Hyderabad adventure

[tommym]

On the subject of ebonite rods, I'd like to see the process of creating the "ripple" ebonite rods. Hopefully, it won't be one of those skills lost to the ages. 

 

Tommy

[lascosas]

I return to Hyderabad tomorrow, Thursday, and have arranged to meet with people from both Deccan & Woodex on Friday, then return to the US on Saturday. So it is time that I report on my last fountain pen day when I was here at the beginning of the month. I had been told while at PLP Pens that I must stop at JK Pens because they had lots of Indian ebonite fountain pens. It was already on my list, but this made it a must-see, and because it is located in Abids, a couple of hundred meters from the Woodex main store, I would combine the two. Once again I had a grumpy driver from the hotel, always different, always grumpy. They can not get over the fact that I do not know how to get to the various locations. My always response is a smile & the word Google.

 

I don't have any photos of either shop. Too insane on the street, and it seems like a violation to start photographing in a shop. The owner of JK was expecting me because the pen maker at PLP had called to let him know I would be showing up. Hard to miss. Certainly I was the only non-Indian walking into any of these pen shops for a very long time. From the sidewalk you go through a curtained door covering consisting of translucent plastic strips into a good sized room with glass cases and lots of pens, but no displays of Indian pens in any of the stores I visited.

 

I introduced myself and told him what I was looking for. He pulled out a case containing several PLP current model pens. Do you have pens from other companies? Indian ebonite? No, only PLP. He did have a very nice, extremely expensive acrylic pen with a hunk of the same acrylic as maybe a pen stand? From a Mumbai company. Again, no acrylics please.

 

I asked if he had any other examples of PLP Pens, and he pulled out another pen folder, with old PLP Pens, and I essentially bought everything. He had those pens since they were current PLP models. Some he estimated were 10-15 years old, the others 20-25 years. Oh My Gosh! Since I was on a role, I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask...do you have any pens from old Hyderabad pen companies, like Misak? He just laughed. No one wants to give up those old pens, people have had them for their lives, it is not something to sell. Ah, but when that person dies, the children usually do not want fountain pens. Yes, but those then sell for 2 to 3 lakhs, and I never see those.

 

The photo of the large pens without clips are the current torpedo shape.  The othe photo shows the old models.  The small pens are the oldest.  I included a not very clear close-up of one of the current pens so you can see that while at a distance it looks like the normal green-black ebonite, there is actually some red mixed in.  Very special.

 

One odd thing is that all of the nibs on these pens, both current and old, are the dreaded "Iridium Point Germany."  Even though PLP itself only uses Kanwrite and Ambitious nibs. 

[lascosas]

Last stop was to the main location of Deccan Pen store. An entrance to a parking area with shops around the edges, with a building overhead. Deccan is at the back, with a wide store front and several glass cases. Lots of clients & sales people, and behind the glass cases is a considerable storage area with shelving where the majority of the inventory is kept. I stood at the entrance, looking at the backs of maybe 8 customers talking to the sales staff. The boss sees me & motions me to the front, where a couple of guys move aside just enough for me to enter the fray at the glass cases. Turns out they had only three ebonite pens, all tiger of the same model. I bought two that were distinctively different. The person who helped me was the older brother of the guy manning the small store. I asked if he had any more Deccans, hoping that like his brother he would pull out an old rucksack with mysterious things in the pockets. Nope, but he said he would look around their warehouse to see if they had any old Deccans around for when I returned later in the month. Below are the 2 pens that I bought.

[Prof Drew]

Thanks for the final report @lascosas. Sorry to hear you had to endure such grumpiness, but it seems worth it.

 

Wow! Two lakh INR would be like 2.5K USD if Google conversion is correct!

Those pens seem precious indeed. Too much for my budget for sure

 

I wonder if some of those "old PLP" pens at JK were from the company where he used to work before establishing PLP. No idea. Pen Provenance or even model identification seems harder with handmade pens, OEM, and several firms using the same ebonite rods, clips, etc.

 

Have a safe and pleasant trip home. You certainly had some memorable adventures and developed a nice collection.

 

 

[lascosas]

Not the final report, I promise.  I have pens being made for me by Deccan & Woodex which I will pick up Friday & report on when back home.

[Harish N V]

Thanks again for your detailed report. Really love and envy your plp collection.

[hari317]

Looking fwd to  see what deccan and woodex made for you

[lascosas]

Today I went to Deccan's second shop to pick up the pens I had ordered.  I am sorry that I am such a bad photographer.  The solo photo is of their largest pen.  I beauty.  I had all of these made to order.  And what I like on ebonite pens is: no clip, shiny body & cap with matt grip.  Why?  I don't put pens in my pocket, and I want to see the ebonite, not some $.02 clip the pen maker bought wholesale.  I like shiny because the ebonite qualities show through much better and matt grip because I love the feel of the ebonite realness, which I find more evident in matt finish.

[lascosas]

And also today the penmaker and his nephew from Woodex came to the hotel.  English was a huge problem getting the order.  I had no idea what I was getting until an hour after they were supposed to arrive.  Yes, you read that right.  And I had no idea what I owed them until they arrived.  I didn't have that much cash, and when I asked if they would accept U.S. dollars they clearly had never seen one before.  So we met again late afternoon after I'd scrounged up the cash, which required a driver, 5 banks and 90 minutes.  Each bank was an interesting story, but no cash available until the fifth bank.  But yes, it was worth it.  My goodness these are beautiful pens.  Including several with Ambitious #8 nibs!!!

