Conid Pens

[mauckcg]

I have no doubt that their pen are better quality. If engineers are putting these pens together, they are doing it for the love of the pen and the quality. I see this as a fun project/hobby for them. I am more agreeing more and more with the person who went to their factory and made the comment above.

 

Thank you for the additional online stores.

 

 

Now, this has nothing to do with Conid pen.

 

For your information, based on my experience, "factory workers" and adding machinists can be highly skilled. 99.9% of products are produce by them and that includes high end luxury products. I would take their ability over most engineers in the production phase and further, I would listen to their input on improving any production line carefully. They can be highly innovative and improve processes. "Normal" factory workers can be trained and there are a lot of intelligent line workers. They see things that engineers will not see, because the line worker does it and breaths it everyday.

 

Engineers are not meant to be production line workers. This is a huge waste of talent/resources. They are meant to be developers. Otherwise a 4 years in a University is a colossal waste of time. I would never hire an engineer over a highly skilled machinist/line worker. It would be like hiring an engineer to fix my car. Not going to happen.

 

I would not be burying myself covering a bloated payroll. This only increases overhead and overtime, people expected pay raises. Never mind the cost of the product. Most companies who use this model will be out of business in a few years.

I had a great laugh at that. Management comes out of the line where i work. Our current Engineering Superintendent was my direct supervisor less than a year ago. Couple of years that could be me, though i don't think i want to try to heard that particular group of cats.

 

Probably close to 10 years ago, a car article i was reading had a very interesting ending. He had test driven a 1994 Porsche 911 Turbo S. New the car cost something like $160,000. The author tried explaining to a friend why he liked it so much. The friend after two or three attempts to explain, could not fathom wanting a car that cost as much as a nice house at the time. The authors ending thought went like this, it doesn't matter that you see the value or worth of a thing, some people just won't see it like you do. I think we have a case of this here. So Conid doesn't meet your price point, your customization point or anything else. Then by all means go buy a Montblanc or whatever else it is that meets your criteria.

[Krulle]

about the materials raising cost; yes, depends what you pick.

 

about the engraving; the cost would be mostly in the design of the engraving. The rest is just CNC-hours, and believe me, those things go fast. If they would hire a graphical designer for a few days to create some engraving options, this could yield some great options. But the question is then: would this option be chosen enough to earn back that designer.

They could also go the real custom way, and offer this as a EUR300-400 option to get a design that you propose.

 

About the tip options: You would be surprized what they can do with CNC machines these days

example:

Ok, it would easily add a few hundred EUR to the price tag, unless they offer more standard shapes

 

The jeweler thing: this would indeed increase the price tag a lot, especially if you add diamonds. But they could enter an entirely different market (Middle East, Asia) as well

 

 

 

 

 

[james3paris]

I had a great laugh at that. Management comes out of the line where i work. Our current Engineering Superintendent was my direct supervisor less than a year ago. Couple of years that could be me, though i don't think i want to try to heard that particular group of cats.

 

Probably close to 10 years ago, a car article i was reading had a very interesting ending. He had test driven a 1994 Porsche 911 Turbo S. New the car cost something like $160,000. The author tried explaining to a friend why he liked it so much. The friend after two or three attempts to explain, could not fathom wanting a car that cost as much as a nice house at the time. The authors ending thought went like this, it doesn't matter that you see the value or worth of a thing, some people just won't see it like you do. I think we have a case of this here. So Conid doesn't meet your price point, your customization point or anything else. Then by all means go buy a Montblanc or whatever else it is that meets your criteria.

Absolutely...it is all about perspective.

Edited December 29, 2017 by james3paris

[mana]

about the materials raising cost; yes, depends what you pick.

 

about the engraving; the cost would be mostly in the design of the engraving. The rest is just CNC-hours, and believe me, those things go fast. If they would hire a graphical designer for a few days to create some engraving options, this could yield some great options. But the question is then: would this option be chosen enough to earn back that designer.

