Miracles still do happen

[philm]

Ouch....Sorry to hear this. I remember when this came to you and the stir it caused. Maybe somewhere....

[david i]

Which is the order of rarity? First I am sure the one you found, but about the other colours\nibs? Ciao, G.

 

 

I am no expert but a wonderful whole range of #7 red ripples for sale in latest Gopens catalogue

All banded colours are similar in price ($400-$600) except the 'Black' which is a massive $2200

Interestingly the only pen missing in the range is the 'WHITE' - I wonder what that puppy is worth ?

 

http://www.gopens.com/Cat44frames.htm

 

Oxpen

 

Top down...

 

White then Black then Gray.

 

Below that probably...

 

Blue then yellow then green.

 

Below that

 

Brown/Purple, Pink, Red

 

am i missing one?

 

Pink tends to be popular due to high flex. Many reds have flex that is impressive.

 

d

 

[southpaw]

UPDATE: Research has shown that my WHITE nib is in fact a fake. It turns out that John Mottishaw worked on this nib in 2003, and at that time it did not bear a WHITE imprint. It's a very nice nib, but it ain't authentic.

 

Back to Square 1.

 

 

:crybaby: :crybaby: :crybaby: :crybaby: :crybaby:

 

Very sorry to hear that!

[kirchh]

Which is the order of rarity? First I am sure the one you found, but about the other colours\nibs? Ciao, G.

 

 

I am no expert but a wonderful whole range of #7 red ripples for sale in latest Gopens catalogue

All banded colours are similar in price ($400-$600) except the 'Black' which is a massive $2200

Interestingly the only pen missing in the range is the 'WHITE' - I wonder what that puppy is worth ?

 

http://www.gopens.com/Cat44frames.htm

 

Oxpen

Top down...

 

White then Black then Gray....

I do not think that there ever was a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen.

 

--Daniel

[david i]

Which is the order of rarity? First I am sure the one you found, but about the other colours\nibs? Ciao, G.

 

 

I am no expert but a wonderful whole range of #7 red ripples for sale in latest Gopens catalogue

All banded colours are similar in price ($400-$600) except the 'Black' which is a massive $2200

Interestingly the only pen missing in the range is the 'WHITE' - I wonder what that puppy is worth ?

 

http://www.gopens.com/Cat44frames.htm

 

Oxpen

Top down...

 

White then Black then Gray....

I do not think that there ever was a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen.

 

--Daniel

 

Some support for such an item exists, but happy to hear why you believe it does not exist. I have never seen one.

 

d

Edited September 16, 2007 by david i

[Vintagepens]

I do not think that there ever was a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen.

 

You may well be right -- but it is always risky asserting an unqualified negative!

 

Some support for such an item exists, but happy to hear why you believe it does not exist. I have never seen one.

 

Neither has anyone else, it seems -- and that in itself suggests that if any do exist, they are so vanishingly rare that they are unlikely to have been production items. Nor is there any original Waterman literature showing a nib imprinted "WHITE", or a #5 or #7 Ripple with a white band. This has led to speculation that the White nibs -- which were, briefly, advertised -- were not so marked, and that the White pens might also have been unmarked, or were the later, plastic pens with a color-coded circle inset into the end of the barrel. It all remains a bit of a mystery, in any event. Perhaps the color was killed before going into production, but some ads got run anyway. Nonetheless, I am sufficiently cautious not to discount the possibility of a genuine "WHITE"-marked nib turning up some day. But I'm not holding my breath. . . .

 

[Glenn-SC]

Of course "rare" has no formal meaning in pendom, so saying it is or is not rare has little meaning.

 

Plenty of hyperbolic dealers call every pen they wanna sell on ebay, "rare"

[david i]

I do not think that there ever was a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen.

 

You may well be right -- but it is always risky asserting an unqualified negative!

 

Some support for such an item exists, but happy to hear why you believe it does not exist. I have never seen one.

 

Neither has anyone else, it seems -- and that in itself suggests that if any do exist, they are so vanishingly rare that they are unlikely to have been production items. Nor is there any original Waterman literature showing a nib imprinted "WHITE", or a #5 or #7 Ripple with a white band. This has led to speculation that the White nibs -- which were, briefly, advertised -- were not so marked, and that the White pens might also have been unmarked, or were the later, plastic pens with a color-coded circle inset into the end of the barrel. It all remains a bit of a mystery, in any event. Perhaps the color was killed before going into production, but some ads got run anyway. Nonetheless, I am sufficiently cautious not to discount the possibility of a genuine "WHITE"-marked nib turning up some day. But I'm not holding my breath. . . .

