Giveaway: One New Nemosine Singularity Obsidian Demonstrator With F Nib

[A Smug Dill]

The giveaway offer: One new, never-inked and never-dipped Nemosine Singularity Obsidian demonstrator with steel F nib in its original retail packaging (with a compatible but no ink cartridges included), as it was supplied to me when I bought it from Pen Chalet late last year (for US$9 apiece); you pay for postage. I'll be sending it using a tracked parcel service from Australia Post, so that means A$8.55 for a flat-rate Parcel Post 500g satchel to anywhere in Australia; to anywhere else (including New Zealand), it'd be more than the price I paid for the pen in the first place.

 

The reason: Before I bought and used my first Nemosine Singularity pen, I was skeptical about how good the product is in spite of the 'accolades' online, on the basis that those declaring it great value for money seemed to predominantly be doing it from a (minority and biased) American perspective shipping charges (or lack thereof for US customers) were generally not factored into account when considering whether it's worth acquiring on its own, and I felt it wasn't pitched against other Taiwan-made or Chinese-made pens for shipping-excluded-pricing assessment of value for money. I bought my first Obsidian demonstrator from Pen Chalet on a lark, while I was ordering something else, so the marginal (international!) shipping cost for the unit was effectively nil, and I was delightfully surprised and positively impressed by it, and so I ordered a whole bunch more, with the intention of giving most of them away eventually.

 

 

Having been in that position myself, I understand a lot of would-be buyers among the majority of fountain pen users worldwide and certainly the subset in Australia may have baulked at shipping charges for a single unit (especially if bought directly from Nemosine.com) that is more than the discounted price of the pen. Especially now that Nemosine is moving away from selling its pens through retailers, and the Singularity has been discontinued as a model, those who want to try one cannot easily acquire one any more, and those who are already fans may also find it difficult to buy extra units. My previous attempt to buy one at a 'reasonable' price on eBay ended in frustration, a full refund and a pen that does not resemble or relate to a Nemosine Singularity in any way. (Yet another unused pen for me to give away separately, some other day.)

 

So especially in consideration of Australian fountain pen hobbyists I'm offering one of my surplus Nemosine Singularity Obsidian demonstrator pens as a giveaway, and you don't have to pay international shipping charges or a price for the product to get your hands on one; just what Australia Post charges as a minimum for its Parcel Post service. To be fair, if a New Zealander or UK resident wants it badly enough because it cannot be easily bought any more, I'll consider them on equal footing with anyone else who expresses interest in the offer, as long as I'm not wearing any of the postage charges to send it; the pen itself is my gift to the recipient, because one cannot just buy a new one these days easily even at the old retail price.

 

The selection process: I'll use a random number generator to decide randomly between all those who express interest and agree to pay for tracked parcel postage from Sydney, Australia for the item in this thread by 23:59 Australian Eastern Standard Time on 30 June 2019. If nobody expresses interest in this thread by that time, the offer will be withdrawn/cancelled.

 

Terms and conditions: The item is supplied as-is, in the retail packaging as it was supplied to me by Pen Chalet, with no warranty on my part, although Nemosine's own unique warranty code for the unit will be supplied on the slip inside the retail packaging. I'll check (and in fact, have already eyeballed through a magnifying visor) that the cap of the giveaway pen does not have cracks around the rim of the cap out of the box others have reported, but I do believe those cracks can develop with use, as they have on my aqua Singularity demonstrator. I will not be testing the nib on the giveaway unit before sending it off because it's brand new, but out of the (bottom four in the photo above) four Singularity pens I've inked and used (all with F nibs), none had a dud nib out of the box, and I'm happy enough with how narrow the lines they put on the page are. What I'll say is the plastic on the demonstrators are prone to scratching, and all of the caps of the demonstrators including the brand new ones shown have some visible micro-scratches on the inside of the caps on arrival, and so does the giveaway unit. Please pay the postage charges by PayPal to me before I send it; if tracking shows the package was never delivered to you, I'll refund you, since I'm not looking to pocket any of the money myself, but am in fact giving away with no strings attached what it cost me to acquire the pen in the first place.

 

Given the almost total lack of interest in my previous giveaway when I offered to pay for the postage, let's see how this PIF goes!

