Hi, glad you dropped in.
My name is Bill Bolding and I am the owner, operator, pen appraiser, pen restorer, pen service person, pen purchaser, pen seller, pen packager and pen lover. Did I forget anything?
BillsFinePens was started in my home in January 2019, a result of Covid 19 and not being able or willing to leave the house for almost 18 months. The story, however, started a long time before the Covid Epidemic, about 40 years earlier.
I have always loved pens and started using them, at least the ball point variety, in high school, continuing on through college and my first, real world, job. I found I liked the way ball point pens wrote and how nice they made my handwriting look. Also, they looked really cool and were fun to use. Somewhere along the way, I discovered fountain pens and my world literally changed forever. I have loved and collected fountain pens as well as mechanical pens, bullet pencils and inkwells and continue to do so today.
But using pens and collecting them was not enough, I had to find out exactly how they worked and, more importantly, how they could be repaired and serviced. My first foray into changing out a SAC in a lever fill was, let's say, a blazing start. I had heard and read about how to remove the section of the Esterbrook pen I was using as my test dummy and how sometimes you had to add a little heat and/or soaking to loosen up whatever substance had been used to hold the section in place. I had also heard of the dangers sometimes associated with that feat. At the time I did not have the useful equipment nor the technical knowledge I have today. I immediately went to the gas stove with my pen being held tight by a pair of pliers and turned on the gas flame. It took mere seconds before the pen was in flames. Thank goodness, I had anticipated that possibility and was able to douse the fire in the sink. Lesson learned. House still standing. Thank goodness for Google and U-tube. (One Really can find just about anything on U-tube.)
As time went by and my success rate went up, I tried restoring/servicing different types of and more difficult filling systems. Slowly, I started buying, restoring and selling pens purchased online on Ebay and some auctions. After gaining more success through research and hands on restorations, I started offering my "expertise" restoring and servicing other people's pens. It didn't take long for me to realize that every pen that came into my shop was important to someone and for many different reasons. I realized that I owed these people to treat their pen as if it were my on, and that is what I did. No pen sent to me for service or restoration leaves my shop until I feel comfortable that it is repaired to the best of my ability.
Today, my business includes buying, servicing, restoring, appraising and selling vintage, as well as 5 brands of new fountain pens, ball point and roller ball pens and mechanical pencils. I sell on Ebay as well as on my site: billsfinepens.com
Stop by for a visit and call, text or email me with any questions you may have.
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