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All my pride came to an end in just over 6 months period when I dropped the pen and broke the cap. I brought it back to Montblanc and was told that I have to pay US$30 for the cap! I wouldn want to pay US$30 for the cap! I mean the plastic cap! Worst still, they are reusing the clip and I have to pay US$30 for just for the plastic cap!! I remembered I told the sales personnel that it was like a day light robbery ! Obviously, I left the store and proceeded to the 7-Eleven store to get strong glue to glue the cap and reused it again. Somehow the feeling wasn as good as before because the glue along the crack can be seen miles away. Everyone would know that I was carrying a cracked Montblanc. It was very disheartening and I stopped carrying it and later it disappeared till today. I don have the slightest idea where I have put it or rather where I have lost it. So it was back to Papermate Kilometrico once again.

In 1995, I noticed that one of my customers was using a very special pen with a snake clip. Yes! It was Montblanc! I can see the white bird shit. You can miss it. Throughout the conversation, I was only concentrating on the snake clip and was not interested in the conversation at all. I was like "yes" here and "yes" there and "yes  yes yes" everywhere. Deep inside me, I was telling myself that I must own this pen. The problem with me was that I couldn bring myself to ask the customer to show it to me. It was the first meeting with the customer. I am pretty sure that he knew I was concentrating on the pen. It was a year later that he admitted that he was showing off the pen. I call him the %$#@ teaser. But he is my good friend now.

So whenever I travel, I would end up in Montblanc boutique to check for the snake pen. Unfortunately, none understood me. I noticed that Montblanc always employs new and young personnel to work in the boutique. No wonder they don know what I am talking about. For a moment, I thought I must be dreaming when I saw the snake pen clip. I gave up the thoughts of owning one until in 1997 I noticed a Dragon clip! I was very confused then!! Was it the snake clip or a dragon clip that I have seen the last time. Nobody can answer me. Suddenly it came to my mind that I can actually surf in the Internet to search for the pens! To be frank with you guys out there, all these while it has never crossed my mind of searching pens in the Internet. Kind of "goondu"n local termt means stupid!

Reached home at about dinner time and immediately I fired my computer until 7.00 a.m. the next day. Within that 8-9 hours of surfing, I managed to bookmark easily 15-20 pen shops mostly in USA. I was late for work naturally the next day but surprisingly I was still very energetic and continue surfing the web till 5.00 p.m. IN THE OFFICE !! . By now, my eyes were like Panda!! I obviously looked very intensive that day and none of my colleagues actually talked to me. I skipped lunch and was extremely serious that day. By now I am a little bit clever because I discovered that the snake and dragon pen were actually Agatha Christie and Imperial Dragon respectively. See, I told you that I was quite smart.

That nightarmed with a credit card "attacked" the pen shops in USA and bought the Agatha Christie, Imperial dragon, Voltaire and some vintage fountain pens. I wasn myself considering that I am quite a scrooge. It was like a voice telling me that I have to buy and buy and buy. That night I went to bed US$3000 poorer.

The best part of the buying was that I don even know what I am getting. All I care was that I should have the pens. Fine, Medium or Broad nib? Inked or dipped ? Box? Papers? and etc. I didn even ask for all these. It did not cross my mind that I should know these. So finally the pens arrived 7 days later via Fedex, UPS, TNT, EMS and DHL. Both the Agatha and Imperial Dragon were inked as I can see the liquid ink through the transparent window. It didn bother me because I didn know!

It was only months later that when I found that there was a shop in Singapore that actually sells Fine Writing Instrument! The shop owner told me that I should pay for a new set instead of the inked pens. Ironically, I am been traveling around the world and asking for Snake and Dragon pens when I can actually get it from a store about 30 km away from my home! I thought I was being extremely clever when I fired my computer to surf the web. Now I have second thoughts about myself :-)

Today I have pensany pensreally many pens that I literally spent all my saving into pens! Of course, once in a while I have to spend some money on my other businessthat is my Electrical and Mechanical businesso all my pen friends, this was exactly how I have started with pen collection.

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