My friend Michael Dunn believed he had won this pen until it was snatched away in the last second of the auction. He saved the pictures for me. They’re not perfect, being oddly cropped and with an unfortunate background but they’re enough to show the glowing colours.
The Popular Prince is a Mentmore sub-brand and was made in 1926. The prince referred to was to become, briefly, Edward VIII. He was, indeed, very popular.
Though I was aware of its existence I haven’t seen this pen before. It must be quite rare.
Thanks to Michael Dunn and Stephen Hull: The English Fountain Pen Industry 1875 – 1975
Goodwriterspens's Blog 
If I had been bidding on that, I would have questioned whether that pen was actually a Popular Prince. If it was sold originally with the matching pencil, the set wouldn’t have been crammed into a box like that, so there is a good chance the pen is not original to that box. Also, the box states on the side that the pen had a band on the cap. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of there having been a band on the cap in the picture. It would have been nice had the seller included a picture of an actual imprint on the pen to confirm!
These are excellent points, Andy. There doesn’t seem to be any way of checking further.
I had a Popular Prince Fountain Pen for many years. The colours were fabulous and the condition was very good, but for some unknown reason I decided to sell it on! I can’t remember a cap ring though (I will look through the photo file to check). The box is identical to the one that I had; and I still have th 5″ long Pencil – but it is not the same model as the one in your photo.
That’s interesting, Sandra. If you can find a photo and copy it to me at redripple@btinternet.com I would be very grateful.
Deb…I nearly went for this lovely pen …but niggling doubt got the better of me 🤔
The whole ‘being beaten at the very last second’ on the bay thing must be super annoying… and has happened to me a few times .
However, I have used the technique many times to…almost 100% secure a pen that I didn’t want to lose…seems most folk don’t know the method.
If the facility is there, then it’s cool to use I ‘spose.
I’m still hoping for clarification about this pen. As regards buying on eBay, I had my methods when I was buying lots of pens. There’s no great trick to it: judge what a pen is worth to you and bid up to that. If it goes higher it wasn’t meant to be.