What pen(s) are you waiting for in the mail?

[inkstainedruth]

Well, apparently going to be waiting a lot longer than anticipated for the Parker Vector "Flowers" pen.   Got email from the seller a couple of days ago -- the pen was returned to him as "undeliverable -- no such address".  So now I'm emailing back and forth with the eBay seller (who is in Europe and is a good seller) because neither of us knows what happened, and how the pen got misdelivered.  Not sure who's to blame -- eBay or DHL (he said today that he's waiting from a COUPLE of packages that DHL has apparently outright LOST, and their tracking system isn't working....

I was hoping I'd get the pen in time for my birthday (the economy shipping arrival were October 4-15).  Now?  Looking more likely to be CHRISTMAS.... 🤬

And the worst part?  Some DHL guy showed up my door a few days ago with a small package -- only it was for my next door neighbors (only he was at MY house because the street number was wrong, and they thought it wasn't for them) -- but I noticed the name on the label and said, "Oh, yes, that IS for them!"  

Sigh.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[welch]

Parker  65. Thought I had given up buying fountain pens, but the P-65 just took my fancy. 

[Skydiver]

@inkstainedruth: Advance happy birthday!

[Andy1883]

  On 10/11/2023 at 11:21 AM, Mark from Yorkshire said:

Please let us know when you get it. I tend to avoid lever fillers unless I get them from here www.vintagefountainpens.co.uk then at least I know they are working and have been serviced 

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Arrived this morning, Mabie Todd Swan 4260 'Torpedo', Swan 14Ct Gold No. 2 nib.  I flushed out the residual ink and then filled it with Diamine Black Onyx.  The filling mechanism seemed to work ok with a small turn of the of the nob at the end of the pen.  It writes very smoothly, if a bit wet with the Diamine.  As you would expect for an 80 year old pen, it shows some signs of use, but just needs a good clean and gentle polish. 

[N1003U]

My favorite retailer informed me that their Pelikan M600 Glauco Cambon pre-orders went in the mail yesterday. So I guess I am waiting on one of those in the mail.

[Andy1883]

Pelikan M150.  Another auction buy.

[Bo Bo Olson]

A good little pen, with the 'same' flex as the 200's nib. Regular flex/Japanese 'soft'. A nice springy comfortable ride. It will be tear drop tipped so you will have a nice clean line.

I have a black 150 and an Italian green bodied looks like the old 120 in color, Italian made 151.

Post it and it won't be too small. It is however thin.

[inkstainedruth]

  On 10/11/2023 at 11:36 PM, Skydiver said:

@inkstainedruth: Advance happy birthday!

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Thanks but my birthday was actually a couple of weeks ago, before the original estimated delivery date for the Vector "Flowers" (although I had hopes of it coming sooner).

DHL's attitude was "Oh, contact the seller" and I said "Okay, you people are MISSING THE POINT -- the seller contacted ME when the pen was returned to HIM as "undeliverable".  But given the doofus who couldn't apparently read the house # on one of the pillars at the end of my driveway, after being turned away from the house next door because HE had written down '88' instead of '86' I don't have a high opinion of your company or how you vet your employees to BEGIN WITH...."

I don't know who is more PO'd at the moment -- me or the seller (who is a GOOD GUY I've bought pens from before -- of course the last time was also pre-COVID, so supply chain issues (and similar types of FUBAR) are still rampant. 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Skydiver]

I'd be aggravated, too.

 

As I recall, to choose FedEx or UPS instead of DHL is a major price jump -- or at least it was when I tried last year to send a package with some custom bow strings that I made for a friend in Ireland. DHL got the package to him, albeit a week later than their estimate.

[inkstainedruth]

Well, this is the first time I've really had this issue (and the seller is in Europe, and I've never had this kind of problem with buying from him either).  I did have trouble a few years ago with IIRC FedEx (and ALSO with USPS) because people don't always bother to read the zip codes -- or there will be an "optical bar code" in addition to the printed one on envelopes).  A few years ago, when we were out of town, a package was left on our front porch, and our cat sitter brought it in without looking at the label.  But it wasn't for us -- it was for the same street address in a different town.  And of course it sat on our kitchen counter for several days before we got home (I hope it wasn't something perishable).  When I called them up, they said to just put it out on the porch and they'd pick it up in the morning....

