PEN NEWS Late Quarter 2017
Hello New Zealand
My big achievement during the winter was to reinstate my trademe auction offers. And that was about it. Little did I know in moving, I would discover many new things to distract me and the weather warmed into the Spring, it got harder and harder to concentrate on routines, like posting pen news on the blog. I have been on mental holiday, there is no other excuse. Blame the fishing and yard's grape vine and the fruit trees and planting veggies for the table. I have been delinquent in the most distracting way ...
Now it's suddenly almost the holidays and with the slow boat express, otherwise known as international shipping and delivery, time is quickly going to run out! But I can say that I did get myself in gear and I have listened to loyal customers in what they are searching for and so for the pre-XMAS shopping I am going to be able to offer both new ideas and some good old favourites that I had thought to be priced out of reach. Just going up at the end of this report is the return of what I believe to be the BEST modern aerometric fountain pen at any price. Mainly because that price is so good for what you get. The HERO #565. This was a sleeper model, it's a slightly modernised homage to the Parker 51. Instead of sticking to the Parker Arrow clip and cap the #565 uses a more modern and frankly HERO styled chrome steel cap. A softer round bullet end, less apt to catch. Inside it's the classic Aerometric nib, feed and internal collar, that keeps the covered nib wet and ready to write. The design that Parker revolutionised and Hero keeps making, because it's a great fountain pen system. Now Hero makes more clone like models, The 616 and the new 616/2. The Demi #366 which are all nice pens, but quite low end. The #565 always was a tier higher, while avoiding the gold nib and features that come with the Hero 100C which is more expensive and closer to what the original Parker Pen tiers were constructed. Basically the #565 had all the features of a pricer pen, but still in the budget range. The nib while steel is very popular because of it's wider line. It is closer to a Medium than a Fine. Generally it's sold as a Fine, but looking at the nib you see it's wider and it has a bit of flex to the steel tines as well. It's modern in that the pen body is oversized in diameter to the older Parker copy models. It doesn't have as sharp a radius and is more of a torpedo shape at the ends. Along with the bullet ended cap, it's still a nice retro look and feel and is a great daily writer.
The kicker was that as more people discovered it, the retail price on it went right up and out of range ... it lost some of that perfect appeal in that it got over-priced. Not unrealistic, but it was harder to justify. I have found a source selling them at the older retail range and so can offer them again as an option. In the next few weeks heading towards NOV and DEC, I will be getting in some other pens that I thought were NLA or just got too pricey. There is a growing interest among clientele in the Asian Calligraphy nibbed pens, aka Fude de Mannen nibs. Now the models of pens I generally carry come with these, but after carrying them for awhile and finding little interest, I stopped looking for stock and in that time they have shot up in price. Where the pen is only different by the nib, and yet the price of the product is doubled quite often? I have looked via old contacts and I have found a decent supply of Fude de Mannen nibs. Made by Jinhao and the size that fit the very popular: X450, x750 and #159 models. Rather than guessing on orders of regular nibs to Fude options, I plan to get in a supply of the nibs and then I can offer with any regular model, the option of buying the 2nd nib. They you can swap in and out when you want, and not have to buy two pens, [unless of course you want to!] This will keep the price lower on these that are now seeing a new resurge of interest here. I can have the available without ordering the whole pens at an inflated cost as well.
