Moving along, let’s take advantage of sellers’ bad typing habits and complete ignorance of the fountain pen world. I’m going to list some common misspellings that force an auction to fall under the radar of people who search eBay for their favorites:

   

•       Fountian pen. Duh. The #1 way to hide your treasure from hordes of bidders willing to toss money at you, and you’ll see them, without fail.
•       Sheaffer variations. Why can’t people read the word “Sheaffer” right off the barrel? Whatever the reason, search on Shaffer, Schafer, Schaffer, Schaefer, Schaeffer, Shafer, and any close variations, and you’ll get the occasional hits.
•       Pencil. When there’s a misspelled brand name or the seller is unsure of the brand, and there’s also a pencil involved, the seller will sometimes neglect to put the word “pen” in the title.
•       Vacuumatic. I see this, and I want to just slap the seller. Also, try Vac, Vacuum, Vaccumatic, etc.

•      More misspellings. Think about your favorite pen model and its obvious variations, or misspellings you’ve seen: Sheaffer Snorkle. Torga. Admeral. PMF. Cresent Filler. People are stupid, I tell ya — these might seem like absurd examples . . . — until you see listings with these terms.

•       Water Man. As opposed to Adam Sandler’s cinematic peak, I guess

•       Parcker. Yes, it happens

      Duo Fold.

•       Patent dates. If your favorite pen has a patent date stamped on it, sometimes sellers list it in the auction title. This is useful for you when they don’t know what brand they have, and your bidding competition hasn’t sussed out the lot you’re looking at.

•       Other Brands.This isn’t a search tip, but if you’re compulsive like me, you’ll occasionally browse the “other brands” section of eBay’s fountain pen area, because heck, some sellers don’t know an Oversize Vac when they see one, know what I mean?

•       Quill. Don’t know why some eBay dimwits insist on calling our beloved self-filling fountain pens “quill” pens, but I see them every week. Not everyone else does, because they sometimes go for cheap. As an aside, I’d love to see from what kind of bird you could pluck a 14K Vacumatic “quill” — the golden goose?

                                                           


A couple other miscellaneous caveats: First, don’t forget that if someone is dumb enough to misspell a search term, they’re probably dumb enough to sell a junk/parts pen without knowing it, so you get what you pay for. Ask questions up front if you get a whiff of problems.

Moreover, the smartest readers will save all the above misspellings, do one big search, and either put them in an eBay Saved Search or bookmark the results page. Check that baby every few days. It’s not like you’ll bid on everything you see, but man, if you get five or six pens a year off this technique, you’ll have enough “sumgai” stories to get all of Pentrace seething with envy and flaming you on the message board.