This book was issued in 1999. I don’t remember what it cost me then, but it wasn’t expensive for a fountain pen book. You can buy now it at Amazon UK for £48.34 new or £33.12 used. A new edition was produced in 2004, and it is offered at £48.92. As always with these books, it appears from time to time in eBay and may well be purchased more cheaply there. It is the 1999 edition that I will be discussing here.

As fountain pen books go, this one has its good and bad points. In fairness, it should be said that most of the bad points can’t be laid at Mr Erano’s door, but arise from the nature of the book itself. It’s one of a large series of Collector Books by Schroeder Publishing, and it conforms to the format of the series. The most egregious fault is the lack of an index. Subtitled Identification & Value Guide, one would expect to be able to turn quickly to the pen of current interest, but without an index this isn’t possible. Secondly, British and European readers should be aware that this book is intended for the American market, and the pens covered in the historical chapters are almost all American. Finally, the pricing element is at best misleading. The prices are 1999 ones, of course, but even for that date they seem a little fanciful. I was an avid pen buyer in 1999 and I certainly wasn’t paying these prices! Mr. Erano doesn’t explain quite how he has arrived at these values. Certainly, eBay was not the mature market and arbiter of value then that it is now, so perhaps these prices were those set by retailers of restored pens.

The book begins with a chapter on the development of the fountain pen, and continues with advice on collecting. Though some of this shows its age a little now, it’s informative and well-written. Major (American) manufacturers are introduced. The historical chapters cover Early Fountain Pens, The Golden Age and The Modern Age. The final chapter is on contemporary fountain pens.

The pen photography is good and the book is profusely illustrated. Mr. Erano has used contemporary advertisements well. These are always welcome, as they’re a good source of information. A few have no indication of the date they were issued, which rather devalues them. Approximate production dates are assigned to the pens illustrated, and these are accurate, so far as I can judge.

In conclusion, I would say that though this book isn’t really a “must” for every pen collector’s bookshelf, it is, with all its limitations, an interesting and informative read. The biggest failing, as I have already noted, is the lack of an index in a book which is presented as a guide, which would lead you to expect it to be a reference. The structure goes some way to address this fault – all the Watermans of a period, for instance, are listed together, but it isn’t enough. This is more the kind of book you will read through when you first get it, and perhaps return to from time to time.

When it was published in 2002, this book sold for £8.95, a moderate price for a fountain pen book. Though it’s in the large format, it’s a thin book of 80 pages including an index. Unlike many other fountain pen books, this one hasn’t become more valuable as the years have gone by, not even by the rather optimistic prices that Amazon sellers hope to get. If you should want a copy, it’s yours from Amazon for £1.43 plus postage. It also regularly passes through eBay without attracting a bid.

It is subtitled The Collector’s Guide To Selecting, Identifying, Buying And Enjoying Fountain Pens.  This is a somewhat didactic book, and it’s likely you will either agree with the message Mr. Steinberg wishes to get over or, like me, you’ll profoundly disagree. In essence, if I may attempt to encapsulate what this book proposes, the best pens are those with most bling, and pen manufacturers come in handy tiers like a wedding cake.

There can be no doubt that early twentieth century gold or silver overlay pens in the Art Nouveau or (a little later) Art Deco styles are precious objects of great beauty and interest. Whether they were, and are, appreciated as writing instruments is debatable. They are, and always were, primarily pocket jewellery, I would suggest. It is these pens that are most discussed and illustrated in the early part of this book, to the exclusion of the simpler – but probably more interesting to most of us – bare BCHR examples that we are likely to see and purchase.

Then there’s the tiers thing. Mr. Steinberg confidently assigns pens to quality level by brand, an overly simplistic notion that is rather less subscribed to these days. There are numerous errors in this part of the book, too.

Though the book purports to cover pens of the world, it is decidedly US-centric, devoting many more images and pages of text to American pens than to the rest of the world put together. I suppose this is because Mr Steinberg felt that his largest market would be in America, so he concentrated on pens that would be familiar to to his readership. It gives a very unbalanced view, however, when entire industries like that of Japan, for instance, barely merit a mention.

Mr. Steinberg’s view of pen collecting is not one that has held true in the real world. Yes, there are some collectors who who buy at the top of the market, but they form only a tiny proportion of all collectors. In truth, there are as many types of collections as there are collectors. The most powerful contradiction of the Steinberg view of collecting is the immense popularity of the Esterbrook, an unashamedly practical, low-cost pen with plated nibs and no precious metal at all. It is worth asking, too, whether most buyers of old fountain pens actually see themselves as collectors at all.