We DID have trouble with UPS when we lived in Massachusetts, when a driver left a heavy (but fragile) package on the kitchen stoop in such a way that I couldn't actually OPEN the door.  Called them (they were in the next town south of us about 3-1/2 miles away!) and they said they had no way to contact the driver but would send him back out when he got back to their office.  The driver was SUPER PO'd about sent back out, BTW.  My attitude? Boo offing hoo....  (The item was a farrier's forge, because at the time my husband was trying his hand at blacksmithing, and had taken a couple of classes at Old Sturbridge Village, which was about an hour or so away from us.)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[txomsy]

Regarding the "in the mail" part...

 

It is difficult to tackle this without venturing into forbidden territory, but from a "stock market economics" point of view, investors want to increase their return every year. Companies in the stock market which do not, lose their investors in favor of faster growing companies, get de-capitalized and fail.

 

For an established large company that has grown to reach its maximum market share and that delivers state of the art items, checked by competition, there is little room for growth, and their only way to improve returns is to crack down on costs. Suppliers in the production chain cannot be controlled (only for some time, until you have found the cheapest suppliers and squeezed them to the limit), cutting on maintenance is an option only until it gets so blatant you start losing customers, so in the end it means cutting down on staff (hence the current infatuation with AIs as if they were a one-size-fits-all silver bullet). Innovation should be a solution, but it increases costs, does not deliver short-term benefits and demands managers who understand in depth the application field (not just business management), which are the exception for that implies personal investments on the part of BA's which most are not willing or able to do.

 

So, they get rid of professionals, hire untrained people, go down to trainees, and squeeze until they cannot find anyone cheaper, and then something more, at which point human nature unavoidably kicks in (if it did not earlier) and workers start thinking that if their employer does not care for them, why should they care for their work.

 

And you get what most large companies are now.

 

At the origin is the demand for larger returns, which is disconnected from company management as investors do not give a dim for where their money goes, or how it is used or what for, only the profits matter.

 

Which is also imposed by a disconnection as most investors (e.g. banks, brokers, etc.) work for clients (us) they do not even know, who do not even know (nor have way to know, nor care) where or how their money is used as long as they (us) get their (our) due interest rates/investment profits.

 

In the end, we only have ourselves to blame for the current status of things.

 

"Non-stock market economics" is another story, with many parallels, but leads to the same final conclusion only through different, potentially problematic if discussed, pathways. Let's say few among us are totally altruistic and we get what we ask for (only sometimes the connection is indirect and not evident).

 

But we left B&M shops "for good" to reduce our own costs not having to add to a pen cost that of paying for the living of the shop owners, didn't we?

 

Me, I only get in the mail vintage pens, for they are almost impossible to find otherwise here. For current pens I prefer a B&M shop, where I can see them, lust after them, and make a better informed (and much impulsive/emotional/satisfactory) decision, even if that sometimes means waiting for a trip so I can go to an airport shop or a B&M in another country. But vintage... no flea markets with FPs around, no sellers of vintage pens... those I must get from eBay or other online sellers much to my regret, anguish, and risking they won't match my expectations.

 

That said, the last one I got in the mail was a lacquered Aurora Hastil, with a rotating nib and a nipple that for some reason refuses to take Trik-Trak converters. Took an unusually large time to arrive too. I'm pondering how to fix the (badly) rotating nib. But the seller mentioned it (so, no complain) and it was a great price -worth tweaking if I can think of a workable solution. Did I mention I prefer B&M shops?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Txomsy, just copied that to a brand new file in word.

Where did you study economics?

Excellent Economics 303....after that it gets into Harry Potter math on a blackboard.

 

Quite good, nail after nail hit well.

