, though, just a space a local online seller has been renting out one weekend a month, since Covid and the cancellation of pen shows.  Now that the shows are starting up again, he won’t be doing the monthly thing 🙁.... I think he scheduled one more weekend.  I might go.  I told myself after today’s spending NO MORE PENS for a long time...but I saw an Esterbrook Peacock and the Platinum 3776 Nice in pink today, and I think those might be my next “impulse” purchases.

Yes, the pastel green - they've got it for the equivalent of under US$100, which might be hard to resist for much longer.

 

I think your seller's idea is brilliant - and very sensible given the uncertainties we now live with. I still wish there was a b&m store I could go to though. Even just occasionally to get more of a 'feel' for things I'm coveting online! 

 

Luckily, most of my pens are vintage, and I quite like the gamble of buying them online and seeing what turns up.

[elton7033]

Over the years I learn to love the montblanc Hemingway and last week I click the purchase button...unfortunately the gold on the signature fade away which was not mentioned on the description.

[The Mustard]

It’s absolutely beautiful though Elton, congratulations on your purchase!

[como]

@elton7033I absolutely do not believe that this was an impulse purchase! 😀 But Congratulations!