Your Pen Stuff Questions, Answered

  • You will always receive the item in the listing photographs. I never use an item listing as a “representative” listing. The pen or other item in the photographs is unique and will never be available again exactly as sold.

  • Your pen will arrive at your door ready to write with a quality refill installed. I most often use Schmidt Technology P900 refills in my ballpoint pens and Schmidt Technology Safety Ceramic RollingBall SRC 888 refills in my rollerball pens. I offer most of my pens in fine and medium with blue or black ink. To learn more about the stroke size of pen tips, please see my post What Is the Best Pen Tip Size?

  • Parus Pen ballpoint pens use either an International G2 (“Parker style”) or C1 (“Cross style”) refill. Parus Pen rollerball pens use a standard rollerball refill sometimes referred to as euro, European, safety, or international. This information will be indicated in the item listing as well as provided on an information card included with your pen. Please see my post Which Ballpoint Pen Refill Do I Need? for more information and to easily match your refill to the refill photographs.

  • The decision to purchase handmade comes down to things that are harder to value like an item’s uniqueness or meaning to a gift recipient. Handmade items can never be exactly replicated and tell a gift recipient you’ve given thought to who they are and what they enjoy. You may not have the time, skill, and equipment necessary to make a loved one a pen of their favorite color, but you cared enough about the gift recipient to search one out.

  • I use pen components plated with various metals in order to offer price points. However, I limit metal platings to those I know have good to excellent durability. The price of a pen often corresponds to the hardware plating. For example, assume two pens require the same amount of time to craft, but one is paired with chrome hardware and one is paired with rhodium hardware. The latter will always be priced higher due to its superior luster and durability. For more about pen hardware, please see my post Are Precious Metals Used on Writing Pens?

    • Orders with a Wisconsin delivery address have Wisconsin sales tax of 5% automatically added. Because Wisconsin has a variety of additional county and municipal taxes, the rational minded checkout system cannot collect these taxes. I figure them out later and pay them myself.

    • As a sole proprietor, it is difficult to absorb a lot of the cost of shipping. I never attempt to profit on shipping or charge mysterious “handling fees”. I charge a flat rate of $5.00 which is always less than the minimum to ship with USPS Ground Advantage. Feel free to game the system and buy more than one item but only pay shipping of $5.00!

    • I often ship orders the same day as received if I spy it early enough in the day. If I receive your order on a weekend or holiday, I will ship it on the next USPS shipping day. USPS Ground Advantage generally takes 2 to 5 business days. I always send a USPS confirmation email that includes a tracking number.

    • If your package is damaged while in USPS care, please save the packaging and contact USPS as soon as possible to file a claim.

    • Squarespace is my website host, and Squarespace Payments is my payment processor.

    • Credit card information you provide at checkout is only used by Squarespace Payments to complete the transaction. By using Squarespace Payments as a credit card processer, your encrypted transaction keeps Parus Pen automatically Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant.

    • The previous just means your sensitive credit card information is sent directly to Squarespace Payments and not visible to me. The nice folks at Squarespace Payments earn a percentage of each sale for this service.

    • If you send me an email, I only use your name and the content of your email to craft a clever response. If I was a better businessman, I would harvest your email for use in annoying email campaigns. Notice on the Contact form how little I want to know about you?

    • Rest easy, I won’t send you email or sell your email to a third-party. I don’t want third-party relationships. The ones I have are work enough.

    • By using my shopping cart, you apparently agree to be bound by my diabolical policies.

  • I want you to be happy with your purchase and post nice things about Parus Pen across your social media. So, if you are not completely satisfied with your purchase, please return it within 10 days for a refund of the item’s cost.

    You don’t have to tell me why you’re returning your purchase, but if you don’t mind letting me know it will help me meet customer expectations that much better.

    Please package items well, insure the package, and ship with a tracking number.

    Common sense dictates merchandise must be returned in its original condition.

    • Parus Pen is a sole proprietorship; just one guy and a shop dog making the pens, other items, and the website.

    • Parus Pen is a registered trade name with the State of Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions.

    • All rights to the content of this website are the property of Daniel Ouimet operating as Parus Pen.

Your Legal and Policy Stuff Questions, Answered (Perhaps)