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Showing 1 of 26 conversations about:
Steno
Aug 2, 2016
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Well, I'll do the same reply both here and to the e-mail you sent me...
You can not begin to understand how that whole situation made me felt back then when I got my Demo limited edition "Mark Twain" Conklin pen... I am a writer, and I am also a fountain pen crazy and collector, with a collection of hungreds of pens, mostly vintage... I love them more than word can tell, and as stupid as it may sound, pen collecting is a very important part of my life.
I did not had many "Holy Grail" pens in my life, I love them all, but twice in my life I had a real "OMG - IN LOVE" feeling... First time its when I begun collecting and saw for the first time a vintage Parker Duofold Lucky Curve "Big Red" pen... The second time, years after, when you released your Mark Twain limited edition demo pen... I really felt in love with it and it was really a dream for me to own one. I got a "Normal" one, early on, the Halloween orange one, with the stub nib, and I loved it - first the pen is amazing but the stub nib was also a real thing for me - in a world where stub and italic nib are so rare to find. I reviewed that pen many time in many place, it was my main writer, and the joy I had with it made me want the limited edition demo even more...
I am not a rich guy, and I am even more poor since the last few years where the factory I used to work in closed, as so many did in North America... Now to earn my living, I spend nights and nights in a transportation company, brooming garage floor, breathing toxic stuff, night after night after night... I don't buy much pens anymore, and mostly used 5$ ebay deals that I restore or get restored for cheap... But that demo limited edition remained in my mind, I even had a picture of it printed out and sticked in my closet at work... and I broomed, broomed, broomed every single dollars I could put asside to buy it, even if I can't afford that kind of pen anymore, because I really really really wanted it... I was picturing myself at books signings using it and looking like a great author not because of my poor talent but because of that pen! And when you released the "Heritage" collecton, I got all excited because I told myself "With time and lots of work, I'll get them all! An amazing Conklin collection!".
Finally I got lucky, I got a good sale from a reputed seller and I ordered it... Even if it was in sales, I also had to pay 45$ for the shipping to Canada, and finally even had to pay 35$ more for the Canadian custom duty... I did not cared... At last, I had MY pen! I even designed a special display case to keep it safe...
And I got it... At first, it looked amazing... The filling mecanism was a little too tight but I did not cared, "with time it will losen up"... So I flushed it gently, and inked it for the first time and then... that little piece of God only know why showed up under the demo casing of the pen after filling it (probably some glue from the sac)... "Ohhh Too Bad..."... I was disapointed but hey, after all, the great part about Conklin is the warranty! I contacted the Seller who told me he could not repair it and to contact Conklin-Yafa since it was defective "out of the box"... So I did... and got the "form" and also the "handling fee" thing...
Then is the exact moment my 2-3 years old special dream collapsed... I had the brand new pen I dreeamed so much about in my hand with a big piece of weird stuff inside it... I had the pen in sales, but paid 45$ US shipping fee, plus 35$ for custom duty... and now I had to pay around 25$ to ship it to get fixed and pay 37$ US to have it back... There is absolutely no word to describe how I felt at that moment... hours and hours of brooming and breathing toxic dust for that!
Since then, I cancelled an order for one of your "Heritage Word gauge" I ordered also in sale from an important US seller. I don't even use my "normal" Mark Twain as part of my rotation: just seeing it remind me of that and make me feel bad so I don't want to see it anymore... I gave my Duragraph away for the same reason... Short time after, the metal section of one of my favourite Monteverde (stub nib again) begun to lose his plating... I threw it on the trash bin without even caring much about it...
I sent that Demo Mark Twain to a Vancouvert pen store where I get my pens repaired and my nibs grinded. They knew about the situation and wanted to give me some help with it and offered to clean and it try to fix it... for free, they care for their customer. I sent it to them with some other repair I had to get but honestly, I don't care at all about it... Whatever happend, the dream I had is dead, its gone. 2, 3 years of intense dream and brooming gone...
In the email you sent me today, you say that you want to "make sure it is resolved fully."... Sorry, I don't see any way it can be done. I won't pay a single penny on that pen anymore...
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