Help With Clips

[MercianScribe]

Hello all.

 

I have a couple of pens with clip damage. I'm aiming to keep them both, so I'm not too concerned, but I was just wondering what I might be able to do.

 

I have a lovely red Eagle Prince at last. I've been trying to score one of these for ages, and while they come up fairly often on eBay in the States, they're pretty hard to get for a reasonable price in the UK. I assume the clip has lost its gilt, and I think it looks quite nice actually, as it's a lovely near-black tarnish, with the remains of the gilt on the imprint. What I was wondering with this one is what the base metal is, and will it deteriorate if I leave it untouched?

 

The other is an Osmiroid, which has lost a big chunk of chrome (?) or whatever its plating is. This one is obviously not such a good look, and already rusting, so what can be done about this?

 

Cheers!

 

[Hardy08]

Replating with chrome is difficult.

I have problems with rusted clips underneath the chrome plating, I first removed the rust with fine sand paper (up to 3000 grit). I then plated the clip with silver (you find kits on the internet for around 20 euros). The results were good : no more rusting of the clip. The drawback was that silver tarnishes and sometimes requires polishing to restore shine.