Often on a Saturday or Sunday I’ll have a look at the eBay listings and I’ll find a rarity or oddity to share and write about. Not today. There was nothing I hadn’t written about before. All the usual things: relatively modern Parkers, boxes of dip nibs and uninteresting collections of cheap pens.

There was one I considered writing about, an attractive and less common pen, but what put me off was that the seller photographed the pen in his hand. Why not just lay the pen down on a suitable background? I find the inclusion of a hand in the photograph distracting and annoying and it doesn’t show the pen off in the best way.

There’s quite a bit to photographing pens for sale. You need good light, a background that doesn’t distract and a camera capable of good close work. People want to see good shots of the whole pen, capped and uncapped and close-ups of such things as the clip, lever if it has one and especially the nib. What you don’t want is a grabby hand that says, “This is my pen and you can’t have it!”