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titivillus · Seasoned

My lack of understanding about pens

watch_art · Seasoned

gotta say i agree with you there. besides the gold in the nibs of some of the pens, you're paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for PLASTIC. sometimes other stuff, but these just aren't expensive materials.
the name and the packaging and the advertising are all bought along with the pen itself. i just spent 200 on a pilot c742, i love it, but i'm starting to think i am crazy for it. my friends have all told me i am, i'm not telling my wife what it cost, but it's slowly starting to sink in that i spent 200 on a piece of plastic.� holy shit.

as far as the duofold with the shells on it, i dunno. maybe it looked really cool. artists do lots of crazy things with their time (me included) and they feel their time is worth so much money. personally, i feel bad charging a lot for my artwork for some reason. i mean, i love getting money and making somebody happy with the art, but damn.� to be fair to myself i HAVE to charge something. it's a weird mentality, and i know i'm ranting, but if you don't charge a higher price for something, prospective buyers won't consider it b/c it's just cheap art. for some reason, people associate higher prices with higher quality or craftsmanship.

-- Edited by watch_art on Monday 19th of April 2010 10:12:44 PM

Mahutr · Seasoned

That's exactly the "value added" concept. If you compare the international price for carbon steel to what you have paid for your car you are going to reach to the same conclusion.

I don't share the idea of spending a huge amount of money for something you don't like. But when you like it, and someone spent his time making it, you have to pay for it. If you like the vintage Longine wristwatch's TIC TAC sound, you are most probably going to spend a lot more money on it than the cost very accurate modern plastic digital Casio.

Just MHO.

Martin

titivillus · Seasoned

watch_art wrote:
i mean, i love getting money and making somebody happy with the art, but damn.� to be fair to myself i HAVE to charge something. it's a weird mentality, and i know i'm ranting, but if you don't charge a higher price for something, prospective buyers won't consider it b/c it's just cheap art. for some reason, people associate higher prices with higher quality or craftsmanship.

-- Edited by watch_art on Monday 19th of April 2010 10:12:44 PM

That's true and funny in a way-� People selling the sizzle and not the steak.

�

titivillus · Seasoned

Mahutr wrote:

That's exactly the "value added" concept. If you compare the international price for carbon steel to what you have paid for your car you are going to reach to the same conclusion.
�That's true up to a to a point but� after that it goes toward some intangible stuff that isn't value added but cost forced.� trying to compare a pen to a car is a reach as the amount of steps necessary from raw materials to finished car is much greater than for a pen.

�
I don't share the idea of spending a huge amount of money for something you don't like. But when you like it, and someone spent his time making it, you have to pay for it.
�Yes but if someone makes an item that is suppose to be a piece of beauty with forced value because of an outragous cost it indicates a disconnect between value and cost.
�
If you like the vintage Longine wristwatch's TIC TAC sound, you are most probably going to spend a lot more money on it than the cost very accurate modern plastic digital Casio.

Just MHO.

Martin
True but if someone took a vintage longine and covered it with laquer and shell pieces then priced it 5x what a standard watch would cost is that really value added?

�

Mahutr · Seasoned

titivillus wrote:

�
If you like the vintage Longine wristwatch's TIC TAC sound, you are most probably going to spend a lot more money on it than the cost very accurate modern plastic digital Casio.

Just MHO.

Martin
True but if someone took a vintage longine and covered it with laquer and shell pieces then priced it 5x what a standard watch would cost is that really value added?

�The answer is seldom going to be unique. If you like it so much that you are willing to pay 5x the price of the unmodified watch, then it is a value added (for you). If it is awful enough to be sold at 5x to anyone, and no one buys it (which seldom happens cry ), then it is not.

Again: I am not an expert by any means. I prefer original things (specially when they are vintage scarce ones), and simple clean designs (when they are new) over expensive useless things. I don't have any LE pen, and tend to use all of them every now and then (which I wouldn't do if they were worth USD 10.000.-). But if someone likes the Urushi decoration, and is willing (and able biggrin ) to pay for it, though I don't share this, I wouldn't critizice him/her.

Just MHO.

Martin

titivillus · Seasoned

Mahutr wrote:

ain: I am not an expert by any means. I prefer original things (specially when they are vintage scarce ones), and simple clean designs (when they are new) over expensive useless things. I don't have any LE pen, and tend to use all of them every now and then (which I wouldn't do if they were worth USD 10.000.-). But if someone likes the Urushi decoration, and is willing (and able ) to pay for it, though I don't share this, I wouldn't critizice him/her.

Just MHO.

