I have a friend who's into fountain pens and for a while worked for a company that sells really nice ones. In that capacity he came to know some people who collect pens.
You'd be amazed. One guy I heard of -- not-famous founder of a very famous brand -- was so into it he'd spent tens of millions building his collection, but outside the world of serious pen enthusiasts it wasn't "worth" anything near that much.
A lot of the pens one collects are very limited editions but otherwise unremarkable: say a really good pen that would cost $500 but in a different color and they only make a thousand of them in that color and it costs $10,000. (Made-up numbers but $10K is not that much in the pen-collecting world.)
You'd be amazed. One guy I heard of -- not-famous founder of a very famous brand -- was so into it he'd spent tens of millions building his collection, but outside the world of serious pen enthusiasts it wasn't "worth" anything near that much.
A lot of the pens one collects are very limited editions but otherwise unremarkable: say a really good pen that would cost $500 but in a different color and they only make a thousand of them in that color and it costs $10,000. (Made-up numbers but $10K is not that much in the pen-collecting world.)