[txomsy]

Thanks for the kind words. I am just old enough to have thought out about human nature.

 

I remember getting given the draft of an economics book as a present in around the 90s and thinking to my self that economists had too simple models that projected tendencies but ignored human nature. 

 

That was shortly after Nash had been awarded the Nobel prize (and a friend of mine had published a best-seller book on Game Theory). This got me interested in Game Theory and how it allowed one to factor in subjective interests (I applied it to study the evolution of antibiotic resistance)... and it opened an all new way to think about problems.

 

Give or take a handful of decades thinking about life and you end up with what I hope might potentially be common sense conclusions. My only confidence on them is they match traditional grandma's advice, so most likely many others have reached similar conclusions before.

[Bo Bo Olson]

  On 10/14/2023 at 11:46 AM, txomsy said:

is they match traditional grandma's advice

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Bankers don't like production management in it is cylindrical growth cycles. It is unsafe to the bonus.

Lemon tree management is safer, first one squeezes all the lemons, and plants no seeds. Then shred the tree for mulch, as the manager moves on and the bank sells the stock. Someone buys it up to sell the land under it....safe and sure bonus money.

 

 

 

[Chouffleur]

  On 10/14/2023 at 11:46 AM, txomsy said:

My only confidence on them is they match traditional grandma's advice

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Her grandma knew a thing or two as well, “Don’t eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” - Michael Pollan

 

Astonishingly, as time goes by I find that both of the old girls (long since passed on) get smarter and smarter.

[Radius Solis]

  On 10/13/2023 at 9:15 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Well, this is the first time I've really had this issue (and the seller is in Europe, and I've never had this kind of problem with buying from him either).  I did have trouble a few years ago with IIRC FedEx (and ALSO with USPS) because people don't always bother to read the zip codes -- or there will be an "optical bar code" in addition to the printed one on envelopes).  A few years ago, when we were out of town, a package was left on our front porch, and our cat sitter brought it in without looking at the label.  But it wasn't for us -- it was for the same street address in a different town.  And of course it sat on our kitchen counter for several days before we got home (I hope it wasn't something perishable).  When I called them up, they said to just put it out on the porch and they'd pick it up in the morning....

We DID have trouble with UPS when we lived in Massachusetts, when a driver left a heavy (but fragile) package on the kitchen stoop in such a way that I couldn't actually OPEN the door.  Called them (they were in the next town south of us about 3-1/2 miles away!) and they said they had no way to contact the driver but would send him back out when he got back to their office.  The driver was SUPER PO'd about sent back out, BTW.  My attitude? Boo offing hoo....  (The item was a farrier's forge, because at the time my husband was trying his hand at blacksmithing, and had taken a couple of classes at Old Sturbridge Village, which was about an hour or so away from us.)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

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You are as lucky as how competent mail folk is. When I was into banknotes via eBay, there was a woman at post office sending all mails with "United States of America" to "United Kingdom" the moment she sees the word United. Thanks but no thanks to her several mails of me went to UK then UK folk kindly removed banknotes from the mail and forwarded empty mail to USA as a professional courtesy 🎉 

 

After finding out that practice, now I dictate the country no matter how obviously it is written on the mail.

[inkstainedruth]

  On 10/14/2023 at 9:37 AM, txomsy said:

Regarding the "in the mail" part...

 

It is difficult to tackle this without venturing into forbidden territory, but from a "stock market economics" point of view, investors want to increase their return every year. Companies in the stock market which do not, lose their investors in favor of faster growing companies, get de-capitalized and fail.

 

For an established large company that has grown to reach its maximum market share and that delivers state of the art items, checked by competition, there is little room for growth, and their only way to improve returns is to crack down on costs. Suppliers in the production chain cannot be controlled (only for some time, until you have found the cheapest suppliers and squeezed them to the limit), cutting on maintenance is an option only until it gets so blatant you start losing customers, so in the end it means cutting down on staff (hence the current infatuation with AIs as if they were a one-size-fits-all silver bullet). Innovation should be a solution, but it increases costs, does not deliver short-term benefits and demands managers who understand in depth the application field (not just business management), which are the exception for that implies personal investments on the part of BA's which most are not willing or able to do.

