Known Brands: Great Britain & Ireland - Europe

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Ladies and Gentlemen of the Fountain Pen Network,

 

As a side effect of the recent re-shuffle of forums (December 2014), which has more or less been concluded now, a list of all pen brands worldwide, as far as any information could be found on these brands, was compiled. Please find below the list of pens, which are discussed specifically in this forum.

 

For a complete list of all known pen brands, check here:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/281024-pen-brands-worldwide-by-country/

 

The idea is to try and keep this list up to date, and if any of you notice that pen brands are missing, please add those to this list, preferably with a reference; I will add them only with pleasure.

Similarly, please let me know if any typos were made, I'll gladly correct those too, and also any main brands for the brands listed. In case of incorrect attributions, please let me know too, preferably with a reference too: the idea is to, possibly, create an entry per brand with some sort of description if at all possible (time-wise), or if you yourself would like to do so - by all means post it, and notify me.

 

Thank you all very much in advance , and enjoy!

 

Warm regards, Wim

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List of known brands by country, discussed here in the Great Britain & Ireland - Europe forum, with the exception of the Cross, Parker, Shaeffer and Waterman brands, which have their own dedicated forums.

 

Great Britain:

Acca

Altura

Asprey

Autograph (Perivale)

Beatrix Potter (Sigma Pen)

Berol

Big Ben (Wyvern)

Blackbird (Mabie Todd & Co. Ltd.)

Bristol

® Bruto Bros

(John) Bull

Burberrys

Burnham

Calton (Jewell)

Camel

Cameron

Chatsworth (Boots)

Cheltonia

Colibri

Combridge

Conklin

Conway Stewart

Croxley

Curzon

Dandy (Conway Stewart)

De La Rue

Dickinson

Dinky (Conway Stewart)

Dunhill

Dunn

Empress

Esterbrook

Federation

Felix MacCauley

Fiscal

Fleet

Ford (Wyvern)

George Shand

Gillot

Gold Line

Gold Star (Conway Stewart)

Grenville (Harrods)

Harlin

Hayward

Hercules

Imperator

International (Conway Stewart)

Italix Parsons

Jackdaw (Mabie Todd & Co. Ltd.)

Jackie Coogan (Wyvern)

Jewel

Jewell

Jigger

Kendrick & Jefferson

Kingston (Unique)

Kingswood

Klimax

K&J Superpen

Lincoln

Lomond (Harlin)

Longshort

Mabie Todd (Mabie Todd & Co. Ltd.)

MacNiven

Manuscript

Maypen

McLaren

McNiven

Mentmore

National Security (BCP)

Neptune

New Bond Easi Flow (Woolworths)

Onoto (Thomas De La Rue)

Ormiston & Glass

Osmiroid

Palladium (Unique)

Parker (British factory

Pelican (Thomas de la Rue & Co. Ltd.)

Pento (Maypen)

Perivale

Perfecto (Mentmore)

Perry

Phillips

Pitman (Waterman)

Pitman College (Waterman)

Pixie (Conway Stewart)

Platignum (Mentmore)

Popular Prince (Mentmore)

Pullman

Queensway

RAJA

Recorder (Jewell)

Red Giant (Jewell)

Reliance (Mentmore)

Rosemary (BCP)

Royal Lever (Mentmore?)

Rufford (Boots)

Scribe (Conway Stewart)

Selsden

Shakeproof

Sheaffer (British factory)

Sigma Pen

Silver King (Mentmore)

Simpole

Southern Scot (De La Rue)

Spot (Mentmore)

Spot (R Bruto Bros)

Stadium

Stephens

Strand (Langs)

Style

Summit (Curzon)

Summit (James Dixon Ltd)

Supa (M. Myers & Son, Birmingham)

Swan (Mabie Todd & Co. Ltd.)

Swallow (Mabie Todd & Co. Ltd.)

Teddy (Ormiston)

The Empress

The GEG (De La Rue)

The Glideaway Pen (Charles T King, Lymington)

The Guinea (Mentmore?)

The J.W. Self Filling Pen (6, Piccadilly Arcade, London)

The Nova

The Seal (WH Smith)

The Victoria Pen (A&S Walker, Manchester)

Tom Tit (Ormiston)

Troika

Ty-phoo

Unique

Universal (Conway Stewart)

Valentine

Waterman

Wahid Pen

Waverley Cameron (McNiven & Cameron)

Webster

Welsh

Wembley (Mentmore?)

W.H.S. (WH Smith)

Whitworth

Whytwarth

William Mitchell

Wyvern (Finburgh Brothers)

Wyvern (Wyvern Fountain Pen Co.)

Yard-O-Led

 

Pencils, dip pens, etc.:

British Pens

Derwent Pencil Company

Gillott's

D. Leonardt & Co

MacNiven and Cameron Ltd.

