I got this pen today

[mizgeorge]

5 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

Another member of the Handsome Pen Modeling Club arrived: an Inoxcrom 88 Oro. There's a fairly small amount of information available on the web about this pen and I gather that it might be pretty rare.  This was the Spanish company Inoxcrom's flagship pen, I believe circa 1970s, but I am not really sure. My phone's camera doesn't really capture the color of the section & barrel - there is a slight green tint to the dark blue that makes the pen look both classy and distinctive. The nib is similar in style to the old Pilot Custom's except it is flush with the plastic of the section, making me think that perhaps it doesn't extend further into the section but, again, I don't really know. The nib's text is 'upside-down' compared to most pens - a little unusual. 

 

Looking forward to sitting down and putting it to work. 

 

 

 

That's a nice looking pen!

[inkstainedruth]

6 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

That's a nice looking pen!

Agreed.

I don't know a lot about Inoxcrom.  Someone on FPN did a PiF a few years ago which was done as a contest (come up with a caption for a photo of the person's dog).  I said that if I won, I didn't actually want the first prize (some inexpensive Chinese pen) -- I wanted one of the runner-up pens, an inoxcrom student-grade pen that had a design based on the Tin-Tin comic, because I have a friend who is half Spanish (her father is from some small village in the NW corner, outside of Santiago de Compestella) who is also a HUGE fan of the strip.  And she just SOOOO needed that pen.  

It's probably lost in her house now -- but she was just tickled pink when I gave it to her (I also bought her a bottle of modern Skrip Blue).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[A Smug Dill]

45 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

And she just SOOOO needed that pen.  

It's probably lost in her house now -- but she was just tickled pink when I gave it to her (I also bought her a bottle of modern Skrip Blue).

 

That was awfully nice of you!

 

[inkstainedruth]

Well, she's the one who gave me my second Pelikan -- an M200 with the Bayer logo on it.  She got it on Freecycle for me as a joke, not realizing that it was probably (back then) a $100+ pen.  It was effectively NOS (there is a Bayer facility in  the Pittsburgh area, and it was probably some sort of corporate gift to the original owner) -- the box looked to be in mint condition, and the pen had probably never seen ink until I got it. 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[DvdRiet]

I have a simple black-enamelled Inoxcrom that I honestly do not remember buying years ago. It's a sturdy all-metal pen with a good nib that's a solid and reliable writer. A friend in Spain says they have always been a well-known brand in Spain but I don't think they are very well known in other countries. 

[PithyProlix]

3 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

I have a simple black-enamelled Inoxcrom that I honestly do not remember buying years ago. It's a sturdy all-metal pen with a good nib that's a solid and reliable writer. A friend in Spain says they have always been a well-known brand in Spain but I don't think they are very well known in other countries. 

 

The most comprehensive information I could find is here: http://plumahispana.info/Inoxcrom.html Perhaps you can find it there.

 

The author claims that Thailand was their first foreign market. I see Inoxcrom pens here but only very infrequently and have never seen any of the models with inlaid nibs previously. It seems he also claims that Inoxcrom made EF nibs for Thailand but not domestically - lucky for me as this pen seems equivalent to a Western EF/Japanese F, my preferred width. 

 

It's exciting to get a totally unfamiliar pen like this. (My god, I'm such a geek.)

[jchch1950]

19 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

 

The most comprehensive information I could find is here: http://plumahispana.info/Inoxcrom.html Perhaps you can find it there.

 

 

Thanks for the information.Some of the old pens were very good writers , but the international distribution was limited as the competition in the Spanish market increased.😔  

[DvdRiet]

Thanks for the link, Pithy! I'll check it out.

 

22 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

The author claims that Thailand was their first foreign market.

 

Spain to Thailand seems an odd first international foray. Wonder what the connection was? In my research on Diplomats, I also came across a pen from 1996, if I'm not mistaken, that was produced and marketed by both companies but under different model names. The story I found on a Spanish blog claimed that the owner of Diplomat at the time and the founder of Inoxcrom were friends and collaborated on the pen, but it seems to me to be such an odd thing to do. It also seems like a model that is a bit out of the ordinary for both companies. It is facetted and looks more like an OMAS, so I have to wonder if they were both deliberately trying to compete with that. I am still looking to add that specific Diplomat to my collection but the prices are all over the place and always over 100 euros, so I have not yet hit the purchase button on any of them.

 

I also understand that Inoxcrom is another one of those pen companies, like OMAS, where the employees started up a company to continue the brand.

