Know your collector: Assia Penryn

Know your collector continues... with none other than the new moderator of UO Stratics Rare Collector forums. I started this interview several weeks ago before Assia was selected to be a new moderator. Unfortunately, things got sidetracked. However, better late than never!

Question 1: Who is Assia Penryn?


I'm 32 year old mother of three and I live in Sacramento, California. I've been playing Ultima Online for over twelve years and been an avid supporter of multiple rp communities.

Assia (pronounced "ah-sea-ah") was originally an rp character on the Pacific Shard over ten years ago. It was during that time that I discovered another passion... being a merchant. I started running a couple vendors and gradually saved enough gold to start my own shop. That small villa in Yew was to become the beginning of what would later evolve into my magnum opus... The Pacific Trading Company [PTC]. With the support of an awesome core staff, PTC remained a dominating presence on Pacific for six years before it was retired.

Over the years, I've had the pleasure of having many memorable
opportunities to support the community from working as a broker with Centurio and his team to being a news manager and administrator for Stratics. While I consider myself retired from the spotlight, I still manage to find time to stay active in the Atlantic RP Community [ARPC] and maintain a small shop of rares vendors.


Question 2: Aha, a fellow merchant! You have also been active in expressing your opinion in regards to rare festival and how it should be conducted. Would you care to briefly state your position on the matter?


Briefly... that's a tough one. *grins* I'll give it a shot though.

My opinion on the rares festivals isn't a popular one. I accept that it isn't going to win me any popularity contests.  I'm okay with that.

The rares festivals appear to have become centered around making gold instead of promoting community. We all enjoy making gold, but rares collecting should be about more than gold. It should be about passion. We should be using the festivals not only as a tool to unite the rares community, but also using our knowledge and experience to protect the global community. Every rares festival, I see many, many items on the festival vendors that are deceptively labeled as rares either from ignorance or worse, greed. We need to be taking steps as a community to put a stop to this by educating the ignorant and punishing those who are hurting the community's reputation just to line their pockets with gold.


Question 3: Can you describe your collection taste? I know that you are big into collecting various types of rare brews.

My taste tends to be pretty particular compared to many collectors. My house is not designed as a standard museum, but as a home so most of the rares I acquire are meshed into the home's design. Bring an rper, I avoid any rares that mention a shard or a year on them.

Rare drinks are definitely one of my favorite collections. In addition to brews, I also have a strong collection of whispering roses, double exceptional and bracketed exceptional items. My rose collection is primarily focused on roses with rpish references, historic names and those which have personal memories for me. Some examples of my rose collection are a whispering rose from... a pool of blood, ImaDufus, Skara Brae, etc. As far as the double exceptional items, they have to have the full name on them rather than "Of Exceptional Quality". My bracketed exceptional collection is not as extensive as other players because I prefer items without crafted names attached to them unless the crafted name adds an rp flavor to the item such as "a skinning knife made by The Guardian
[Exceptional]" or "A cloak made by marble [Exceptional]".


I do have other rares outside these particular collections, but I am rather obsessed with
the aforementioned.

Question 4: Since we started this interview, you have became moderator of the Stratics Rare Collector's Forum. Congratulations and welcome to the team. Do you have any final thoughts to share?

I'm fairly impervious to fire and incendiary devices... so don't get any ideas. Seriously though, I'm fairly easy going and I'm always willing to listen with an open mind to any complaints, questions or ideas you may have. I was blessed with two ears and one mouth, I shall try to use them proportionately. 


Thank you.