 

Breath holding can be dangerous

 

Now, if i could just dig up that Pen of Pens i picked up last week. Lying around here somewhere...

 

d

 

 

[kirchh]

I do not think that there ever was a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen.

 

You may well be right -- but it is always risky asserting an unqualified negative!

I am acutely aware of that, but I phrased my comment with care; I did not say, "there was never a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen,", but rather "I do not think that there ever was a white-marked nib nor a white-banded pen." I am merely expressing my current belief based on the information I have seen -- I am not making an assertion of fact.

 

Some support for such an item exists, but happy to hear why you believe it does not exist. I have never seen one.

Neither has anyone else, it seems -- and that in itself suggests that if any do exist, they are so vanishingly rare that they are unlikely to have been production items. Nor is there any original Waterman literature showing a nib imprinted "WHITE", or a #5 or #7 Ripple with a white band. This has led to speculation that the White nibs -- which were, briefly, advertised -- were not so marked, and that the White pens might also have been unmarked, or were the later, plastic pens with a color-coded circle inset into the end of the barrel. It all remains a bit of a mystery, in any event. Perhaps the color was killed before going into production, but some ads got run anyway. Nonetheless, I am sufficiently cautious not to discount the possibility of a genuine "WHITE"-marked nib turning up some day. But I'm not holding my breath. . . .

The hypothesis that I find most plausible is that there are plenty of WHITE nibs around, they're just not marked (I first saw Rob Astyk allude to this possibility). I don't have large amounts of compelling evidence for this (I haven't researched it extensively), but nonetheless, what I do know supports it:

 

-- The items (trays) I've seen that refer to the WHITE nib grade seem to date to after the banded pens. I have not, however, seen the advertisements to which you refer -- can you post them?

 

-- No. 7-sized pens/pencils do not properly fit in the trays I've seen that show the WHITE nib grade, implying that the trays were intended to hold smaller pens.

 

-- The trays have descriptive terms for the nib grades on the front; the color names are on the back where the salesperson could see them, but the customer would not, implying a de-emphasis on the color system in representations to buyers, supporting the idea that the color name system may have been dropped from view on products though (perhaps briefly) retained for internal reference, maybe to ease a salesperson's task when selling a newer model to someone with a color-banded pen who wanted the same nib grade.

 

-- The colored-nib-grade system was expanded at some point to extend beyond the banded pen line (for example, smaller nibs turn up with color name stamps). This fact tends to support the notion that starting at some point, use of the color-name nib grade system was widened and Waterman models other than the banded pens were offered with nib types from the color-name system (though it does not explain why the nib stamp would have been dropped at some point, which is my belief).

 

-- The nib style associated with the WHITE code is not an extreme or special-purpose grade -- it's "coarse", or broad, which I would expect to be reasonably popular. If the color names were always stamped on the nib, it seems very unlikely that no examples of a WHITE-marked nib would be found, even if the WHITE code were used only briefly (though long enough for display case trays to be manufactured, presumably to hold actual pens!). On the other hand, if, by the time the WHITE nib grade was introduced, the banded pens were out of production, and the color name system had be broadened across the Waterman line as a shorthand (no pun intended) for the various nib grades, and color-name stamping had been dropped, a coarse (broad) nib was a WHITE nib, by definition.

 

I would very much like to see the ads that refer to the WHITE nib grade, as I would like to refine -- or undermine -- this speculation.

 

--Daniel

[FloridaRandy]

mmmm....as a newbie a fascinating thread...

 

first, even those really smart pen guys still find excitement in finding a new pen....albeit at a level of sophistication well beyond me at present.....oh, but then that dreaded feeling....maybe you never reach "enough"...

 

second, to read a thread where much of the pen hall of fame....remember i'm a newbie....is in conversation. kinda like eavesdropping on a cabinet meeting at the whitehouse....

 

third, disappointment isn't limited to newbies buying fakes or pens that are broken or simply didn't look or feel as good as they did on the computer....its better to have loved and lost....

 

carry on gentlemen...don't mind the nose prints on the window