 

Edit: I've just clicked the link and I'm pretty sure this is the same blog where I found the information about the collaboration between Diplomat and Inoxcrom. The model is the Corinthian 1942 btw.

Edited February 8, 2022 by DvdRiet

[PithyProlix]

31 minutes ago, DvdRiet said:

Thanks for the link, Pithy! I'll check it out.

 

 

Spain to Thailand seems an odd first international foray. Wonder what the connection was? In my research on Diplomats, I also came across a pen from 1996, if I'm not mistaken, that was produced and marketed by both companies but under different model names. The story I found on a Spanish blog claimed that the owner of Diplomat at the time and the founder of Inoxcrom were friends and collaborated on the pen, but it seems to me to be such an odd thing to do. It also seems like a model that is a bit out of the ordinary for both companies. It is facetted and looks more like an OMAS, so I have to wonder if they were both deliberately trying to compete with that. I am still looking to add that specific Diplomat to my collection but the prices are all over the place and always over 100 euros, so I have not yet hit the purchase button on any of them.

 

I also understand that Inoxcrom is another one of those pen companies, like OMAS, where the employees started up a company to continue the brand.

 

Edit: I've just clicked the link and I'm pretty sure this is the same blog where I found the information about the collaboration between Diplomat and Inoxcrom. The model is the Corinthian 1942 btw.

 

Maybe there wasn't much competition in the Thai market at the time - there are many possible reasons. I read something about Pilot pulling out of Thailand around that time so maybe Inoxcrom saw an opportunity. Based on the vintage pens I see here now it seems like Parker may have had a big foothold in Thailand. Just my conjectures. 

 

That blog has a fairly detailed history of Inoxcrom. 

[DvdRiet]

Welp, I just found out that my local bookshop also sells interesting versions of the standard brands, so now I suddenly have my very first Cross pen. I went in for a 50-cent envelope

 

[A Smug Dill]

On 2/5/2022 at 5:02 PM, AmandaW said:

My Hongdian A3 with the black and gold coloured long knife-nib arrived very quickly,

 

My two units arrived yesterday, and I only got around to cleaning and inking one quite late tonight. Even though as a fountain pen user I'm usually all about getting the finest, crispest lines while writing with the nib in normal orientation, this nib is ‘perfect’ in terms of the type of line variation it delivers, and I'd be ecstatic if most (but perhaps not 100%) of my Fine-nibbed pens (especially European and Chinese ones) wrote like that! I can't say I'm equally as happy with the pen body, though; and I already have an EF-nibbed HongDian A3, so in theory I should have known what I'd be getting. The barrels of my two new, F-nibbed units are actually different from that of my earlier EF-nibbed unit; the striations on the new pens (and I can see from your photo that it's also the case on your pen) are finer and shallower, and thus the almost-too-lightweight (and shortish) barrel feels more slippery and awkward in my hand; whereas I find my EF-nibbed unit surprisingly tolerable to my grip.

 

Luckily, I have several other HongDian pen models here that use the same type of nib units, and so I've now transplated the 'long knife' nib into a heavier and more grippy HongDian 517D. (Yes, it has that rubberised finish that will likely have deteriorated and become unusably tacky before the decade is out.) Much better!

 

p.s. I just checked, and it seems the finish of the gripping section is also different on my older HongDian A3. The newer pens have, um, a groovier finish and the circular ridges are more pronounced.

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by A Smug Dill
added note about the finish of the gripping section

[PithyProlix]

On 2/6/2022 at 5:24 PM, PithyProlix said:

Another member of the Handsome Pen Modeling Club arrived: an Inoxcrom 88 Oro. There's a fairly small amount of information available on the web about this pen and I gather that it might be pretty rare.  This was the Spanish company Inoxcrom's flagship pen, I believe circa 1970s, but I am not really sure. My phone's camera doesn't really capture the color of the section & barrel - there is a slight green tint to the dark blue that makes the pen look both classy and distinctive. The nib is similar in style to the old Pilot Custom's except it is flush with the plastic of the section, making me think that perhaps it doesn't extend further into the section but, again, I don't really know. The nib's text is 'upside-down' compared to most pens - a little unusual. 

 

Looking forward to sitting down and putting it to work. 