 

So, they get rid of professionals, hire untrained people, go down to trainees, and squeeze until they cannot find anyone cheaper, and then something more, at which point human nature unavoidably kicks in (if it did not earlier) and workers start thinking that if their employer does not care for them, why should they care for their work.

 

And you get what most large companies are now.

 

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Interestingly enough, a friend of mine just posted a video (I think by Robert Reich) about how (at least here in the US) we're coming into a modern take of "The Gilded Age".  And not in a good way, either....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

  On 10/14/2023 at 3:49 PM, Radius Solis said:

 

You are as lucky as how competent mail folk is. When I was into banknotes via eBay, there was a woman at post office sending all mails with "United States of America" to "United Kingdom" the moment she sees the word United. Thanks but no thanks to her several mails of me went to UK then UK folk kindly removed banknotes from the mail and forwarded empty mail to USA as a professional courtesy 🎉 

 

After finding out that practice, now I dictate the country no matter how obviously it is written on the mail.

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YIKES!  I hope that woman got fired.  I don't suppose there's any way to track down the people stealing the money.... 

Recently we had the problem of a couple of bills not reaching their destination (including to the company we have our homeowners insurance and car insurance through).  We had stopped the mail while we were on vacation, and the bills then were delivered to us late after the mail started back up again.  The insurance company was threatening to CANCEL both policies out from under us.  My husband had to pay by credit card over the phone.  We THEN got a notice (dated the same day we got the email notification) that the policies would be cancelled and I had to call the insurance company to say "Wait -- we PAID that!"  And the guy I talked to made noises about how those notifications were sent automatically even though we had paid.  So when we got the new bill last week, I paid it ASAP even though technically we were paid up by then....  At this point, I don't know if the original check was delivered and deposited by them.  And if we contact the bank to stop payment, it's something like a $50 US fee.... 

I've had bloody war the past several years with some guy who I think is the local Postmaster's BOSS every time there's a problem -- and he's just a complete and utter jerk.  I've tried calling the Postmaster, only to get ringing with no sort of way to leave a message (which is leading me to suspect that there ISN'T one).  And a number of years ago a friend told me that the regional president of the organization I belong to told her that I wasn't a paid member (!) -- apparently the monthly newsletters were being sent to the OTHER zip code, even though they had printed barcodes on them, and were then being sent back to the organization's headquarters in California.  This ended up involving several long distance calls to there (where they extended membership to an inconvenient time).  I had trouble with some twinkie in the Post Office, who blamed it on our then local mailman.  Who came to the door to show me that there was not only a printed barcode, but also an OPTICAL barcode.  After about 3 rounds of this, I contacted a postal INSPECTOR, and showed her the stuff I was supposed to be getting (and thank the LORD that I had paid extra for 1st Class postage on the newsletters -- which I had done early on because when sent 3rd Class postage, I'd miss finding out about events, it was so slow that I'd missed the events entirely).  Of course NOW, I don't see the newsletters at ALL, because they switched over to having them online -- even though they did that before my last membership renewal, and I SHOULD have still been getting the paper ones I'd paid the extra postage for.... 🤬

My one brother-in-law is postmaster in a small town in Massachusetts, and *he's* the one who originally tipped me off about talking to a postal inspector, when we were living up there and regularly getting mail for some guy who lived several blocks away.  The ONLY thing the same about the two addresses was the house number and the town and zip code -- different names, different streets. 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[VacNut]

Chilton Wing Flow from the EU. Great condition with the inlays in an arrow pattern. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

In the EU we have Bank Wire** that don't cost more than a check, and none of this $50 stop fee.

That is new...at least to me, but I closed out my Stateside banking some 15 years ago.

 

A number of years before when I did a Bank Wire to the states it cost me $35.....So I imagine it would be $50 now. TG for paypal..