 

Edit: Added mention of Nemosine's unique warranty code inside the retail package

Edited June 22, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[InsaneRN]

Australia only?

I am sad.

[A Smug Dill]

I didn't restrict eligibility for this offer to Australian forum members only, but as I've pointed out, the onus will be on the recipient to reimburse me for postage, and Australia Post will charge more than the price I already paid for the pen itself to ship it internationally.

Edit: I just checked, and it'll cost A$22.95 to send from Sydney to the Philippines.

Nemosine is still selling directly its remaining stock of the discontinued Singularity pens in coral at a discounted price, with free international shipping (at least right now) for orders of US$100 or more, so if the goal is simply to acquire one unit of the Singularity pen (and not be picky about the colour, or whether it's a demonstrator), those outside of Australia could do better than paying Australia Post's international postage charges if they're able to put together a large enough order containing other Nemosine items.

Or maybe you could find some for sale on eBay, and have better luck than I did at actually getting the correct and genuine item delivered.

Edited June 22, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[InsaneRN]

Welp, if we go Economy Shipping (one option down, using the link above), it'll shave off nearly a third of the cost. The package will get held up here in Customs anyway (last time I got a package it was for nearly a month).


If there's no takers by the end of your deadline let me know and we can work out details.

Edited June 22, 2019 by InsaneRN

[A Smug Dill]

If there's no takers by the end of your deadline or if you have multiples and end up with leftovers, let me know and we can work out details.

 

As you can see in the photo, I have multiple brand new units of the Nemosine Singularity Obsidian demonstrator pen, but at this point I'm only offering one as a giveaway here on FPN. I have a whole box of other cheap (but good) new pens 'intended' as eventual giveaways, but I haven't decided when, how or to whom yet.

 

However, if the recipient is paying for postage, and I've made an undertaking to refund the postage if the item doesn't get delivered, I'm only going to be sending it tracked. Australia Post's Economy Air service does not allow for tracking. I'm not prepared to negotiate on that, sorry.

 

My objective, for this offer as well as my previous giveaway offer Muji A5 notebooks, for giving away new items is to offer a fellow hobbyist the wonderful user experience of a good product (of which I've used other units) that is quite difficult to source in current circumstances from a retailer, on the assumption that they would have limited opportunity to acquire it otherwise even if they're prepared to pay the (relatively) low asking/market price.

[InsaneRN]

Noticed that it was for a single pen and I edited before you posted. :-D

As for the rest, fair enough.

[Chaos-incarnate]

Yes please :-) I'll pay for postage if you like, I'll PM you

[A Smug Dill]

Chaos-incarnate, the Nemosine Singularity Obsidian demonstrator is yours.

 

I'll also send you some ink samples. We'll talk in PM about what else you'd like me to include in the shipment.

[Misfit]

For those interested, the Coral version is gorgeous. I really like mine.

[A Smug Dill]

Chaos-incarnate, your pen is now on its way to you, along with 2.5ml–3.ml samples of:

• Kobe INK Story #67 Ogo Farm Green
• Kobe INK Story #52 Shioya Vintage Sepia
• Robert Oster Dark Chocolate
• Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Bordeaux
• Rohrer & Klingner Helianthus
• KWZ Ink Honey
• Diamine (150th Anniversary) Golden Honey
• Diamine (Shimmering) Golden Sands
• Diamine (Shimmering) Caramel Sparkle
• Diamine (Shimmering) Brandy Dazzle
• Diamine (German market exclusive) Purple Rain
• Diamine (German market exclusive) Smoke on the Water

and a Muji A5 line grid notebook, in case you'd want to see how the paper performs compared to Rhodia and Tomoe River.

Enjoy! I'll PM you the tracking number.

[Chaos-incarnate]

Wow! That's awesome, thank you! I can't wait to receive this parcel :-)

[A Smug Dill]

@Chaos-incarnate, how's the pen working for you?

I inked up another one of the Nemosine Singularity Obsidian demonstrators for myself (since the first one ended up permanently joining my fiancée's fleet of pens) the other week, and reground the nib to put down finer lines. I'm pretty happy with the result, actually.

Now that Nemosine will cease being a brand active in the market shortly, I may have to reconsider what I'll do with the three remaining new units.