Martin

I guess that is part of my problem in that scarce doesn't add value for me in fact it subtracts and pen manufacturers are forcing scarce to drive up the price.� Along with adding small things to increase price as well.

Not that it would mean anything to a pen manufacturer but there is a tipping point where I am just going to stop buying and try to sell all of my pens since it just doesn't make sense anymore.

oh wait that's already happened

�

Bo Bo Olson · Seasoned

There are a thousand things one needs explaining of, to know if it's got a value to you or others.
Maki-e, old rubber fountain pens, or nibs, inks and so on.
There are a couple of Maki-e pens I'd like...and I do play the lottery.

To understand art...I mean real art, not something you could do with two weeks of instruction, you have to understand, balance and light. You can not say...I know what I like...with out having some experence.
There is an industal realism school of say 1870-90's I like, where the artists, had to go beyond the black and white...don't move ... camera that everyone and his brother was running around with.
There had to be the impression of movement. So with landscape's too.

I'm not so much interested in Limited Editions as I am in pretty pens. Many are limited. After all there are only so many idiots out there.....some are status seekers.

There is a certain Pelikan I'd like to have, and a couple of Conway Stewarts...but my budget says....More old USED Black German Piston fillers. The colored ones cost 2-4x as much as the black ones.

I have enough pens....

How ever talking here beats paying some one using a roller ball, as you lay on a couch.

-- Edited by Bo Bo Olson on Thursday 10th of June 2010 07:41:32 AM

titivillus · Seasoned

That is the interesting thing in that I can look and apprecaite a number of watches that cost multiples of even the most expensive pen.

maybe I need to adjust my thinking.

georges zaslavsky · Experienced

when I buy a modern pen, I look for nib flexibility, filling system reliability and durability as well as a five star customer service.

titivillus · Seasoned

georges zaslavsky wrote:

when I buy a modern pen, I look for nib flexibility, filling system reliability and durability as well as a five star customer service.

I'd be interested to know which modern pens that are flexible not just soft?

As for 5 star service I really would like to believe that it occurs but honestly I'd rather have a 5 star price if the pen is of high enough quality there should be minimum interaction required.

�

J M Pennifeather · Newbie

The new Homo Sapiens from Visconti has a really flexible nib. About 200-300% more flex amazingly. A gorgeous pen at a high price though. The nib is made from pure palladium. Whether that has anything to do with the flex im not sure.

titivillus · Seasoned

J M Pennifeather wrote:

The new Homo Sapiens from Visconti has a really flexible nib. About 200-300% more flex amazingly. A gorgeous pen at a high price though. The nib is made from pure palladium. Whether that has anything to do with the flex im not sure.

Is it a flexible nib or just a soft nib?�� I can't say that any modern pen I've used has had a nib that compares to a steel dip pen or vintage flexible nib.

�

samovar · Newbie

I still don't own an urushi pen even after visiting Nakaya office in Tokyo.� I guess I just can not afford it right now.�
I just started my third year working in Japan� and I've learned a bit about urushi.� The tree grows in my area and the local shinto priest told me that they use to make bucket with it.� They would cover a bamboo frame with paper, paint the paper with urushi lacquer and let it dry. In his mind urushi was a very useful product.� They don't make bucket that way anymore, but the basic bamboo frame is still used by local farmers.�

I actually own something made out of urushi, it's a set of wooden bowls covered in urushi.� They are over 100 years old and they look very good.� According to the same priest, these bowl were not a luxury item, yet the remain in amazing shape until this day.�

There is a lot of craftmanship in using urushi, I would love to actually see the way they do it. �

I guess urushi is a very foreign concept, but some of the objects made of urushi are simple and amazing to look at.� One of the most beautiful object made of urushi are these boxes made to keep the tea for the tea ceremony.�
I still wonder when I will get my first pen made with urushi...

I guess the price of urushi started to go up the second people started to pay a fortune for precious plastic instead of a simple product that can last for hundred of years.��

titivillus wrote:

There are some things about pens that I just can't get my head around.

Urushi is one of those things that has to be explained to be appreciated and owning something that has to be explained lessens the enjoyment for me.�� And the difference between a hand drawn picture and the months required compared to a screened drawings don't seem to have that level of difference to my eye.

�

-- Edited by samovar on Thursday 29th of July 2010 07:48:10 AM

titivillus · Seasoned

I do not agree with that. �If you need 5 pages of documents to say why something is pretty then bunky it isn't!

By�believing�that something needs to be explained to be considered valuable is just the sizzle of the seller trying to sell you hamburger by saying it's steak.

Has there been anything out there that needs so much explaining unless there is a pricetag attached to it.

It is the cozy lie of people who are selling or have already bought a particular item to convince others that item 'x' is worth more.