Perry & Co.

Waverley Cameron Ltd.

Wipac

 

Ireland:

Cross (Irish factory)

Marquis

Waterford

[northlodge]

Hi Wim

 

This is a useful resource, but it might be worth laying down some criteria as to what qualifies.

 

some immediate thoughts:

 

Conway Stewart manufactured Pixie, Universal & International model pens- why are they listed separately? But Dinkie & Dandy are omitted.

 

Boots (a shop) have their Chatsworth brand listed but not their Rufford brand.

Woolworths (a shop) do not have their New Bond Easi Flow listed

WH Smith do not have their brand The Seal listed

Harrods likewise do not have the Grenville listed

BCP have their brand National Security listed, but not Rosemary.

 

Lang & BCM / HH7 would have a claim to be a manufacturer but get no mention, Waterman do.

Pitman / Pitman College were a distinct brand (? made by Waterman)

 

Felix MacCauley is absent, Valentine is not

[Cob]

Two makes I would add are Pento and Ormiston & Glass; I owned a Pento, an eye-dropper probably made around 1906; I believe that Pento produced self-fillers later on. I also owned until very recently an Ormiston & Glass "The Camel" eye-dropper probably from 1904 - 1909 or thereabouts.

 

Cob

Edited December 22, 2014 by Cob

[peterg]

Spot was a sub brand of Mentmore as was (probably) The Guinea

Onoto was also a sub brand of Thomas De La Rue

Croxley is a sub brand of Dickinson

 

Other pens that come to mind include:

Kingston (Unique)

Palladium (Unique)

Maypen

Pento (Maypen)

Altura

Selsden

Acca

George Shand

Kendrick & Jefferson

Gold Line

Strand (Langs)

Big Ben (Wyvern)

Popular Prince (Mentmore)

[wimg]

Hi Wim

 

This is a useful resource, but it might be worth laying down some criteria as to what qualifies.

 

some immediate thoughts:

 

Conway Stewart manufactured Pixie, Universal & International model pens- why are they listed separately? But Dinkie & Dandy are omitted.

 

Boots (a shop) have their Chatsworth brand listed but not their Rufford brand.

Woolworths (a shop) do not have their New Bond Easi Flow listed

WH Smith do not have their brand The Seal listed

Harrods likewise do not have the Grenville listed

BCP have their brand National Security listed, but not Rosemary.

 

Lang & BCM / HH7 would have a claim to be a manufacturer but get no mention, Waterman do.

Pitman / Pitman College were a distinct brand (? made by Waterman)

 

Felix MacCauley is absent, Valentine is not

As to what qualifies: brands only, whether they are main brands or subbrands.

Ideally I would like to know the main brand in case of subbrands, and also the manufacturing company and any other useful information if possible.

 

This list was created while moving topics to the new forums here at FPN, and it is far from complete. A list for all countries is posted in the Pen History forum, which ideally should include all brands and manufacturers, and here only those brands are listed which are to be discussed here which are all British and Irish brands with the exception of the (main) brands that have their own forum (Cross, Esterbrook, Parker, Shaeffer, Waterman, etc., varying by forum of course).

Waterman was mentioned by accident .

 

Other than that, I only realized I should have added main brands and/or manufacturers when I was quite far in the process, so quite often they are still missing. It was too much work to go back and revisit all the resources I have used to find the brands listed. I do hope to receive input from the experts here on FPN, like yourself, to create a more or less complete list, with all the important parameters, and hopefully even a few paragraphs on each brand and/or manufacturer eventually. That is a job with a very long term view, however, I am afraid, unless lots of people jump in and help out. Even then it will be quite a daunting prospect.

 

Anyway, this explains this list, why it isn't complete, and why there are likely errors in this list - I am far from an expert on the subject, I have a few books, an internet connection and Google, and that is how this initial list was created .

 

Please keep on providing information like you did already, and together we, all of us on FPN, will be able to create quite a unique and very useful library of brands, I am sure. Nothing else like this exists anywhere on the 'net.

 

BTW, the brands you provided have been added already, and corrections have been made . Oh, except Lang & BCM / HH7, I don't know exactly what you mean by those. Are those brands, or manufacturers, or both?

Thanks in advance!

 

Warm regards, Wim

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Two makes I would add are Pento and Ormiston & Glass; I owned a Pento, an eye-dropper probably made around 1906; I believe that Pento produced self-fillers later on. I also owned until very recently an Ormiston & Glass "The Camel" eye-dropper probably from 1904 - 1909 or thereabouts.