They could also go the real custom way, and offer this as a EUR300-400 option to get a design that you propose.

 

About the tip options: You would be surprized what they can do with CNC machines these days

example:

Ok, it would easily add a few hundred EUR to the price tag, unless they offer more standard shapes

Making custom engraving (or quilloche) is not just machining hours. And a graphical designer to do the design work? Please, give me a freaking break...

 

As in, you need to pay for someone to:

1) design the thing (which is a thing on it's own and for anything more intricate it means hours and hours of work) and

2) make the CAD drawings for that which need to be...

3) turned into something that the CNC machine understands plus...

4) all the post production efforts...

 

As in, you need to machine it (provided it can be vs. something that is done by hand).

 

So it is very easily many, many of hours at 50€ to hundreds of € per hour unless it was a line item. Plus of course all the other work at a similar cost.

 

So yeah, not just "a few hundred EUR". You are severely discounting the work and the amount of effort involved to make a thing like that happen. Especially the design part which I quite frankly find somewhat offensive.

[james3paris]

Does anyone have an idea on how much it takes just in man hours to produce a pen like the ones Conid does? If they are indeed "made to order" it also means they haven't invested in the tooling and equipment to do mass/high volume runs (because it would easily run into six or seven figures with very, very long timetable to reach just 1:1 ROI and profit) so there is plenty of manual work involved in all of the separate steps that it takes to produce pens the likes they offer even if they machined the parts in small batch runs (which would be sensible).

 

And this line worker/engineer debate... plenty of "line workers" who do manual machine operation and production work in high quality small to medium sized companies like Conid are actually trained (certified) mechanical engineers. So it is not just assembly work or "guys/gals operating the CNC/lathe/extrusion machine". In Europe, most of the education is government supported so we have a flush pool of people who have a bachelors or even masters degree in engineering doing ops level work. As in actually operating the line/machines instead of just drafting/designing stuff.

 

Also, it is just not for the love of the craft or "fun" that these guys are doing it, it is a business and as such it has to make money. If it would hemorrhage money (operate at a loss) it wouldn't be operational for long. Knowing something of business and product design and how companies and operations of various sizes operate the prices that Conid charges are very reasonable.

 

 

You make some great points.

[james3paris]

I went to their site and got a small idea on how they make their pens.

 

 

http://www.conidpen.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=makingof

 

If it seemed that I was bashing the company, I was not. My business mind kicks in and I have to admit that I took it personal in regard to machinist and line workers. Personal reasons...leave it there.

 

The way I looked at it. As far as I am concerned, Conid determines their price point. Either I buy or I won't. Leaning toward buying one. Based on what I can see, they have an excellent product.

 

As for customization, I have really never thought about it, when it comes to pens. All I want is a good balance pen with a good nib. I need it to feel comfortable, because when I write, I have sitting sessions up to 3 hours. I know that it is high inefficient, but I don't care. However, I am one of those people who gets lost in my writing, escapism.

 

I love to write and I need to write. There is nothing better than to write with a good writing instrument and hearing the sound of the pen gliding on the paper.

Edited December 29, 2017 by james3paris

[Krulle]

Making custom engraving (or quilloche) is not just machining hours. And a graphical designer to do the design work? Please, give me a freaking break...

 

As in, you need to pay for someone to:

1) design the thing (which is a thing on it's own and for anything more intricate it means hours and hours of work) and

2) make the CAD drawings for that which need to be...

3) turned into something that the CNC machine understands plus...

4) all the post production efforts...

 

As in, you need to machine it (provided it can be vs. something that is done by hand).

 

So it is very easily many, many of hours at 50€ to hundreds of € per hour unless it was a line item. Plus of course all the other work at a similar cost.

 

So yeah, not just "a few hundred EUR". You are severely discounting the work and the amount of effort involved to make a thing like that happen. Especially the design part which I quite frankly find somewhat offensive.

why do you think I've visited them?

 

I know what these things cost ;-)

[mana]

My trust in a person who has overtly simple answers to very complex questions needs to be hard earned.