 

I promise to provide more details in the future, but we have a 4:00 AM cab taking us to the airport, so this is my last post for probably a week.  The penmaker put the pens in this box and at the top of each I have written the pen model number. Well actually at the bottom upside down.

 

 

[lascosas]

Close ups...

[Harish N V]

Lovely pens from woodex and Deccan. Great

[K Singh]

Love the Big Deccan and those Woodex. This has been an interesting read 👍

[tommym]

11 hours ago, lascosas said:

And what I like on ebonite pens is: no clip, shiny body & cap with matt grip.  Why?  I don't put pens in my pocket, and I want to see the ebonite, not some $.02 clip the pen maker bought wholesale.  I like shiny because the ebonite qualities show through much better and matt grip because I love the feel of the ebonite realness, which I find more evident in matt finish.

 

Interesting insight regarding the matt grip. I think that some steel wool applied to the grip on an existing polished pen can accomplish that after the fact. I'll keep this in mind as it sounds like it will be beneficial for me. Regarding the $.02 clip, I want the full India experience on my pens, so a $.02 clip it is! 

 

 

Tommy

 

[Prof Drew]

Thank you again @lascosas, I want to agree with everyone that this was a most interesting read. Thank you for sharing your wonderful treasures and also giving some insight into the challenges (infrastructure, communications, expectations...) and joys of making such a journey in person to track down these ebonite delights. I hope you had a safe and pleasant trip home and will get over jetlag and other discomforts and soon will be able to ink up a few memories at a time.

[hari317]

On 2/23/2024 at 5:51 PM, lascosas said:

Close ups...

 

Amazing pens. Congrats! Pls do share individual pics of the Model 54, looks interesting.

Also if possible side by side pics of the model 39 with the largest Deccan.  Thanks

[lascosas]

First, a comparison of the Woodex 39, 54 & Deccan Masterpiece.  The prices of the three are 3,700, 3,500 and 6,500.  The Woodex both have Ambitious #40 nibs.  The Deccan has a Kanwrite #6.  Woodex sold me a few individual Ambitious nibs #40 @300 each and #5 @ 100.  You can see the huge difference in size. 

 

One odd thing about all of the Woodex with #40 Ambitious nibs is that they sit way up.  None of the feeds are "properly" fitted into the grip, but stick up, and when you look at the end of the feed from the inside, it is way up there.  I have not yet inked any of these, but this seems odd to me.  Does anyone else have an opinion about this?

 

The final photo is a comparison between the Woodex and a Montblanc 149.

[lascosas]

And here are several photos of those beautiful Woodex 54s.  When I first met with them I asked if they could please make me some large pens with interesting ebonite rods, no clips, no metal caps.  And I got 2 of the 4 wishes.  Again, English was a struggle and there seemed to be some tension between the nephew and me.  At one point I asked the nephew to tell his uncle that I thought he was an artist, the quality of his work was so wonderful.  Silence.  Will you tell him that, please.  No.

 

On the other hand the pen maker had a radiant smile and a warm handshake.  The three of us met in the morning where I found out what they had brought, and that I had insufficient cash, and we would need to meet later.  This was explained to the pen maker, and as we stood up to part, he handed me the bag with his pens, and smiled.  His nephew tried to stop this, understandably, since I had not paid, but he shook his head, smiled again, and handed me the pens.  That meant a lot to me, and I will forever connect that warmth to the pens he made for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tommym]

1 hour ago, lascosas said:

One odd thing about all of the Woodex with #40 Ambitious nibs is that they sit way up.  None of the feeds are "properly" fitted into the grip, but stick up, and when you look at the end of the feed from the inside, it is way up there.  I have not yet inked any of these, but this seems odd to me.  Does anyone else have an opinion about this?

 

I'm just speculating that the feeds are precut to length, and the #40 nib seems to have a wider flare and pulls away from the side of the feed much sooner than the #6 setup. Thus limiting how far the assembly can be inserted into the section. I think where the feed terminates within the section doesn't matter. Or does it?

 

Out of curiosity, do you have the means to measure the feed diameter or interior bore diameter on one of those #40 nibs? 

 

Tommy

[K Singh]

5 hours ago, lascosas said:

One odd thing about all of the Woodex with #40 Ambitious nibs is that they sit way up.  None of the feeds are "properly" fitted into the grip, but stick up, and when you look at the end of the feed from the inside, it is way up there.  I have not yet inked any of these, but this seems odd to me.  Does anyone else have an opinion about this?

It's a proper fit. Don't worry about it. I must say you are lucky that they got you a friction-fit nib and feed setting for your Woodex 39. Sometimes they only offer their nib-unit setup for that model. From your writings, one can understand the good nature of Mr.Prabhakar, the senior penmaker from Woodex. 

 

The Deccan MP looks unique from what we usually see around. Just be careful not to stain that matte-finish section. They get stained easily compared to polished sections, that's why I don't prefer them.

 

Another interesting read 👍

[Doc Dan]

@lascosas would you please provide us with contact information or websites, please?