Targa Mystery

February 9, 2015

I dig the Targa. I love the nibs but have a hard time with the gaudy and dated 70s jewelry fishes and not in love with the swirly stuff either but other than the cosmetics I really like the pen. I love the cap, thought the clips is useless. I quite like the size and shape and balance as well.

In hard times I let go of all my Targas but one: an old Barleycorn number with an F nib. Nothing special but a great everyday writer and one of my most used pens.

But this pen has a mystery: It is VERY CLEARLY GOLD PLATED. The worst plating in pen history, perhaps one atom thick haha but it is gold colored and you can see there are places where the plating is still quite visible. You know a lot of these pens were gold plated and say so on the barrel of the pen.

Here is the odd part: Mine does not say Electroplated Gold or whatever it is they usually say. It says Silver Plated Casing on the cap band. Huh? Nothing about this pen suggests silver and it is very plainly gold plated, or at least it was till most of the plating rubbed off.

What could be meant by “Silver Plated Casing”?

I have always wanted to know this.

Edited February 9, 2015 by ink-syringe

February 9, 2015

Sorry for the bad pictures. But you can clearly see the gold playing in the cap bands and the clip. There once was a lot more but when I cleaned the tarnish off the pen (back in the day) I rubbed most of it off. Plus this pen has been used a lot, though that little ball of iridium looks as good as new.

February 9, 2015

Looks like the 1008x model, which was silver-plated brass with gold-plated clip. A gold-plated pen wouldn't tarnish much; I suspect it was indeed silver-plated, and that plating tarnished; you polished it, removing the plating and revealing the (yellow-colored) brass beneath.

--Daniel

February 10, 2015

Thank you.

I looked at the pen and scratched my chin a lot and it is now clear that you are 100% correct. In fact the parts I think of as "worn" are not and vice versa. The pen NEVER looked like the one in the link you provided to above while I had it. I got it as semi-NOS uninked but filthy. It was likely just the silver that was tarnished and when I cleaned it I actually already had mostly rubbed off the plating without realizing it and subsequent use has only made more brass underneath more apparent. I never thought of it as "brass" since it doesn't look quite that way but a loupe reveals that you are exactly correct. In the places most worn it does look like brass.

Mystery solved.

Most of the plating probably just came right off when I cleaned it and the gold-eque color and the genuine gold plating on the clip (which has long outlasted the Silver) tricked me. Well that and my terrible eyes.

Still great pen. Barleycorn feels nice in my paw. The nib is so precise and soft. The contour of the nib and the shape of the iridium blob makes for a super smooth writer. This one has great ink flow and is a consistent writer. One of my best pens and one of my most frequently used.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

10008x!