[Inkling13]

Making custom engraving (or quilloche) is not just machining hours. And a graphical designer to do the design work? Please, give me a freaking break...

 

As in, you need to pay for someone to:

1) design the thing (which is a thing on it's own and for anything more intricate it means hours and hours of work) and

2) make the CAD drawings for that which need to be...

3) turned into something that the CNC machine understands plus...

4) all the post production efforts...

 

As in, you need to machine it (provided it can be vs. something that is done by hand).

 

So it is very easily many, many of hours at 50€ to hundreds of € per hour unless it was a line item. Plus of course all the other work at a similar cost.

 

So yeah, not just "a few hundred EUR". You are severely discounting the work and the amount of effort involved to make a thing like that happen. Especially the design part which I quite frankly find somewhat offensive.

Truly offensive.

If you look at the crown, they don't show you the hours it took to carry out all those steps. Even just counting rough material, that crown took 60kg of material to yield a crown weighing a mere 1.9kg. The rest of it ends up as scrap. Time and thought go into the design, and I would be hard-pressed to say that the CONID pens are just a tube and nib. Every thread, ridge, and contour has had hours of thought put through it, prototyped, and created with the care that a pen crazy team only can provide.

[Mew]

Customisation on the Conid would take it to a price that would be hard to.. pay.

All new models go through hundreds of test for days. Yes, they are just previous models with a new material or design, but to make sure that the pen works properly, many tests need to done.

I know someone who had a custom pen made via them, a long time ago. Like their usual models only, but with a new material. The pen spends most of it's time traveling between Antwerp and the place where the owner lives. It just doesn't work properly and has many issues.

That may be one of the reasons that many of the prototypes never make it to full production.

[Krulle]

I'm not looking for someones trust here ...

 

my bottomline messages are:

 

1/ it seems to me a company with many in house capabilities, and good focus on quality

2/ given their in house capabilities, I think they can offer more customization.

 

 

you don't need to take my word for granted, visit them and form your own opinion.

[Inkling13]

I would not be surprised to find out that these pens are made to order. I have only heard of 3 people working on these pens, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are only 3. To have something that is distributed say like MB, you need to have a lot of overhead. Every unsold pen is resources and time sunk into something that may or may not be sold. That is money that could otherwise be used in R+D, or salaries, or other things. The same can be said about maintaining a library of so-called custom materials.

Either way, I think Conid is a VERY small pen company, likely the size of Edison pens, offering a mechanically complex and unique pen that is on par with those or even exceeds those from say Lamy, MB, and Pilot.

[james3paris]

I'm not looking for someones trust here ...

 

my bottomline messages are:

 

1/ it seems to me a company with many in house capabilities, and good focus on quality

2/ given their in house capabilities, I think they can offer more customization.

 

 

you don't need to take my word for granted, visit them and form your own opinion.

 

For the amount of time required for delivery, I agree.

 

"The standard delivery time of ordered products is 45 days from the moment of the acceptance of the order by Grocon and the receipt of payment. However, in certain circumstances, the delivery can take up to 120 days after the acceptance of the order by Grocon and the receipt of payment."

[james3paris]

I would not be surprised to find out that these pens are made to order. I have only heard of 3 people working on these pens, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are only 3. To have something that is distributed say like MB, you need to have a lot of overhead. Every unsold pen is resources and time sunk into something that may or may not be sold. That is money that could otherwise be used in R+D, or salaries, or other things. The same can be said about maintaining a library of so-called custom materials.

Either way, I think Conid is a VERY small pen company, likely the size of Edison pens, offering a mechanically complex and unique pen that is on par with those or even exceeds those from say Lamy, MB, and Pilot.

 

Thank you for introducing me to Edison Pen Company.

[james3paris]

Factory workers and adding machinists of Pelikan, Visconti and to an extent Montblanc give us complete BS. Is that the breathing you are talking of?

 

Edited to correct a typo.

Edison Pen

 

http://edisonpen.com/about-us