Editing The Pen Addict 352/transcript (section)

== Vintage Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah. So one of the things that Todd brought up was when he's buying a vintage pen. And I think we, you know, like we have a couple of different, you know, discussion points about this. Like I, he wants to, he mentioned that if he's really interested in a vintage pen, he doesn't want to just dip test it. He wants to fill it with ink and write with it. And like, I can understand that from a buyer's perspective. I can also understand not wanting that from a vendor's perspective. So, and it varies by vendor. Some will have all of their pens inked up for you to test out. Some will have none of their pens inked up for testing out. Some will allow you to dip those pens to kind of get a feel for the nib. But like with a vintage pen, the filling system is the key to whether that pens in good shape or not, right? Can you get a good fill in whichever type of old filling system it's using, you know, has it been restored and things like that? I'm okay. Like Anna mentioned, I would ask maybe to fill it with water to ensure that its integrity is intact, right? Like it's in good shape. I don't know that I would need to fill it with ink, but I get the idea. And if I'm spending a lot of money, I may be more stern on that, right? Well, I really want, if I'm spending, you know, $300 on this pen, I really want to know before I go away. And that's fair. And if you get pushback on that, it's okay to say no. It's not the end of the world. Maybe it's wasn't, it wasn't the best experience with that vendor. And you know what? Sometimes that just happens. But you're going to find varying degrees of where vendors are willing to go there. I think in general, they're more and more open to allowing you to really test. Like if there's genuine, genuine interest in making the purchase, they're going to do what they can obviously to help you out to make that sale. So you're going to run into instances where they're going to say, no, I can't let you do that. And you know what? You say, thanks for your time and we'll move on to the next one.

'''Anna Reynet:''' And it also depends, like on a Friday or a Sunday, they may be more inclined to do that when it's not as busy. On a Saturday, when it's really busy, they may be less inclined just because of the time it takes to fill the pen. And then if you decide not to buy it, they have to remember to empty that pen before they put it back in their case. So, you know, I would respect that it just might be timing if they're curt on a Saturday just because usually Saturdays are the most busy day. They're probably not, you know, it's just one of those things where it's like depending on how busy they are, they may, it may just not be the best time to ask somebody, can you fill this pen for me so I can test it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. So speaking of asking, let's wrap up this part before we talk about the Atlanta show specifically. Let's talk about haggling at a pen show. So Todd's email, he was very adamant about like, you have to haggle. And he basically said, you shouldn't even be there if you're not willing to haggle. I get the standpoint of that. But it's obviously not, you know, an across the board, black and white type of rule type of thing. You know, if you're working with, and he obviously, you know, alludes to that in the email. And I'm not going to share the email. It's really long and really good, really in depth. So I appreciate that, Todd.

'''Myke Hurley:''' With vintage vendors and secondhand merchandise, I mean, there's room to haggle, right? There just is. And whether you're comfortable with that or not, you know, that's one thing. I tend to not go into a purchase like, I'm going to work this price down as part of my job to get the best price, right? I'll go into it as, well, what do I want? How bad do I want it? Is the price fair? You know, am I buying multiple pens? Does that change my, you know, negotiating leverage? You know, if I'm buying multiple things. So I just tend to think about several different things if I'm going into haggling. I generally will for vintage or used or secondhand merchandise. I almost never will on new merchandise because those prices are somewhat fixed. You know, there is a little bit of wiggle room in new modern merchandise. And like I said, if I'm buying two pens from someone else, I might say, hey, can we just call it this, you know, round number for the ease of me saving a few bucks and you not having to do as much math? Like, you know, those kind of things work. But if you think you're going to get, you know, necessarily, you know, like 25% off like the vintage pen price that, you know, maybe they're only going to make, you know, X amount on, you know, they may or may not. The worst they can say is no, right? I'm like, I'm not against haggling. But you got to, I think there's an art to it. And like Anna says, this is the perfect place to practice it, right?

'''Anna Reynet:''' Absolutely. And there's some vendors who are notorious for haggling and others where if you are pleasant and a nice customer, they, and you show genuine interest in something, they may just come down on the price a little, you know? Yep. So it's, you kind of just have to, you know, sort of play your odds. Like if you come in and hardball right away, they may just be like, nope, that's the price. Yeah. You know? But there are specific vendors that it's just like haggling is just how they do business.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And those are the ones whose tables where nothing's priced, right? I don't shop at those tables because I'm not knowledgeable enough to have a starting point in general, right? So I will just like continue to walk. Hey, how you doing today? And then I'll just move right along. Because that's not my wheelhouse. Is that a little enough? What chance do any of us have? I'm talking about vintage stuff. Okay. Okay. I'm not talking about like modern stuff, anything in the last 20 years. Like I kind of know what it is. But vintage, like someone's got a really beautiful table of all kinds of vintage Parkers or Esther Brooks or, you know, Watermans, any of like the really great vintage stuff. And I don't have that mental capacity to know that I will feel satisfied making a purchase, right? At the end of the day, I want to feel that I spent my money well, you know, that I got value for my personal, whatever my ideal goals are, like that I did a good job. Not question myself. Oh, did I get a good deal? You know, I don't want to put myself in that situation.

