When I was a teenager sitting in high school French class, I recall relentlessly mocking my teacher for the idiocy of buying a $200 or $300 pen. Fast forward to today, and not only do I have a massive pen collection, but I’ve fallen completely and totally in love with Michel Perchin pens to the point that when I have the retail store launch it’s full in-store pen department in the fourth quarter of this year, we are going to bring them in and sell them.
The average retail price for most of these works of art ranges somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000, depending upon the specific model, with many going for far more than that. They are actually cored out of a rod of solid, pure silver and built using the finest materials available on earth. When I look at them, my heart rate literally picks up and I feel this incredible urge to acquire. It’s the exact same feeling as when I see a stock that is being given away (like when we put a massive portion of our assets into General Electric at $6 per share and U.S. Bancorp at $8.50 per share back in March, watching them skyrocket between 100% and 300% in less than 90 days).
People really underestimate the cumulative cost of their capital allocation decisions. My personality is such that I like having nice things. During college, I bought two gold-rimmed coffee cups with saucers imported from England at a jewelry store in Princeton, NJ at a total cost of $500 to $600. They were what I drank from in my dorm room as I studied opera scores, read stock reports, and played video games. It’s a personality quirk. I only like to buy things that hold value.
I can’t wait to sell these in our store. This isn’t just business. I’m going to build a successful pen company that makes at least a few hundred thousand dollars a year in profit in the Midwest. It’s small by other standards, but this is personal. I love the product. I mean, I really love the product. Nothing else we sell gives me this kind of joy and so it’s a personal objective to make this happen.
Absolutely exquisite works of art ...
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I'm a private investor who loves architecture, furniture, clothes, history, philosophy, books, cooking, and music as much as I do finance. 
