I know, I know, here at Consumer Buzz we tend to tout the wonders of online services and I don’t renege on that. If it weren’t for the fact that I can do everything from my laptop, my house would be a disaster zone overrun with unsorted papers. Plus I still maintain that the greatest thing about modern technology is how often it allows me to keep my slippers on. But every so often even we need to get off the computer and appreciate people who make the same efforts to get quality consumer products as we do and do it all wearing shoes.
Today is one of those days and the product we celebrate is one of those most threatened by the wonderful world of online everything: Pens. Even though we tend to chew on the ends, lose them behind the file cabinet and generally underappreciate their worth, there are people out there who are giving pens their proper respect.
The Fountain Pen Hospital in New York is a prime example. The establishment was opened in 1946 and at the time repairing broken fountain pens was the main business. The “hospital” section still operates underneath the store’s showroom and has drawers holding thousands of replacement parts for pens dating as far back as the 1920s. Today however, most of the Fountain Pen Hospital’s clientele are shoppers in the market for new specialty pens.
Pens can sell for as much as $30,000 for a solid gold fountain pen. Chaos, a pen designed by Sylvester Stallone featuring white gold serpents, swords and skulls, sells for $6,000.
True pen connoisseurs may subscribe to Pen World magazine and attend gatherings like the Los Angeles International Pen Show. Laura Chandler, editor of Pen World, tells of a couple who had been bidding against each other for years for select pens on eBay but later met at the Chicago Pen show and are now happily married. Presumably they have combined their pen collections and have teamed up to bid against other collectors.
Terry Weiderlight is the owner of the Fountain Pen Hospital, inherited from his father and grandfather. He doesn’t think that computers will be the end of his business. In fact, he owns a pen with ink on one side and an iPad stylus on the other. At the store, pens are displayed like jewelry in glass cases and that is how Weiderlight sees them. “A nice writing instrument for a man today is a status symbol,” he says, the equivalent of buying jewelry for a woman.
The store does have a facebook page and a website used by customers from all over the country. Which I guess brings us back to our own topic. Even pen collectors can appreciate staying in pajamas.