'''Anna Reynet:''' I actually watched two vendors haggling on Sunday at the Little Rock show. And Laura and I were watching and we're like, look, it's an immovable object and an unstoppable force. Let's see how this goes. And it was like, we couldn't hear what they were saying, but it was like, we're like, this is not going anywhere. And it's like, eventually one vendor walked away. We're like, nope, didn't get what we wanted. Like about 30 minutes later, he came back and they were at it again. And we're like, you think this is going to work out this time? We're like, no, don't think so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' These notes that we're sharing are endless and we can't cover all the topics. We can't cover all the topics in depth, but just know that you have friends at the pen shows you go to, even if it's your first one, you know, you will find familiar faces or online names or me or Myke or Anna who are more than glad to help you and hold your hand and ask you questions. And I walk people around all the time. It's like, hey, let's go look at this. And hey, I know this guy. Let me introduce you to him. You know, use the resources you have at hand, you know, ask a bunch of questions, ask for help. You know, we didn't know everything when we started and we don't even come close to knowing everything now. But we're in a little bit better position to where we can get to those answers or have some guidance that, you know, you may be learning for the first time that we've experienced. So feel free to come up to us and, you know, you'll, you'll be able to meet a lot of people and, you know, bounce a lot of questions off some other friends at the show, new and old friends alike. So on to Atlanta specific things real quick before we get our last sponsor and a couple of, uh, ask TPAs and a little bit of story time from, from Anna Reiner herself. Um, the podcast next weekend, 6 PM Saturday evening at the Atlanta show hotel, the Wyndham. If you have done this before, you know, the routine, if you haven't, I implore you to come see me or Myke or Jeff at the not code table and get a ticket. If you're a Kickstarter backer, Kickstarter backers get priority into the event over the last few years, we've run at max capacity, but not over max. So we're able to get everyone in, but we want to make sure that our Kickstarter backers do. So come get a ticket. We will have tickets and we'll have a door prizes at the end, which we always do, which those tickets, uh, duplicate as your entry into the door prizes. But we want to make sure that all of our backers get a seat and, um, we've never had to turn any way at the door, but we always run that risk.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Every year it gets closer to that happening. And I think that this year might be the year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So it ends up being standing room only. There will definitely be a line to get in and, um, you know, just, we will, uh, we will do our best to get everyone in, but we will hit a max at some point. Um, you know, I just want to make sure the Kickstarter backers are taken care of. If you're a weekend pass holder, the show promoters do something really cool on Friday night and have a cookout for everybody at the hotel. I just implore everyone. If you're doing that to attend that, um, I know, uh, Jimmy Dole of the show promoter really enjoys putting on that event for everybody. So I just wanted to throw that out there as a, if you're a weekend pass holder, don't forget about it. Like it's not a mandatory event or you don't have to go, but just know that it's offered it's free food and drink. And it's just a good, it's a way for Jimmy to give back to the community, but he likes it when a lot of people show up, he likes, you know, doing nice things for, for us at the show. So don't forget about that. I think that's just a really cool thing that Jimmy does. That's a little bit different than some of the other shows. So, um, those are just a couple of things I wanted to mention.

'''Anna Reynet:''' I think it makes Jimmy feel like Papa Pen show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, for sure. He is definitely Papa Pen show. Um, he is, he is Santa Jimmy. So, uh, he's just, he really wants to take care of everybody. And that's you showing up to that event, like makes him feel good. Like the year I just, I say this because I screwed him one year by taking everyone out of the hotel. And he was really upset. Like, he's like, where did all the people go? I was like, well, I didn't know any better. I took everyone to knock for a party. Um, ever since that was our first year. And that was when he got super mad at me. Like, you know, not obviously like yelling mad, but he couldn't figure out what happened. And I didn't know any better that this was like part of his gig is like to have this cookout for everyone who comes to the show. I was like, well, we should, we're part of the show. We want to, we want to support Jimmy. So like, let's do this. Like he's doing something nice for us for free. So we will be there, um, for that event. And, um, Atlanta is a good show. It's chill. You know, it's, it's small ish. It's just right sized. It does get, it gets a little bit busy and crowded and hectic on Saturdays. Friday is usually pretty busy there too. And then like, if you're local and you happen to listen to the show and you only have one day to come, like, and you're not going to do like the event stuff, it's usually pretty quiet on Sunday. You can get around pretty well on Sunday in Atlanta, but, uh, it's a great show. I look forward to seeing everybody once again, especially you two, um, who I have not seen this year. Right. I haven't seen since October. Yeah, it's been since October. So I'm ready.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, we'll also be attempting as we always do to live stream the show. Um, so if look out for that kind of around six, 6 30 PM on Saturday night in East, it's Eastern time, right? Yes. Eastern time. Yeah. So we will attempt to be live streaming, but hotel wifi needs to be our friend for that. However, the episode will be out, I reckon by like 9 PM Eastern. Um, so that shouldn't be a problem. You know, it will be out quickly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Let's, uh, I want to hear, Ana's got a, uh, tales to regale us with. Okay. Um, and I've, I've purposefully not picked her brain about this waiting for this opportunity. So, uh, let's talk about our good friends at Harry's because you know, they're going to be a big player next weekend. And then we'll, then we'll talk about, uh, Ana's travels.