Suppliers:
All chinese or Taiwanese and the average pen maker will not have the volume or enthusiasm to deal direct, it can weaken your heart, stretch your patience and for the amount you save its not worth your sanity. Besides I dont speak Chinese.
Designers/Distributors:
Fundamentally two major designers, Penn State Industries
Berea Hardwoods
Berea Hardwoods are terrible to deal with and PSI are worse.
Neither:
1) Recognise that there are other land masses East of Florida or West of Hawaii
2) Understand that not everyone knows, understands, or cares about the regulations concerning the US Postal service and what constitutes a priority mail service
3) Believe that they are in any way to blame for anything that could possibly ever go wrong.
Even their distributors hate doing business with them!
PSI pens I buy from Woodturningz, Fritz and Ray are great, easy to deal with, both served in the US Air Force and understand about a big wide world inhabited by people other than employees of PSI.
Berea Pens I generally dont buy as they aren't particularly well engineered in my opinion and are out of date, I just swear in a Monty Python sort of way when I say "Filligree". An awful pen, and when so many people complained that it was terrible Berea put an argument on their website saying that all woodturners who couldnt cope with the filligree pen were lacking experience! Yeah right!
Ed Brown at Exotic Blanks really helpful, Ernie at Bear tooth woods but never done business with him as he seems to deal mainly with Berea who I dont like!
David Lim, Timberbits, Sydney NSW. Wins hands down on cost, timing and quality.
Like Eamonn could go on for hours, but if you having anything specific please ask.