In conclusion then, you can have this book for the princely sum of £1.43, but you might want to hang onto that money and put it towards a bottle of your favourite ink instead.

First published in 1982, this is one of the pioneers of publishing on fountain pens. Quite a large book, it’s a mixture of historical text, advertisements and illustrations of pens, many as black and white photographs, some as drawings and others in full colour photography. It is subtitled “Parker, Sheaffer, Wahl-Eversharp and Many More” but really there is no “Many More”. This is a book about the American Big Four.

As in any other field, research has moved the narrative along since 1982, and the potted histories of the companies show their age. There’s quite a bit of “pen folklore” in here, and you’ll find better histories elsewhere. Other than that, to my mind, this is still a great book. It has attracted some criticism because the paper and printing are somewhat low in quality, compared with the glossy coffee-table volumes we’re more used to now, but many of the adverts reproduced here would have been black and white in the magazines in which they originally appeared. I find them a useful resource. Similarly, the black and white photos of pens seem quite adequate for identification purposes to me. It is also said that this book isn’t comprehensive, and that’s true – there are gaps in the lists of models. It’s a strange criticism, though, because none of the more modern books are comprehensive either – and many are much poorer than this one.

Despite its acknowledged faults, this is my first go-to reference for Big Four American pens of the period I deal with. I refer to it weekly, if not daily, and it doesn’t often let me down. Though some may regard this book as outdated, I think it’s still a must for the pen enthusiast’s bookshelf.

Never an expensive book, it’s offered in Amazon for £47.61 new or £13.43 used. It not infrequently appears second-hand in eBay, which is where I got mine a few years ago. I don’t remember what I paid, but I know the postage was more than the price, so there are bargains to be had!

This book is unusual in a couple of ways: it’s one of the few I actually found in a bookshop, and it was very moderately-priced at the time that I bought it, perhaps seven or eight years ago. It was £9.95 then, making it a real bargain among pen books. It formed part of Flammarion’s “Collectible” series, and is perhaps aimed more at a general audience, rather than pen specialists. Outrageously, it’s now on offer in Amazon UK at a mere £132.25 new or £44.42 used! With the best will in the world, I can’t really recommend it as a good buy at that price!

This is a small format book, around 5 ½ inches square but quite thick, with 363 pages and a comprehensive index. It’s organised into an introduction and and five sections: Vintage, Modern, Precious, Thematic and Unusual. The introduction runs through a brief history of writing and the development of writing instruments; interesting and adequate, but the kind of thing you’ll find in numerous other books. The photography is excellent, with the pens represented life-size. It’s pretty much one pen per page, with a very brief textual explanation. Not quite as brief as a caption, but not a whole lot more. Though far from comprehensive, there are examples of the output of many of the main American and European companies, together with many pens you’re unlikely to see elsewhere.

To my mind, this is a very general and slightly eccentric introduction to the world of fountain pens. I’ve had my copy for many years and it looks like new. That’s an indication of how little day-to-day use it has been for me. Despite the good index, it’s nowhere near comprehensive enough to be used as a reference book. Yes, it has quite a few pens that aren’t covered elsewhere, but they’re all pens that I’ll never see in reality anyway. It lacks the depth to interest anyone enough for a second read, I think.

All in all, at the original price, this book was probably a good introduction to the pen world for the absolute novice. It genuinely celebrates the fountain pen, with its superb photography and interesting (if lightweight) text. It may well have kindled an interest that would only be satisfied by more scholarly works, and by the pens themselves.

The much-loved “Da Book” ( Fountain Pens The Complete Guide to Repair and Restoration) has been around for a long time now. It was first published in 1995 and the most recent, revised edition came out in 2002. As in any other activity, things have moved on in pen repair, and in some cases there are better repair methods now than when Frank was writing. To some extent, this book has been superseded by Marshall & Oldfield’s Pen Repair. Also, I think Frank’s devotion to the use of a naked flame rather than a heat gun or hair drier raised eyebrows even when this book was new! That said, there’s a wealth of useful information in here. If you concentrate on repairing British or European pens, you may feel this book is not for you, as most of the pens discussed are American, but there’s much general advice on all sorts of topics, and explanations of techniques that can be applied to the repair of most pens.

