Snake America Thirty-Four
Snake is a bi-weekly newsletter covering secondary market goods on eBay mostly. This week: Converse fake cookie boots from WWII and a $250K fountain pen. Subscribe
eBay: World War II Army boots, by Converse: Never seen anything like these before. They look like movie Uggs. I have a pair of Converse army sneakers--green Palladium cloth ones with a rubber sole--but these are different since the Converse branding is only on the tag. It's on the heel across all models, army and otherwise. Not here. This jumps out:
Shearling inside. A pair of Vans like these was released 10 years ago, though that description is generous to the Vans. The Vans were mostly earth-tone. I bet the first Uggs ever were something else. My friend A.J. holds Felix Havoc, the singer of Code 13 and Disrupt, former columnist of HeartattaCk and Maximum Rock n Roll magazines and now a successful landscaper in Minnesota, in higher regard for being a charter Dungeons and Dragons player than for seeing the Cro-Mags before their LP was out. I agree with him there, and transpose that line of reasoning to these boots and first-run Uggs. What a thing to be.
These are between size 10.5 and 11.5 and are size XXL. Were people smaller back then, or did they wear more socks, or dress socks in cold weather?
US Air Force insignia on the right side. Something about the Army Navy logo makes it incredibly easy to look good in retro situations. I think it's the small gold font. The list of elegantly typeset military gear is long: Air Force gloves, mittens, umbrellas, foot lockers, napkins ... Entire Japanese brands have been built off these labels' aesthetic.
The leather strap is very Polo Cookie Boot, of which there is an infinite variety and a confusing definition. (Cookie refers to the crest logo on the ankle, but it's better known by the strap across the toe. Polo Sport made strap boots for a while in the '90s, and they weren't Cookies, but ... that's BS.) Did Polo rip this off? Will they win this? There's a guy at Polo whose job it is to do that. He buys up all the old stuff. He just flies around on his jet. Maybe he's not into these, or his job is already done, or is looking for a quick $227.
eBay: Montblanc 2003 fountain pen, starting price $249,000-ish: Good-looking pen here, of which the seller says there are only three in the world. 18 Karat gold(1), map of the world, invisible see-through. Of the three, only one is available. The seller says one was sold to the world's greatest collector of Montblanc fountain pens. The other also belongs to a collector. The first person could be anyone in the world who has money, which is a nice thought. Pen collectors are probably pretty secretive, so ... . Further research into who the world's greatest collector of Montblanc fountain pens might be leads to a Fountain Pen Network message board discussion from 2011 that unfortunately doesn't reveal any real insight or give out any familiar names. (Names listed are as follows: UK TV legend Jeff Stelling, J Hofer ("a German TV speaker:), Max Walker who is "a cricketer," Iris Murdoch, an author, Steve Light, a children's book author and a Fountain Pen Network message board frequenter, Gulzar, who is a filmmaker, Lorne Greene, who was on Bonanza (USA 1959).) A poster, Opooh, says Anne Frank used a Montblanc pen to write her "famous diary," which is an unsettling image. Further digging leads to a list of authors whom Montblanc paid tribute to with limited-literary-edition pens, e.g. a limited-edition Proust pen. The Jules Verne pen is blue. The author edition pens have been coming out since 1992, in small runs(2). One guy reviews a Proust pen(3):
"I was dreaming about it, yearning about it and now after a long wait I have the pen. ... I expected the pen to be bigger. This pen is really small roughly the size of the Pelikan M200 and so the first thing I felt was a bit of a disappointment as I like BIG pens."
In a reply down the thread the reviewer concedes the pen "isn't that small" but is smaller than his other Writer Edition pens. "Slowly," he concludes, "I find the Proust more and more comfy."
Getting back to it. I thought maybe the pen in the auction above belonged to Mohammad Ali, who lives in Michigan, the state of the auction. It wouldn't be surprising if the most important athlete of all-time was secretly the greatest collector of rich-people pens as well. It actually should be the case. But ... Ali has his own limited-edition pen by Montegrappa, an Italian fountain pen (and watch) company that competes with Montblanc. (The Ali pen goes for $2,600 on one site; $11,000 on another; $50,000 on eBay, etc. Prices vary.) Maybe Ali is playing both sides? I remember reading that Biz Markie owns two houses, one to live in and one for his stuff. Ali has to be doing the same thing. That's why he lives in Michigan? His second house probably has a room or two devoted to his biographies, and another for collections such as these. But, thinking logically, the mysterious pen collector is probably a banker or shell corporation or something. Further googling says Mel Wilmore, a jeweler from Texas(4), is the greatest Montblanc pen collector of all-time. He also collects money with Fancy Serial Numbers. I'm not sure where he lives, or if he's alive.
Thanks for reading,
Snake
Last one: 2014 year-end wrap-up
One before that: Christmas is fun
(1) Not sure the above pen is worth a quarter million, if only because in these types of auctions--30-day Dutch--there's no penalty to a seller for an insanely high starting price. So, maybe it's only worth like $80K.
(2) - About 37,000.
(3) Writing Instruments -- Fountain Pen Review sub-forum; the initial Q&A was on the Brand Focus - Montblanc subforum.
(4) Maybe?