 

CobPento.jpg9.jpg

 

Spot was a sub brand of Mentmore as was (probably) The Guinea

Onoto was also a sub brand of Thomas De La Rue

Croxley is a sub brand of Dickinson

 

Other pens that come to mind include:

Kingston (Unique)

Palladium (Unique)

Maypen

Pento (Maypen)

Altura

Selsden

Acca

George Shand

Kendrick & Jefferson

Gold Line

Strand (Langs)

Big Ben (Wyvern)

Popular Prince (Mentmore)

 

Thank you both!

 

Added and updated!

Warm regards, Wim

[Cob]

I don't think it is correct to describe Croxley as a sub-brand of Dickinson any more than today one might say that Parker is a sub-brand of Newell Rubbermaid. Croxley was a brand name belonging to Dickinson (of Croxley Green) and when Dickinson opened a pen division, quite reasonably the pens were called Croxleys.

 

The same really applies to Onoto and Thomas De La Rue although in a slightly different sense - Onoto was a stand-alone prestige brand within the De La Rue Group. It is true that De La Rue made some less de luxe pens under the company name (and pens for other sellers too it is believed, as did of course Conway Stewart and Curzon-Langs).

 

On the other hand Mentmore's sub-brands were indeed Spot and Platignum and probably one or two others.

 

Cob

Edited December 22, 2014 by Cob

[peterg]

To quote from the pen in front of me - 'The Croxley Pen, a Dickinson Product'. While thinking, we should add the Shendish Pen, also a Dickinson product. Whereas Newell Rubbermaid was a holding company of which (at times) Parker was part.

 

Similarly (the original) Onoto was a brand within De La Rue who definitely made pens for others. So far I have only come across 'house' pens (apart from those made for Boots) rather than actual brands like Conways and Curzons.

 

The problem is that manufacturers went through different phases, sometimes stand alone then owned by others, or part of a group while some well known brands had their pens produced by different manufacturers.

 

I don't think of product lines, such as Conway's Unversal and International pens to be brands as such.

[northlodge]

 

 

Similarly (the original) Onoto was a brand within De La Rue who definitely made pens for others. So far I have only come across 'house' pens (apart from those made for Boots) rather than actual brands like Conways and Curzons.

 

 

 

I don't think of product lines, such as Conway's Unversal and International pens to be brands as such.

 

I have previously owned a "Southern Scot" pen, with "Made in Scotland" on the barrel that was clearly a DLR made item (I was similar to The New Swift - which might justify a listing ).

I have a pen here called "THE GEG" carries a Warranted nib (probably a size 5) and the only manufacturers mark is the DLR on the clip. The piston filling system gives it away as an Onoto.

 

Other manufacturers that might deserve a mention:

 

Kay & Co, Liscard, Liverpool - ED's (such as The Queen) Circa 1900

 

James Dixon Ltd (Southport) - who used the Summit product name before Curzon

 

J. Kearney & Co - Who made the Red Dwarf Stylos, etc

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I have previously owned a "Southern Scot" pen, with "Made in Scotland" on the barrel that was clearly a DLR made item (I was similar to The New Swift - which might justify a listing ).

I have a pen here called "THE GEG" carries a Warranted nib (probably a size 5) and the only manufacturers mark is the DLR on the clip. The piston filling system gives it away as an Onoto.

 

Other manufacturers that might deserve a mention:

 

Kay & Co, Liscard, Liverpool - ED's (such as The Queen) Circa 1900

 

James Dixon Ltd (Southport) - who used the Summit product name before Curzon

 

J. Kearney & Co - Who made the Red Dwarf Stylos, etc

Thank you, northlodge.

 

Is The Queen a brand name?

 

I am trying to make a list of brands, with manufacturers if possible, and/or main brands responsible for their production.

 

I would like to know therefore if Red Dwarf Stylos is a brand or not as well.

 

Unfortunately, etc is not going to help me here, so I'd really appreciate it if you could expand on that!

 

Thank you very much in advance.

Warm regards, Wim

[northlodge]

I have some difficulty in understanding the boundaries. There would appear to be three descriptors: Manufacturer, Brand, and Model

 

In the above cases I would consider Kay, Dixon, and Kearney to be Manufacturers, The Queen, Red Dwarf, and Summit to be Models.

 

It could be argued in the above cases that Model & Brand are the same thing;. but then with say Parker the 45,51, 61,65, 75, etc are clearly better described as models. (with Parker being the Brand as well as Manufacturer).

 

With say Curzon (the manufacturer) The Autovac, The Pinnacle, & The Slik are probably models (but the latter two might be considered Brands as they varied the design over an extended period). However The Joy & The Summit are definitely brands (as they appear to have had sub-groups / different models for sale at the same time),

 

I suspect that the same difficulties would exist in categorising many other producers - I was thinking of the Conway Stewart made (manufacturer) Esterbrook (brand) Relief (also brand?) 2L, 2S, 3, 66, 90 (models).

