Quote Originally Posted by Jon Szanto View Post
Sandy, when you talk about pen prices, are you mainly focusing on new(er) pens, or vintage, or all? I tend to not shop for new pens there, as it is not only not my focus, but unless I *need* to try one, I'm figuring there is no way to get a better price than online.

*My* reason for going to these shows is to see things I can't see anywhere else, and that is primarily pens that are no longer in production, vintage and recent. When I'm looking at used - as they all are, save for NOS - I relish the opportunity to really examine it, and not just look at pictures of them. In this light, a pen show is irreplaceable.

My take was a bit weird: I only realized, in hindsight, that I hadn't actually attended on Thursday before. I did this year, and when we walked in just after lunch, I almost freaked - what happened? There were only about half the tables occupied, and I thought 50% of the show had gotten stuck in the snow and ice! But that was just the slowest of the trading days, and by Friday the room was full, just as in years past. Lot of good pen and parts hunting, even better conversations, a good event for me. I do note, maybe like yourself, that with a different focus comes a loss of some of that "overwhelming" nature of a first show (this was my third). I actually enjoyed it more because of that.
I buy vintage pens, and was really surprised by the prices I saw at the pen show I attended, I found them very, very high for the most part. Especially for Montblanc and Pelikan pens. Some of the smaller vendors had some good prices on more obscure brands, but I was pretty put off by the prices.