New uploads today to the sales website… Hopefully something for everyone in this 20 pen addition. All categories and some real beauties in the mix!
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Month: March 2013
The Dickinson Croxley Button Filler
Dickinson Croxley had a short life (1947 – 1949) but, judging by the number of their pens out there, a very successful one. I’ve heard it said that because of their outdated styling and the absence of an alternative filling system (Croxleys are generally lever fillers) there was no future for the brand and Dickinson wound it up.
This has never struck me as being a satisfactory explanation of the demise of the company. After all, Conway Stewart got another couple of decades out of the lever filling system. Moreover, in 1948 Croxley made a streamlined pen that broke away from the admittedly staid line of their previous production.
As if that wasn’t enough, here’s a Croxley button-filler with a metal cap, in a very modern style for 1948. It seems that Croxley’s designers had a good look at what was happening in the rest of the market before they came out with this pen. The clip’s fitting is similar to what Conway Stewart were doing, but simpler and better. The shallow-cowled washer clip is held by a plastic stud that has a slot for a normal screwdriver on the inside end. No aluminium nut or spanning screwdriver! 
The beautifully machined button and its housing bear a debt of gratitude to the Parker Duofold AF which was introduced in the same year. The pen caps with a Parker-like clutch. Taken all in all, this remarkable pen is evidence that whatever other reason there was for Dickinson to bring an end to the Croxley range of pens, lack of new ideas wasn’t the cause.
The one failing that mars this otherwise pristine pen are plier marks on the section, evidence of the drooling cretin at work once more. Thankfully they are shallow and relatively unobtrusive, as I am prevented from minimising them further by the ribbing on the section.
This example was produced, probably as a giveaway for members, for the Manchester Unity Of Odd Fellows. You will know, of course, that the Odd Fellows were a benevolent society whose origins are lost in the depths of time, and also that the Manchester Unity broke away from the parent body in 1810 to become a most effective and innovative Friendly Society, providing such benefits for its members as health care provision in pre-National Health Service times. I think they’re still around but they’re not getting their pen back!
Stuff
Phew! The last few days have been hectic! Not pen stuff, more that irritating nonsense we call life. It won’t be letting up for the next couple of days either, so updates here are unlikely before the weekend at the earliest.
It all gets a bit pesky sometimes.
Pen Prices
At the end of December and into the beginning of January I took a break from buying in ebay. When I returned to it, I found that prices for unrestored pens were generally higher than they had been. I took it that it was a temporary blip and didn’t think much more about it.
Now it’s March and prices haven’t leveled out again. If anything, they seem to have taken another price hike. Mid-range Swans and Conway Stewarts that I would have bought for under thirty pounds last year now regularly get bid up to the high thirties and even into the forties. Considering that there has been no commensurate rise in the prices reached by restored pens, it’s kind of insane.
I don’t know why this has happened. I could speculate, but that’s all it would be – speculation. One guess is that with the troubled times we’re in and the rise in unemployment, more people are trying to make a living from ebay, and in this specific area, from pen restoration. I do see more and different sellers of restored pens in ebay.
Unfortunately for them, it’s not going to work. If you’re paying £40.00 for a Conway Stewart 27 and selling it for £45 (or less) you’re not making a fiver, you’re losing money. The cost of delivering the pen to you – usually around £3.00 – is part of the buying price. You don’t recover it. Then there may be a sac, use of cleaning materials and polishes and at least some notional figure for your time. It’s a kind of bubble that must burst sooner or later.
It’s inconveniencing me but it isn’t any kind of a disaster, at least in the short term. I always have a quite large stock of pens by me, and ebay’s not the only place to buy pens if it comes to it. I won’t pay those prices, though. Yes, if the general restored pens/vintage retail market is forced into an upward lurch in price I would have to accept that this is where prices are and will be. We’re not there yet, though. I prefer to believe that this inflation in unrestored pen prices will pass and we can go back to something like business as usual. I see no advantage to anyone in a rise in price for restored vintage pens. They’re dear enough already.
Mabie Todd Swan SM100/63
Swan had the best colours. They don’t come any more beautiful than this.
I expect that when this pen came on sale back in the thirties, it cost the same as the plain black one. Things are a little different now. These pens, like the colourful Visofils and Jackdaws are hard to come by now, and expensive when they do appear. I count myself fortunate that this is the third russet/jade marble pen I’ve had in all the years I’ve been buying pens.
This pen isn’t just a pretty face, either. It has a high-shouldered oblique nib with a little flex to it, which makes for a nice writer.
I think it needs to be said at this point that I can’t make this pen available for private sale. It will have to go up on the sales site. I got into all sorts of hot water over privately selling a pen that everyone wanted recently. The burnt child minds the fire, as they say here in Scotland.
Want another look at those colours? Go on, then!
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