Most Unusual Fountain Pen Collection

[Aysedasi]

Try the Namisu Nova - I now have it in brass and copper - beautiful.

 

My 'collection' such as it is contains quite a few cheaper Chinese pens, some Indian and one or two pricier ones (a Duofold Centennial, two 149s (that I never use) and several Delta Federicos.

 

What gets me is my daily trawl through the Classifieds here - so many pens that are stunningly pricey. There seem to be a lot of members who think nothing of shelling out hundreds (even thousands) of $s on a single pen. There are pens I covet but will never own, not unless I win the lottery - until then I have to try to live within my means!

[AAAndrew]

I suspect my pen collection might be a bit unusual. I collect steel pens, aka dip pen nibs. And unlike most of the few other collectors of these, I don't focus on the real flexible, desirable (aka expensive) nibs, I go for the common, everyday kind of nibs. I also focus on Turner & Harrison, the #2 U.S. manufacturer after Esterbrook. I'm interested in the history of the steel pen industry in the US so I have some rather odd sub-collections, like the Braham's Patent Pen, the Leon Isaacs' Glucinum Pen, or the De Haan Pen Company pens. Philadelphia pens seem to crop up rather a lot in my collection, including Turner & Harrison, Leon Isaacs, De Haan, Koshland, and Samual Isaacs.

 

Other minor sub-collections include railroad-branded pens, bank-branded pens and school pens.

 

Hardly any of my pens are considered valuable. I prefer to think the value comes in the context of the whole collection and the history I research of the companies. Right now I have over 580 different kinds of pens (including different combinations of imprint and finish), and over 18,000 nibs altogether. Other people have larger collections, but few are better researched, and I don't know of any focusing on T&H or the other Philly makers. Would love to hear of someone else with the same interests.

[Mahidevran]

Currently obsessed with demonstrators. I'm at university in China and man basically I have unlimited access to Chinese fountain pens like I never had back home.

 

Ordered myself 3 demonstrators , all with clear nib feeds! Plus one of them is actually marketed as an eyedropper (it comes as an eyedropper straight from the box), which I feel quite unusual.

[ASCIIaardvark]

I collect odd nibs, without a lot of regard to the pen-body:

 

• fude
• music (tho, every company defines that differently; flex/not, 2-3 tines, stub/round)
• Hero 360 (2 nibs & 2 feeds smushed together to make a round point that doesn't work as well as advertised)
• Sailor Zoom (I'd love more Sailor specialty nibs)
• brush
• stubs 0.6-6 mm
• UEF - BB
• dip nib fountain pens

I like that fountain pens aren't restricted to a single line-width like ball-pens, and the myriad ways to shape the nib-tip don't seem fully explored.

[AAAndrew]

Sounds like an interesting collection. Too many modern pens are about the body or filling system and are content with boring nibs.

 

Just beware. Don’t start looking at dip nibs. There are hundreds of different types of vintage ones. It’s a very slippery slope. Trust me.

[fullfederhalter]

What is the copper wire looking one and the red one in the middle? Thanks.

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn,

The cable twist pencil is made from actual steel cable. The only identifying marks are "Williamsport" and "Bavaria." I presume that Williamsport refers to the city in Pennsylvania which I was told was home to several steel cable companies in the early 20th century. The red pen is a Cruver. A Sr. Mandarin Parker Duofold and a Dur-O-Lite (with a nice advertisement for Lincoln motorcars) are the other two.

Dale

[inkstainedruth]

What gets me is my daily trawl through the Classifieds here - so many pens that are stunningly pricey. There seem to be a lot of members who think nothing of shelling out hundreds (even thousands) of $s on a single pen. There are pens I covet but will never own, not unless I win the lottery - until then I have to try to live within my means!

 

I'm with you. While I do have a few pens (all Pelikans, as it happens) that do run a couple of hundred bucks apiece), most of mine are not nearly that pricy. I would say that probably at least 80% of the pens I've bought cost under $80 US -- including all but one of the Parker 51s -- including with repair costs. Because once you get beyond a certain price point (and that price point is going to vary, depending on what people like and how much they're willing to spend) it becomes a law of diminishing returns -- you're paying for the design, or the label, or the 18K nib. And when a $9 antiques store find Parker 45 writes smoother than a MB 146....

YMMV. But yeah, I've got a couple of "when I win the lottery" pens on the short list. And there's a website I ran across several years ago with some exquisite maki-e pens (but I'm super allergic to poison ivy, so I don't believe the urushiol oil will

OTOH, I have what is probably a fake Hero 616 and, well, it works. It's probably a $2 pen, and writes like one.... I paid less -- a whopping 50¢ -- for a *very* nice Parker 41 I lucked into at an estate sale a couple of years ago (found it while digging through a bunch of mostly ballpoints in a shoebox -- I could have paid $5 for the entire box... but like I said, it was mostly ballpoints... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Bo Bo Olson]

Mostly piston pens..........I do live in Germany so they are cheaper here.

 

Outside of my Woolf I got on sale 1/3 off, the most I've paid is @ E170, and E150 is a limit. Those are few. I can remember when E100 was expensive.

I buy few pens now, mostly in live auctions, (I can check the flex of the nib) where I only have mostly to do with is the dealers, who need to get Ebay prices....so bid lower.

I was though a member of the Pen of the Week in the Mail Club......E20-30.

After breaking the E30 barrier...soon become Joined the Pen of the Month Club....in E50 happened....and E70 was still rare.

Being in Germany collect semi and maxi-semi-flex pens.....It must not always be Pelikan.

I have about 70 pens.....Pelikan, Osmia, Geha and MB are @ 2/5ths.

 

I swore years ago, no more black and gold pens.............and 1/3 to 1/2 since then have been Black and Gold pens......................

Edited October 21, 2017 by Bo Bo Olson