Today I...
Spent over an hour dicking around an antique store near my work, and came out with a fountain pen. Oops!
In my defence, I've been thinking about fountain pens for years now, but haven't been ballsey enough to try and deal with the cool old ones. Until now...
It's not very fancy, it's in pretty rough shape (it's stained, and the insides are dried to hell; can't even get it apart yet) but I'm going to try and fix it up! Which will be a bit of a learning experience (to say the least...) I've already splurged on a repair kit, so when it comes, we'll see what happens. XD You may get frustrated, ink stained pictures of me this weekend...
But the best part of this story is the man I bought it from, who was milling around his booth at the store. I love chitchatting with folks like this, so first thing I did was ask him his favorite item in his area. He was particularly fond of this super retro 60s era lamp the size of like, a small car. But then the ball got rolling and he started showing me all sorts of random things. He left for a few minutes to go complain to the store manager about the music selection playing in the background (apparently Lady GaGa and Atinques weren't meshing well for him) and left me to rummage around in the locked cabinets unsupervised. And then I found the pens. I mean, I also found a bunch of other cool stuff, but I had to limit myself. ;)
I talked him down in price mostly just by existing (it was about the easiest negotiation I've ever participated in), but the best part was after we agreed and we just hung out for a bit. Apparently he used to be a librarian for a primatology library, and had a dinner party with Jane Goodall! Who, apparently, really liked his fireplace.
He was a trip, lol.
In my defence, I've been thinking about fountain pens for years now, but haven't been ballsey enough to try and deal with the cool old ones. Until now...
It's not very fancy, it's in pretty rough shape (it's stained, and the insides are dried to hell; can't even get it apart yet) but I'm going to try and fix it up! Which will be a bit of a learning experience (to say the least...) I've already splurged on a repair kit, so when it comes, we'll see what happens. XD You may get frustrated, ink stained pictures of me this weekend...
But the best part of this story is the man I bought it from, who was milling around his booth at the store. I love chitchatting with folks like this, so first thing I did was ask him his favorite item in his area. He was particularly fond of this super retro 60s era lamp the size of like, a small car. But then the ball got rolling and he started showing me all sorts of random things. He left for a few minutes to go complain to the store manager about the music selection playing in the background (apparently Lady GaGa and Atinques weren't meshing well for him) and left me to rummage around in the locked cabinets unsupervised. And then I found the pens. I mean, I also found a bunch of other cool stuff, but I had to limit myself. ;)
I talked him down in price mostly just by existing (it was about the easiest negotiation I've ever participated in), but the best part was after we agreed and we just hung out for a bit. Apparently he used to be a librarian for a primatology library, and had a dinner party with Jane Goodall! Who, apparently, really liked his fireplace.
He was a trip, lol.