 

Perhaps I am just confusing myself :-)

[wimg]

Ok .

 

A brand is a name, trademarked or not (often it is, or was), by a manufacturer, under which a manufacturer sells its products.

Often a manufacturer carries a brand which has the same name as the brand itself, but it may also carry brands with a different name.

 

F.e., Parker, the manufacturer, carries the brand Parker, Parkette, and a few others, and has models like the P51, Duofold, etc.

 

In your example, I would not know exactly where to put Curzon, other than that it is a manufacturer, unless it also produced pens branded Curzon, i.e., under its own name.

 

I am specifically looking for brands in the first place, as that is generally imprinted on a pen, and it is the brand, plus possibly a model name, by which the pen is know, not necessarily by the manufacturer. Of course it could get even more complex if a manufacturer creates pens for another company, which has its own brand. This is exactly why I am looking for brands in the first place. Levenger in the US, Pineider in Europe, and quite a few more, are examples of brands of non-manufacturing companies which effectively outsource the manufacturing. However, they are brands, and known by these brand names, which also is printed or inscribed on the pens they sell under this brand name.

 

Getting back to Curzon: I now still do not know whether the pens or pen types you mentioned are brands or not, except as you indicate, for the Joy and the Summit. Duofold is not a brand of Parker, it is a model, they have made it over a very long period, and it has varied quite a lot over that period. The brand is still Parker.

 

In short, looking for brands in the first place, but I would like to hear by which manufacturer it was made, which company owned the brand, where it is made. All based on brand however.

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

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Updated the brands listing .

Warm regards, Wim

[Cob]

Here's another English brand: the tiny Golden Cockerel

 

Cob

 

[pensaro]

"TIP-TOE" BHR LEVERFILL MADE IN ENGLAND ?

Edited July 30, 2015 by pensaro

[GerseSjaak]

HI guys, just wanted to share some more pictures of a 'The Golden Cockerel' Made in England fountain pen. Very charming, well made little pen. I like the cursive imprint of the brand name.

 

[jhataway]

Wim,

 

Also the current Onoto Pen Company.

 

Jim

[northlodge]

A few additional thoughts:

 

Bentley -

 

Rather hard to come by, but made by Henry Dixon after he left De La Rue (he patented the DLR 1922 clip many will have seen).

 

Pelham

Welbeck -

 

Like the more common Chatsworth & Rufford both of these were brands used by Boots the Chemist, Pelham examples I have seen were made by Burnham, Welbeck probably by Lang.

 

Ingersoll -

 

surprised this has not been mentioned yet. Not the US pen company, but the English company primarily known for their watches. There pens appear to have been made by Wyvern.

[northlodge]

Ok .

 

 

 

Getting back to Curzon: I now still do not know whether the pens or pen types you mentioned are brands or not, except as you indicate, for the Joy and the Summit. Duofold is not a brand of Parker, it is a model, they have made it over a very long period, and it has varied quite a lot over that period. The brand is still Parker.

 

In short, looking for brands in the first place, but I would like to hear by which manufacturer it was made, which company owned the brand, where it is made. All based on brand however.

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

 

I do not think I answered this in any detail.

 

Curzon was a pen manufacturer in the same way Wyvern, Mentmore, or Burnham were. They produced a large number of pens that carried their name along with a model name (Curzon Pinnacle, Curzon Klimax, Curzon Velvet Tip). They acquired the Summit brand name from Dixon, started using this, and eventually dropped the Curzon name in favour of Summit. So summit became the manufacturer and brand name, with models such as the S.125 / S.175.

 

They had a sister company Lang that made pens for other brands normally using the same pen designs used in Curzon branded items. (Stephens, New Bond Easi-Flow & National Security being examples). They also marketed their own models: Regent, Slik, Strand, and probably Savoy.

 

BCM were another sister company of Curzon, operating out of London I believe. The best known model was the Major Service, but some Regent models were certainly manufactured by BCM.

 

On the same theme, there was a Manufacturer called Debretts that made a high quality model called 'the top lever'. When they got into financial problems it seems that Curzon bought the design, and thus there is also a Curzon Top Lever. A scarce model in either guise, but this would justify adding Debretts to your list.

 

Whilst on a roll I will throw in another two:

 

The KopyKleen - A brand by The Thames Manufacturing Co Ltd. Most appear to have been manufactured by Burnham (1940 -1950's), but there were certainly some earlier products that were probably manufactured by Lang (and certainly not by Burnham).

 

The True-Point - another exceptionally well made post-war pen that failed to establish itself. I believe they may have been manufactured by a London company called Kessell (I need to check this), and it is often claimed that they were originally made for Dunhill. (They certainly also sold this pen as a Dunlop branded item). Total production time was probably no more than 2 years (1947 - 1949.

Edited March 18, 2017 by northlodge