Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that as well as fountain pens I use dip pens. The nib that one chooses is important. For instance I don’t do well with pointed flexible nibs. I’m more at home with stubs and especially obliques. The holder is equally important. Those very thin holders used in times gone by give me vicious hand cramps. I need a holder of around the same thickness as an average fountain pen.

My friend James liked my correspondence written with a dip pen and decided to have a pen holder made by a friend of his who is a wood lathe expert. Using a beautiful wood called Australian Hairy Oak he made this gorgeous, unique holder for me. Many thanks, James. It will be used and treasured.

I find myself writing about Swans very often but I do use other pens! Over the years I’ve had many Conway Stewarts and I enjoy them too though they don’t usually have the variety of nibs that Swans have. Most Conway Stewart nibs are firm medium. All the other nib types occur, but not at all frequently. I’ve had the Conway Stewart Italic which is a named model in its own right, and a very nice pen. A little line variation can often be induced from Conway Stewart nibs though very flexible ones are uncommon. That’s okay by me; I don’t do flex.

Conway Stewarts are reliable. A few years ago I did a course which included a written exam at the end. Careful as always, I put four pens on the desk. The one I selected was a Conway Stewart 388. Three thousand words later I was still using it, the other three unused. I’ve used a Conway Stewart 286 in a similar situation and it was equally reliable.

Conway Stewart had their own type of button filler, a very efficient system. Then there’s the Speedy Phil which is another matter entirely! Most Conway Stewarts are lever fillers and very good ones, using the slide pressure bar, similar to the Waterman type. It’s more efficient at compressing the sac than the j-bar. Lever-fill Conway Stewarts are a pleasure to service.

Many Conway Stewarts passed over my workbench but I didn’t keep any of them. I should have hung on to a few, especially the pre-war ones (I just prefer the shape). The only one I have now is a black 85, the typical post-war Conway Stewart. It was a gift from a friend, his father’s pen. It is almost always inked. I don’t really regret not keeping any of the fancier patterns such as the cracked ice or herringbone. I can see gorgeous Conway Stewarts in the excellent books by Stephen Hull and Andy Russell so I don’t feel that I need to own them.

Like many other pen companies of all nationalities Conway Stewart suffered a sad decline. As a means of keeping the company alive it failed. Conway Stewart has been reborn several times. Those later companies and their pens don’t interest me.

My husband’s memory of Conway Stewart goes back much further than mine. He remembers colourful pens on cards in the newsagent’s and individual boxed pens being given as school prizes to the lucky few. He never owned a Conway Stewart pen when he was at school. His habit of breaking or losing fountain pens meant that he was limited to Osmiroid or Platignum pens.

After we closed the sales site I did little with pens for several months. I wrote with them, of course, corresponding with friends. I have many good writers that I have accumulated over the years. A couple of months ago I began going through various drawers and boxes and found pens that I had set aside in the busy times, as either too time-consuming to repair, or even beyond repair.

My time is my own now so I don’t mind – or even enjoy – the more complicated repairs. And of course nothing is beyond repair. The main reason I gave up commercial restoration and repair was arthritis in my hands. I could no longer do a dozen pens a week but one or two is well within my capability and at that slow rate I enjoy it so much.

Some of those pens have the type of finicky problem that means they have to be taken apart a couple of times – skipping or hard starting for no apparent reason. A little tinkering with feeds and nibs and they’re writing beautifully again. That gives me such a feeling of satisfaction!

Then there’s cleaning and gentle polishing. Few pens will return to new condition without an electric polisher and I see no reason to do that. I want my pens to look as good as they can while still acknowledging their age. An 80 or 100 year old pen can still look lovely while retaining some of the evidence of the accumulated knocks and bumps of all those years. My husband says he believes he still looks presentable but he’s never going to be mistaken for a teenager! I aim for my pens to fall in that area between restoration and conservation.

How many ordinary everyday instruments are still useful and beautiful when they are 115 years old? I didn’t keep any of the more expensive pens; those with silver overlays or the most beautifully-patterned 1920s and 30s Swans. My pens are the workaday ordinary pens that weren’t bought to impress, they are the medium priced reliable Parkers, Swans and Onotos that people bought to use at work or for correspondence with family and friends. Those are the types of pens I especially love.

I had several pens inked but none was a Swan so I thought I would amend that. I had a very pretty green marbled pre-war no-number Swan that I hadn’t used in a long time – if ever. I filled it and it was a disaster. The semi-flex nib would only write with pressure and not very well even then. It seemed very likely I would have to strip it down and find out what the trouble was but I thought I would try the soapy water trick first. One drop of Fairy Liquid in a small glass is enough, then a good flush followed by a rinse.

It gave me a good line for a paragraph then reverted to hard start and skip. I disassembled it, reset the nib and widened the nib slit a fraction. Success! It’s a perfect European fine with some flex.

Just skimming through eBay’s new vintage listings this morning and I am overpowered by all the Parkers! Good pens, of course, but so many of them, almost to the exclusion of other old brands. The pens I’m really looking for, the Swans, Mentmores, Summits and Wyverns seem very thin on the ground compared with a few years ago. This isn’t a scientific study, just my impression. We always knew the profusion of old pens couldn’t last forever. Are they tapering off now?

Amusingly, I see Jinhao pens sneaked into the listing simply by adding ‘vintage’ to brand new pens.

I could have sworn I wrote about this pen before. I’ve owned a couple of them and I’ve known the story forever but, no, I didn’t write about it!