If you need someone else to say whether an item is valuable maybe it isn't!

=============================================

Bo Bo Olson wrote:

There are a thousand things one needs explaining of, to know if it's got a value to you or others.
Maki-e, old rubber fountain pens, or nibs, inks and so on.
There are a couple of Maki-e pens I'd like...and I do play the lottery.

To understand art...I mean real art, not something you could do with two weeks of instruction, you have to understand, balance and light.�

-- Edited by titivillus on Saturday 7th of August 2010 05:48:20 PM

watch_art · Seasoned

balance and light, rhythm, composition, your medium, theme, meaning (if there is any), and some other stuff... you know, principles and elements...

titivillus · Seasoned

watch_art wrote:

balance and light, rhythm, composition, your medium, theme, meaning (if there is any), and some other stuff... you know, principles and elements...

That's very true for the person creating the art but does a standard person need to know all of this stuff to know whether they like a piece of art?

�

watch_art · Seasoned

Oh. well... no. I guess not. Not really. What your gut tells you is more important than knowing all that stuff. Because, ultimately, it's your gut that matters!

Bo Bo Olson · Seasoned

Tittivillus

Take wood...take good wood...take quarter cut oak.
Do you know what quarter cut oak is?

Take shellac on black walnut, sand and polish the wood, put on 15 layers of lightly sanded shellac. It is wonderful.
Take a shotgun stock from Purdy's for only 15,000 pounds....and worth every cent of it.
I was at Purdey's, just to look one time I was in London.
The metal engraving is 100% perfect....one mistake and it is not sold. The barrels are as good as man and machine can make. The engraving can and is matched, but not bettered by Holland and Holland, Boss (shotguns long before and not related to the Johnny Come Lately Boss) and some Italian work.
I looked at that engraving work and it too was wroth it....what is a Lamborghini but a piece of tin...compared to that.

Then there was the fore end and the stock, from 100 year old aged French Walnut, highly figured where it would not break or crack under the pressure of being fired.
Remember 15 layers of shellac?
Tis nothing....to looking like you was looking three inches into the wonderful stock of a Purdy shotgun.

Japan is a land of minimalism, bonzi(sp) trees, Japanese gardens, a raked stone garden, is not some idiot with a rake in his hand raking gravel.
There are many patterns, that one can contemplate.

A Japanese sword; a Wooze steel 'Damascus' Persian sword, a Spanish Toledo steel (special local ore), a patterned steel Frankish or Viking sword; all are beauty; but first and foremost they are effective; the 'beauty' is part and parcel of being effective.
Or six band Damascus shotgun barrels.
If you limit to black powder, nothing better. Nothing so beautiful.

Good Urushi is subtle as a Japanese stone garden. The most expensive is done by a famous artist of the field.
I being a barbarian, like a bit of gold dust or a bit more with it.

There is a certain 1880's highly inlaid pool table I'd like to have, with seven or 8 different woods....I could make due with a quarter sawn Oak table.
Most would ohh and ahh about the highly inlaid pool table; many would say pretty wood and ignore the splendor of quarter sawn oak.

You know, five years ago, I'd been so ignorant as most about quarter sawn Oak.

Read heavily, so you know what the wonder is all about. There is much simple wonder in the world.
Urushi was Japanese shellac, in they did not have the Indian bugs to make shellac, but they had a tree that did much the same.

There are pieces of furniture in the world; some done by a German guy and his factory, that are absolutely fantastic. So good that Katherine the Great of Russia, ordered from him. Ten years ago, I'd not known a bit about such furniture. Now I know a bit.

There is a table by a guy named Puskin, made @1890-1900, when last sold 25 years ago went for $1,000,000. Everywhere you think there could be a secret compartment there was. Everywhere where you would swear there could be no secret compartment, there was....besides the great wood work.

Every one is born ignorant. With luck one learns, if one has an open mind and is curious.

I was ignorant of fountain pens in spite of using them as a school kid in the late '50-s and '60's.
Now I am less ignorant, but not knowledgeable.

As to silk screening Urushi, it does ok, like owning a nice printed Dali, instead of a real one.

titivillus · Seasoned

Bobo, �I do not think that you are really getting my thesis, �All of your examples show a level of quality that will be apparent to the un-initiated. �

My general statement is that there are pens out there selling for huge amounts of money compared to a similar standard model that don't really have anything except a piece of paper telling you it's worth more.

A person can be ignorant of art and be taught that's a fair statement but if the only reason the information is being transmitted is to sell an object for more money is that really teaching?

Quality should shine through but then again people pay huge sums for an autograph.