Editing The Pen Addict 353/transcript (section)

== Vintage Pens ==


'''Anna Reinhardt:''' Make vintage easy for us. Like what, what do we need to know when we go? We're interested. We've got our modern stuff. Like what would make a first time buyer comfortable buying vintage and why should they buy it from you?

'''Jessica Coles:''' Well, because I make them comfortable.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' That's right.

'''Jessica Coles:''' Um, coming up to my table. Um, I, I can usually tell if somebody hasn't tried vintage before most of the time because they say I'm so new to vintage. Um, so it's easy to tell them. Um, it is overwhelming because when you go up to a vintage, uh, pen, you are not supposed to open it up and use it. Um, what you're looking at is something that has been around for 80 years, maybe, um, on my table, about an average of 70 years old. Uh, you're looking at these, um, that for some reason they have made it that long. Nobody has lost them. Nobody's broken them. Um, they're there. Uh, they're in usable shape. They still have their caps. Most of them. Um, so you are opening up these pens. It, they're a piece of history. Uh, there are some pens there that have people's names engraved on them and they may be, um, long gone, but that pen is still there.

'''Jessica Coles:''' Um, as you are looking at all of these traits of pens, it's absolutely overwhelming. Um, some of it is because they are all mixed together. Uh, it's hard for your eye to focus on each individual one. It's hard for you to focus on something when you haven't gotten so involved in it yet, um, that you can pick out what they are. Um, so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've never understood why the other vendors just mix all of them together. Like they have all, they have a lot of the same brand or type of pen and then they just like one over here. There's like a Parker over here. And then she, it's like, um, come on guys, put like the two Parkers next to each other.

'''Jessica Coles:''' Well, but it may make sense to them. They aren't looking at it as people who are new coming into it and being overwhelmed with so much information. They are people who can categorize those as they look at them. I suppose maybe it must be in some sort of mathematical order.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't understand.

'''Jessica Coles:''' It might be, but you know, as a mother, I can look at it and say, oh, that's a guy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, um, there, there, there was some, uh, like purchase order. Oh yeah. I got that one in 72. I bought that one in 84. That's why they're in that order.

'''Jessica Coles:''' Or they fit in the case that way. Um, I, I, I don't know. I think everybody has their own way of ordering.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I seriously need to ask. Oh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I wonder if there is like for, for a lot of buyers, there's like a thrill of a hunt kind of like mentality. Oh, absolutely. So like not putting them in a discernible order is appeasing to the typical buyer who wants to sift through them all and find one.

'''Jessica Coles:''' There is a huge amount of treasure hunting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Jessica Coles:''' Um, I really feel that when I come to pen shows too, but also I get even knowing all about so many different pens. I get overwhelmed looking at that because my eye wants to focus on each individual one. And like when you go to a secondhand bookstore, if they're all just thrown on the shelf there, it's hard to read individual ones. Um, your brain just can't process all of it. Um, so that is hard. Wait, what I was answering a question.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' It was my way of saying you're really good at what you do and you do it different than everyone else. And I don't understand why there's not more of you in that room over there.

'''Jessica Coles:''' We can't all be me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is a competitive advantage to be you. It is. It truly is. In talking to you about, in talking to Jesse about Esther Brooke over the last couple of days, I've been really interested about the little tidbits of information you've been giving me about like how, um, some of the clips and some of the elements changed on the pens during wartime production because the Esther Brooke would be using some of the will be sending, uh, steel to the war effort. How do you find that information out?

'''Jessica Coles:''' Well, um, some, I read everything that I can find, uh, about them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, some of it is more than just the Wikipedia page. Like what are you reading?

'''Jessica Coles:''' I think your Wikipedia pages were great. Um, I'm reading, uh, old books or old catalogs. Um, I'm talking to the guys that are, are there. Um, sometimes some people will hear, uh, that I'm interested in Esther Brooks and will come tell me little bits of information. Um, if I find out something interesting, like I'll be repairing the pens and I'll notice, wait, I don't, does this go with the, uh, with these pens or does it go with these others? And why, and why are these clips thinner? Um, why are these engraved instead of a metal band? When did this change? How long did it happen? And I'll go look up that information. Um, some of it is that it's just not collected altogether, uh, anywhere right now. But then, um, that's why so many different books are being written too, is because people, Brian Anderson has so much information in his mind about it that, um, it hasn't been processed in that way yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So when are you writing a book?

'''Jessica Coles:''' Oh, wow. I should do that, huh?

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' Yes. Yeah. I'm not, I, I'm not kidding. You know, I would look over, I turn around and look at your table, um, or watch it for you and give away things for free while you're not there. Yeah.

'''Jessica Coles:''' I appreciate that.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' And black wings, like, like black wings.

'''Jessica Coles:''' Yeah.

'''Anna Reinhardt:''' And you come back and like my, my scope of, of the, the table is I'll go, I'll point at something. I'll go, Oh, that is really cool. And then you're just, let me tell you everything you ever need to know about that. I'm like, hot dang. That is awesome. Like, well, that's like, it's so cool. It did. It boggles my mind.

'''Jessica Coles:''' I'm just, I'm really good at trivial pursuit too. Um, I pick up random information like nobody's business, but not the, not the important stuff usually. But, um, Esther Brooks, I can talk a long time about, um, there's so much interesting information out there about it. Um, and so much of it gets forgotten unless it's passed along. So, uh, talking to as many people about them as I can, uh, I can pick up all of those little bits of it. Um, I thought it was a lot of fun, uh, to learn about why Esther Brooks was shaving off, um, steel from their manufactured pens, um, because they were contributing that to the war effort. And that was even before the U S was in the war. Um, and you know, Esther Brooks came from England, so they were, their heart was there and they had people there that were family and friends. Um, and that really brings that little bit of history to life instead of it being some ancient thing that, um, that happened to other people. It makes it feel more real.