 

 

 

 

So, I wrote a couple pages with it today and it's a smooth nail, not unlike the Sheaffers that have an embedded nib that sort of looks like this one's nib. The plastic feels high quality and solid, the grip has a good diameter for my fingers, it's (what I think of as) a true Western extra fine, and it will do quite well for normal writing, I'm sure. Plus it's super handsome, of course. I like it a lot. That said, I don't think it is special enough that I would actively look for another, though if one came up at a low price I would very probably buy it. 

[AmandaW]

8 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

the striations on the new pens (and I can see from your photo that it's also the case on your pen) are finer and shallower, and thus the almost-too-lightweight (and shortish)

 

That's was my reason for photographing the Hongdian A3 alongside the Pelikan M205 - to show that it is shorter and certainly no fatter than that. I find the HD OK to hold and am so entranced by the performance of the nib would put up with just about anything!

[A Smug Dill]

4 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

I find the HD OK to hold and am so entranced by the performance of the nib would put up with just about anything!

 

The good news is there are many other glorified pen handles onto which you can fit that fantastic nib. The HongDian 1850 (aka Black Forest/ Birch Forest), 6013, 517D, 517S, 525, etc. all take the same type of nib unit. (I don't know that any of them are more effective than any other in preventing ink evaporation, but I think out of all of those listed, only the 517S has a screw-cap instead of a snap-cap, so it could possibly be better on account of that. I don't have a 517S, so I can't test it.)

[A Smug Dill]

49 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

I find the HD OK to hold and am so entranced by the performance of the nib would put up with just about anything!

 

I wonder if the HongDian A3's ‘long knife’ nib can be fitted into the nib unit in an Opus 88 Picnic? 😈

[AmandaW]

18 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I wonder if the HongDian A3's ‘long knife’ nib can be fitted into the nib unit in an Opus 88 Picnic? 😈

 

No...  that's going to get an italic nib some day when there's a pause in spending my play money on other things. 

[basterma]

On 2/1/2022 at 9:38 PM, PithyProlix said:

 

Oh, darn it. I just looked and it does have a very small crack there. I didn't notice before. Sometimes there has been a very little bit of ink on the section if I leave overnight lying on its side - that must be why. It has had no other problems other than the occasional inky finger. 

 

Any tips on stabilizing the crack?

Hello. I am sorry for the late reply. This crack developed when I was a teenager living in Egypt and I did not know of a repair person there (still don't know of any there now), to do anything about it. I was on vacation in Germany a few years ago and sent it to their service center, and they replied they couldn't fix it as they had no parts for it. Maybe others on this forum can help if you ask in other threads. I am in China now, and not really finding anyone I trust to fix it. I may commit sacrilege and see if I can commission someone to make a section and turn it into a frankenpen, to be able to use the nib again. The nib is that nice to use.

[PithyProlix]

35 minutes ago, basterma said:

Hello. I am sorry for the late reply. This crack developed when I was a teenager living in Egypt and I did not know of a repair person there (still don't know of any there now), to do anything about it. I was on vacation in Germany a few years ago and sent it to their service center, and they replied they couldn't fix it as they had no parts for it. Maybe others on this forum can help if you ask in other threads. I am in China now, and not really finding anyone I trust to fix it. I may commit sacrilege and see if I can commission someone to make a section and turn it into a frankenpen, to be able to use the nib again. The nib is that nice to use.

 

Thanks for replying and I am sorry you can't use the pen or get it repaired. I've asked around for pen repairspeople here in Thailand and none seem to exist. Patience can often reward here, though, and I might be able to find a 22, 24, 72, etc. in good working condition for close to the price of a good repair. 

 

Does the 120/121 have the same issue? 

[A Smug Dill]

On 2/10/2022 at 12:48 AM, A Smug Dill said:

Even though as a fountain pen user I'm usually all about getting the finest, crispest lines while writing with the nib in normal orientation, this nib is ‘perfect’ in terms of the type of line variation it delivers, and I'd be ecstatic if most (but perhaps not 100%) of my Fine-nibbed pens (especially European and Chinese ones) wrote like that!

 

Hmmm. After a day or two of use, in normal orientation the lines don't seem to come out as fine any more, even when I hope the pen almost entirely vertically, and even before I switched inks to Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-same.  Not sure what happened…

[PithyProlix]

13 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Hmmm. After a day or two of use, in normal orientation the lines don't seem to come out as fine any more, even when I hope the pen almost entirely vertically, and even before I switched inks to Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-same.  Not sure what happened…

 

Please keep us updated, especially if things somehow change for the better. I really appreciate your impressions of it. I have not ordered one yet (though I likely will, regardless...).