Show us your dip pens!

[sidthecat]

Update:

The Hicks pen is a very pretty thing: repoussé band, MOP handle; a small, very pretty nib which is not extremely flexible but something I can control. Overqualified for a starter pen, but I don't feel like a mug for buying it.

 

[jovanovn]

Hello everybody! I love and collect fountain pens, and now I'm starting my journey into the dip and oblique pen world. For my dip pens I came up with this...

 

[AAAndrew]

Hello everybody! I love and collect fountain pens, and now I'm starting my journey into the dip and oblique pen world. For my dip pens I came up with this...

 

 

Interesting holders. What are they? They look almost like re-purposed ball point pen bodies.

[sidthecat]

My latest little treasure: a Leroy Fairchild Star nib transplanted into a Moore ringtop (probably two Moore ringtops since the chasing is different. Mr. Minuskin found a Waterman feed for it so its arguably a hybrid of at least four pens.

I call it The Chimera.

[Roca]

Hello all!

I'm new around here and have been very much enjoying this thread. Such beautiful pens you all have, though only about half the photos show up for some reason. I currently own one fountain pen and one glass dip pen (with another glass beauty being made for me), but I'm rushing headlong into the inky waters of pen collecting with great gusto.

This is my one dip pen, at the moment:

SaveSave

[AAAndrew]

Sounds like you have a foot on two different, and equally slippery slopes. Welcome to the world of slip-n-slides.

 

 

 

And don't forget desk pens!!

 

[Corona688]

http://burningsmell.org/3d/oblique-pen/hello-thingiverse.jpg

Custom-designed grips for southpaws with a large oblique and other adjustments. 512 and 99 nibs, usually.

[sidthecat]

These things seem so indirect to me, but I watched a young lady use a similar device at the Antiquarian Book Fair last weekend and she made the thing DANCE.

 

By the way, if you go to one of these shows, marry a rich bibliophile first. If anyone on this forum is a rich bibliophile, PM me.

I’m lots of fun.

[Astronymus]

My newest addition:

 

 

My nib box:

 

Kaweco Special

 

And in the attachment the rest of my dip pen stuff.

 

[Corona688]

These things seem so indirect to me, but I watched a young lady use a similar device at the Antiquarian Book Fair last weekend and she made the thing DANCE.

Consider nibs as metal paintbrushes. Artists refused to give them up. You can change pigment in seconds and replace them for pocket change. Some of them have insane degrees of flex.

 

I'm not sure what the glass ones are about but I might pick one up some day.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Corona688

[sidthecat]

The glass ones have no flex whatsoever and are hard to control. I’ve got a couple but I don’t quite get it.

[Soquel]

Hi there, I hope this is appropriate, if not let me know and I will remove this entry. I signed up here because I want to sell my antique retractable dip pen holder (there's no nib) and I really want it to go to someone who will appreciate it. Its a #2, it's 5.25 inches long extended. I believe it was made by Aikin Lambert & Co. because on the barrel is: A.L. & Co. 2. Also, I believe that it's gold plated since it never tarnishes. The black wood handle shows some signs of normal wear and has a small nick (see photo). It's quite lovely really. lm asking $150 including shipping. Email me at Soquels@att.net. Let your friends know.

[Corona688]

Sorry, you're only supposed to post sales in the sale forum, and only when you have enough posts to be a gold member.

[AAAndrew]

I have a mystery.

I have three steel pens. One of them is marked 149 Pacific Railroad, one is marked 145 Pacific Railroad but the number is imprinted upside down to most manufacturers, and one is marked 0149 Monarch Railroad, which is also imprinted upside down. None of these are names of actual railroads that I’ve been able to find.

To confuse matters even more, both Esterbrook as well as Turner & Harrison made a 149 Pacific Railroad pen. Neither, that I’ve been able to find, made a 145 Pacific Railroad pen.

I have more information over at my blog trying to figure out who or what or how to explain these pens. Feel free to check it out, and if you have any information, I would love to hear it.

[Inky.Fingers]

Wow! Other than what you can dig out, there's a journal with State of California ordering a gross of these at 33 cents to 50 cents. How would this translate with inflation in our time?

Waiting for your research to come thru.

[sidthecat]

eBay might be the place for your pen, Soquel. I’ve noticed a slightly distressing rise in prices over the last year or so, so conditions may favor the seller right at the moment.

[spacecoastpenny]

Great Thread!