It’s a brave thing to be a pioneer, and that’s what Frank was. He opened the door to a whole generation of pen repairers and to great degree set the standards on what was and was not acceptable. As first in the field, you take the chance of setting yourself up to be knocked down, and the surprising thing is how well his judgement has endured. Yes, there are some practices outlined here that many of us might find fault with now, but for the most part, Frank’s methods and ethics hold good.

When Frank began this work, there was very little around to assist the pen repairer. There were some company repair manuals but they often provided little help, as they referred to spares parts and sub-assemblies that were no longer available. Open-minded and inventive, Frank developed repairs using parts and materials that are on sale everywhere. He was undaunted by the most difficult of repairs.

It’s a good many years since Frank went to The Big Repair Shop In The Sky, but he’s still fondly remembered by those of us who benefitted from his generosity. He was active in the usenet pen group; indeed for years he was the usenet pen group. Often a little testy with those who asked questions without having first checked the archives for an answer, he freely shared his experience with all, and it was rare indeed for Frank to be stumped by a technical issue. He had strong likes and dislikes. He was very much a Sheaffer man, and he had an undying hatred (I never understood why) for the inoffensive Onoto cut-off valve.

Frank’s untimely death in 2003 was a great loss to the fountain pen hobby, but at least his book survives. If you repair pens or only want to understand them this book’s essential. It’s still available from Tryphon Enterprises priced at $20.00.

This book was first published in 2000. It’s still available and is priced at £42.08, new, in Amazon. It’s quite often available second-hand.

Subtitled “United States of America and United Kingdom”, it’s very ambitious in scope, trying to cover these two enormous pen industries in a modestly-sized volume. The surprise is the degree to which it succeeds. Many smaller manufacturers are ignored and others are touched on only lightly, but Lambrou’s judgement is good about which marques and models to cover. There’s a lot of bling in here, as with all pen books, but the pens you and I will commonly see and want to know about are well covered. The photography is excellent, and really useful for identification purposes. There are also excellent line drawings and intelligent use of period advertising.

More than just a comprehensive introduction to the pens of the USA and Britain and a really good read, this book makes a useful reference as it’s logically organised and has a good index. I’ve had my copy for about three years, and already the jacket is tattered from much handling – the best sign of approval for a book of this kind!

Lambrou does repeat the story about there only having been 200 Conway Stewart 22 (Floral) pens made, but perhaps this can be forgiven as it was widely believed to be true, back when this book was written. He’s at variance with some other authors over a few dates, but I’m not able to say who’s right and who’s wrong.

Taken all in all, this is one of the best fountain pen books, and one that deserves a place on every enthusiast’s bookshelf.

Fountain pen books tend to be expensive. That’s understandable. They’re very often in the large “coffee-table” format, they’re usually profusely illustrated and they have a short and costly publishing run. In publishing terms, we fountain pen fanciers are a tiny and insignificant minority. Far from being best-sellers, many fountain pen books will sell in the hundreds rather than the thousands. No-one’s going to get rich producing books on our niche interest.

As they cost so much, it’s worth being choosy about which books you buy. Unfortunately, you can’t decide how useful a book will be until you’ve had a chance to study it. Most fountain pen books aren’t on offer in the bookshops and you can’t really assess them online. I’ve enjoyed reading all the fountain pen books I have, but there are some I wouldn’t have bought had I known what they would be like in advance. Over the coming weeks, time permitting, I’ll discuss some of the books I have, which may help others to find the ones they would like.

My ideal pen book – and I have a couple of those – is useful as a reference work and contains information I don’t already have. The information is accurate and reliable. That isn’t invariably the case. Pen authors have a tendency to repeat the old, long-ago disproved fables, like the one about Waterman losing a contract because his pen failed, or Conway Stewart only producing 200 of their floral pens. Then again, some authors equate bling with quality and disparage excellent pens because they’re not shiny enough. Other books fail because of the lack of a logical sequence or an index, which means you can never find what you’re looking for. Useful information may be there, but it’s no good if you can’t find it.

Some books list valuations, which seems a futile effort, as the prices go out of date so rapidly, and there is no real established market price for most old pens. They’re worth what someone will pay for them on the day. Yes, if you find a Pompeian Brown Duofold you’re in the money, but what’s a basic BHR Waterman 52 worth? Only the market can tell you, and it’ll give you one price today and another tomorrow. But I digress…

A few of the pen books are truly outstanding, the result of years of painstaking research, checked and re-checked for accuracy, well laid out and/or indexed. I have one or two of them, my first go-to research tools. They’re the noticeably well-thumbed volumes on my shelves, the ones I will have to replace when I wear them out.