Mabie Todd Material Mystery

[Cob]

Here's a really pretty Blackbird:

 

 

On the end of the barrel is stamped the number BB2/62. Clearly an error! /62 is the code for the famous wine and silver seen on lovely early Leverless pens and sadly, as far as I know used on no other model. No, this is in fact the /41 material: almond green mottled. This is clearly another MT mystery and heaven knows there are plenty of them!

 

Rgds

 

Cob

 

[SomersetSwan]

An interesting point Cob. It seems there are plenty of small examples of unusual marks. On a serious thought, I am wondering how far the operative using the stamp followed the exact numbering. It is easy to make a mistake. If the controls were not in place to monitor mistakes, the only criteria measured are that they are stamped, not necessarily correctly stamped. Are we learning that MT were great at production and unit quality but the marking departments quality slipped? Much like many businesses I work in today! If this is the case, we may need to work with the generic numbering and accept that there are exceptions which will be valued for their rarity. The level of rarity determining price. Just a thought.

[chunya]

Whether it was another Friday afternoon stamping special, it's still a lovely looking Blackbird,

Edited May 17, 2018 by chunya

[Cob]

Whether it was another Friday afternoon stamping special, it's still a lovely looking Blackbird,

Yes, pretty isn't it?

 

Has anyone seen a Swan in this material? One further point that baffles me: Mabie Todd introduced the Blackbird as a cheaper alternative to the Swan, so why then did they produce Blackbirds such as this, in fancy material and with gold plate and full size too? Then there are the Blackbird No 3 pens - to all intents and purposes Swan Minor 2s and of course the extraordinary Big Blackbirds!

 

Cob