I started with Fountain Pens and once I discovered Dip Pens I was hooked.

I ended up with several dip pens and nibs (see photos).

 

However out of all the pens I have, 98% of the time use the two in last photo.

 

The multicolor holder belong to my wifes great aunt Jonnie Bell. Ronnie Bell was a clown and lived to be 105 years old and wrote letters till the day she died. Her letters had illustration in them. So every drawing I do has a bit of Jonnie Bell now.

 

The small wooden pen is the pen I draw 90% of my drawings with.

 

 

[Inky.Fingers]

[AAAndrew]

Ahhh. All these dippers are making me misty-eyed. I daren't try and take a photo of my collection of holders. Then I'd have evidence my wife my find.

 

Instead, I thought I'd share a recent assorted mix of pens I sorted through. I love getting an assorted mix of pens and sorting through them. You never know what you're going to get. Often you just have a bunch of common stuff, but sometimes you get some interesting pens.

 

First image are the Esterbrook pens. (I'll sort them further after putting into general piles). You can see that the bag came with a Mammoth Falcon (used), a couple of 314's, a bunch of 988 Radio Pens, and a few other kinds.

 

 

The next image shows Spencerian pens. A bunch of the Everbrite stainless steel falcons, a few Commercials, a couple of Spencerian #1's, one unusual #21 Differential, plus an Eagle traveling holder, a "600 Hotel Falcon" (no other imprint), and a Conklin 4 fountain pen nib. (you can sometimes find gold nibs or plated fountain pen replacement nibs, but their usually very cheap ones or damaged, this one seems in good order).

 

 

 

This picture shows a pile of Gillott 1087 Tip Tilt Pens in what was probably gilt but is now more copper than gold. There are also some Birmingham Pen Co. 209's in their typical silver finish, and some more unusual Brook's Ideal Manifold pens in black with the silver "I" on them.

 

 

This image has two piles of the same Leon Isaacs #1 Falcons. The larger pile has a faint impression, and then three of the same but with a much heavier impression. I'll keep them separate until I can figure out if they're really two different periods, or if there's some other significant difference. The bag o' pens came from a wide range of dates, as far as I can tell.

 

 

 

This next group is an assorted group of A.S. Solomon Aluminoids in a strange copper finish. I'm not sure if the original silver finish corroded off, or if it was a special finish, or what. Every other Solomon I've seen has been a silver finish. Just another unsolved mystery in the steel pen world.

 

 

 

The last group are assorted odd pens, most from local stationers or others, probably made by another of the large manufacturers. These are mostly ones that I've never seen before. They include: The Drimer Falcon Pen, a group in different styles (most likely Hunt) for Shirley Pen Co. in Indianapolis, two from Levison & Blythe Mfg. Co. in St. Louis with an embossed Q, a few falcons from Dewey Pen. Co. in Pittsburgh, a larger assorted group from the Tenacity Pen Co. in Pittsburgh, A. S. McGie Platinum Improved, Walter B. Bogue Pen Co. in Buffalo, NY (made in England), Northern Pacific Railway A1 Professional (made by Esterbrook), John W. Graham & Co Bank Falcon, and a bunch of inflexible pens from the Madison Pen Co. in Pittsburgh.

 

 

 

 

That gives you an idea of what kinds of mysteries and oddities and cool things you can find in a mixed bag of pens. It also gives you an idea of the challenges of collecting and figuring out all of the various brands of pens. So many stationers set themselves up with their own pen brand only to have someone else actually make the pens but put their brand on as a custom imprint. I'm pretty certain that the Shirley Pen Co. did not actually have a factory in Indianapolis making pens. I'm pretty sure they used Hunt to make their pens with a custom imprint. One reason I am fairly certain is that one of the pens, the big one at the bottom of the middle row over on the right, is a Hunt #15 Gigantic. It's pretty unmistakable.

 

At the same time, the few sources that actually try to talk about pen companies in the US ignore the few small manufacturers that there were. Leon Isaac was one. They made their won pens until they were purchased by Turner & Harrison, but you'll still get statements like "Esterbrook, Turner & Harrison and Miller Brothers are the only pen makers in the US" during the same time when Leon Isaacs was making pens in Philly, Myer was making pens in Chicago, and others here and there. It's finding out which were stationers with custom imprints, and which were actual manufacturers that is the real challenge of this history.

[UDog]

Now I'm interested in dip pens.