If you think of Platignums as cheap and shabby pens this one will come as a surprise. It’s soundly made throughout and it has a good hooded nib, common at the time and perhaps helpful in preventing drying out. The chromed cap was fashionable in the fifties. Altogether a great pen from the house of Mentmore, one would say.

Except that, like the Parker 61 and the Waterman X Pen, it’s a capillary filler. These pens aren’t entirely disasters though their faults were discovered early which affected sales. There are plenty of capillary 61s around but the Platignum 100 and Waterman X Pen are uncommon. All capillary fillers are hard to flush. I would go so far as to say that the Platignum and Waterman are utterly impossible to flush to clean water, so whatever ink you begin with you’d better like, because you’ll have to continue with it – unless you like strange unintended mixtures.

I haven’t found a good explanation but Mentmore must have come to some arrangement with Waterman (or maybe they hoped Waterman wasn’t looking) as the Platignum is very similar to the Waterman patent. Capillary fillers work well enough, to a point. Attempts at flushing will revive them for a time but ultimately the capillary material will grow tired and hold less and less ink. So this isn’t a vintage everyday writer; more a historical document in steel and plastic. Every collector should have one of these: the British capillary pen! This one’s a splendid example with box and papers.

Thanks to Penny at stillmorestuff. Item is here: https://rb.gy/kknnau

I’ve been presented with a free review copy of this book. Though I am extremely grateful to receive it – I would have had to buy it anyway – those of you who have read my previous book reviews will know that I will not be influenced by that and in any case it wasn’t the authors’ intentions that I should be influenced in any way.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the book. Anyone with an interest in British pens will know of, and probably own, Stephen Hull’s previous works and Andy Russell’s volume on the Conway Stewart Dinkie. Those glorious works should make us expect that this book will be at least as good. I can assure you that it doesn’t disappoint. All sections are well and clearly written and profusely illustrated.

This isn’t the kind of book you sit down and read from cover to cover. One will dip into sections as unknown or rare pens appear. For Instance, I began by looking at The Fleet Pen and Ormiston & Glass Ltd, companies I had come across before, and, indeed, written about here. I had been unable to find much detail or context in my other reference works or on the Internet but I found both here in great quantity. The depth and breadth of the research that has gone into the work is most impressive.

I think it is also worth saying that this is a book for the desk or table. It’s a mighty tome! Including the index it is 364 pages long, printed on heavy, high quality glazed paper. I do have a couple of small, person al criticisms of the style of the book. Indeed, they’re hardly more than quibbles. The colour of the main text lacks contrast and makes reading rather demanding for someone like me with poor eyesight. The choice of a sans serif font doesn’t help that.

I was particularly interested in the British Carbon Papers pens, Rosemary and National Security. I knew that Henry Stark, Son & Hamilton was involved and I took them to be the manufacturers but it now appears that The Lang Pen Company Ltd. were making pens for both companies. The complexity of relationships between companies, and indeed families, is something that appears again and again in this book. The English pen industry appears to have been a tangle of competition and co-operation.

Another thing that leapt out from the beautiful colour illustrations (do I see Andy Russell’s hand here?) is the popularity of the stylograph. In the years up to the early twenties so many were advertised that it seemed possible that they would become the main writing instrument. Many companies produced them and famous people chose to use them. Kearney’s Red Dwarf was the market leader for a time.

I had Whytwarth pens on several occasions so they were of especial interest to me. Again, I was not to be disappointed. Like some of the Fleet pens the Whytwarth was sent out unsolicited on a “sale or return” basis. Throughout much of its history the company’s mainstay was the wonderfully-named Thirza Cahalan. As I know from experience, these were impressive pens and despite financial troubles they remained in production for many years, eventually becoming the Valentine Whytwarth.

These are a few tasters. There is so much more I could say but I’m conscious that the article is more likely to be read if I keep it brief. I haven’t mentioned the introductory pages that put early fountain pen production in context. There is a wealth of information here that will keep collectors talking for years.

The book will be on sale shortly at englishpenbooks.co.uk.

Once in a while an exceptional pen appears in eBay. Just such a pen is this beautiful – and very uncommon – Conway Stewart Dinkie Major.

The Major is larger than the ordinary Dinkie. That makes it a little more practical and easier to write with.

The pen was made around 1931 and is the 640 model. The glorious pattern is green, black and bronze on a red ground.

Thanks to Paul (acetateblue). The auction is here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305459193192

Thanks also to Andy Russell: 50 Years of the Dinkie, 1922 to 1972.

The second of April will be an exciting day for British pen fanciers (and others) as the eagerly-awaited Smaller English Pen Makers 1890 – 1930 by Stephen Hull and Andy Russell goes on sale then.  I have been given a pre-publication copy and can report that it is a beautiful book, well organised and illustrated but it is the information that the authors have garnered that make this volume a must for every pen collector’s bookshelf.  So often have I found pens that are not mentioned in my other reference books or on the internet.  A great many of them are here and it makes fascinating reading.  It’s another triumph for englishpenbooks.co.uk.

Yet another pen that I know very little about but it’s a beauty and well worth including here. From the general appearance and the ‘k’ for carat I take it that the Presto is American. It shows quite a resemblance to a 1930s Waterman with its rivetted clip, flat top and complex feed. In all, a very handsome pen.

We are left to wonder how a pen that wasn’t well-known even in its country of origin made it here. The larger pen companies like Parker, Sheaffer and Eversharp had agents or outlets here. Not Presto, though, so far as I am aware.

Thanks to Nigel Simpson-Stern (treasurer of The Writing Equipment Society). Link to the auction: https://rb.gy/lsgzem