Any Information About Tropen Fountain Pen?

[mitto]

Would someone please provide information about Tropen fountain pen? Its origin , production line and other related information.

[Chiyoko]

try these:

http://users.telenet.be/aboxofpens/Geha_Lamy_Kaweco_Tropen_Soennecken_Osmia.html

http://www.penexchange.de/forum_en/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=67

http://strangeknight.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/tropen-scholar/

lots for sale on the bay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_kw=tropen+pen

not much info on the brand itself, though :/

[mitto]

Thank you for the generosity. But still would expect more brand specific information.

[mitto]

I asume it was produced in germany. And sadly that is all I know.

[estie1948]

Check Bo Bo Olson's reply on this posting: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/183687-tropen-fountain-pen/ I believe he supplies the information you may be seeking.

 

-David.

Edited October 29, 2014 by estie1948

[Chiyoko]

Thank you for the generosity. But still would expect more brand specific information.

Yeah, I know. And I'm sorry

But this being all I could find, I thought the least I can do to help is to share the little info I did find

[whych]

Most of the parts are interchangeable with Senator pens.

[mitto]

I wanted to share my Tropen pictures and put up a few questions. But the upload is persistantly failing. I dont know why.

[mitto]

Yeah, I know. And I'm sorry

But this being all I could find, I thought the least I can do to help is to share the little info I did find

Well, thank you so much...

[estie1948]

Here is Bo Bo Olson's post on Tropen pens. I've copied from the above link.

 

Posted 02 February 2011 - 15:38

Covered nib, Tropen came late to covered nibs....Half covered C 1200 Chrome cap C 1201, gold plated cap C 1202and
fully hidden nibs.
C 1000, chrome cap, C 1001, Gold plated C 1002

14 K= 585 gold....M= medium point.

it was a very good built cheap pen. A very solid second class pen like an Esterbrook.

Can get matching ball point and mechanical pencils.


Tropen was a German pen company that could not really get into the German market(The export master though)....In that I see too few being sold on Ebay.

Every once in a while I'd check German and English Ebay for them...and come up empty.


Founded 1925. Made out of Duro-plastic.
Spritzgus - pressed plastic...real up to date in the 1944...like Parker 51.
The Artus company had machines like that, which is why Lamy bought them up after the war...Celluloid was dead because of that technique to make cheaper pens.

Pioneers of feeds out of plastic (Tropen factory developed) instead of hard rubber.

1945-65, it Exported pens. 1945 It exported to England. Some English supply officer ordered 50,000


1945-48 The Scholar...school pen was made, 150,000 a year. It looks much like the later 500.
200 comes in Ivory, red, gray, matt-black.
That appears to be the color spectrum, the 500 also came in a shiner black.
There was a 600, and 800 also.
Early models were corked, by the '50's like most of the rest 'corked' with lupolen plastic.

Late '40s gold nibs from Degussa...(Degussa was a known nib maker like Bock...in the '30's it had bought up Osmia's machines which had made the superb Osmia Surpa nibs when Osmia got in financial trouble....
**I have some semi-flex and a full flex Dugussa nib....and to think as a Noobie...they were not worth nothing, neither did I think them with a little goat were worth anything.....ignorance is curable.... Thankfully, I didn't throw anything out.)

Well to make gold nibs...in a right after the war time...Tropen bought up the gold city and town gold placket and chains of the Mayors and department heads. Cities and towns needed occupation money more than a gold chain around some mayor's neck.


By 1954 Tropen was one of the largest pen producers in West Germany.


In the '50's there were more than 120 fountain pen producers in Germany.Many (mom and Pop small pen companies) bought parts from big producers, which is why it is hard to ID so many German 'no name' pens.

In the '50s' Tropen made 40-50 different models.

Tropen made 600-700,000 pens a year, most for Export.
Cadillac for Egypt, Platinum for Japan, Aphrodite for Cyprus.
Most also had a number...400-Mein Stolz, 500- Scholar, 200-Splendid, 800 Ambassador. There was also a 600 model.

A very good price to quality(A very well made cheaper pen)....almost all had screw out nibs...
The Scholar could be made into a desk pen....at home.
Ok tired of copying out of Lambrou's book.....

They sure made a hell of a lot of good pens....and I don't got one. They are seldom on German Ebay and I don't want one in 'German' Black...or I don't often look enough. I spend quite a few months looking every month or 6 weeks or so.

I did and do want some...some day.

Like MB they did make ball points, and mechanical pencils, but they did not have a great secure German back bone of fountain pen buyers...1960's they sank under 500,000 a year, and by 1965...175,000
including exports of course.

After 1980 piston pens made a come back, Tropen made 500,000.
Still alive in 1989 at the start of this version of the book...

'Fountain pens' for Tropen, like for Geha* and Soennecken* were not the main business; of this company, which was making plastic forming machines.
* Office supplies, and still making them.

Some day it died and no one noticed....and I don't have one.

I've even looked in Ebay Spain for them.
There are millions of them in places I don't speak the language...even enough to cheat sheet it.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson, 02 February 2011 - 15:47.

 

Thank you to Bo Bo Olson for the information. I hope this helps.

 

-David.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I finally got one, a nail. Took years.

thanks for bringing up the info again.

I'd forgotten I'd done it and was in no mood to do it again.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Bo Bo Olson

[mitto]

I got this one from a local vintage pen shop here in Pakistan. It has gold nib. Wonder what model , version it was and when was it produced?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Gut feeling, because of the little rounded top, the 'bauhaus' simple clip, and the screw off blind cap.....late '50's....maybe early '60's.

I'd expected blind caps to be passe by early-mid '60's...but the small 'jewel' and the clip put it in the late '50's. The Kaweco 'Gentleman' from 1958 has a similar 'jewel'.

 

Mine has a high 'sort of flatish '30's 'jewel' that was made by other companies & in the '40's too.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Bo Bo Olson