Things are busy busy busy here.  I’m working with the developer on testing the site and all is going well, if slowly.  At the same time I’m getting some pens prepared for upload so that there will be a good batch of new stuff for you to see when the site reopens.  Lots of nice pens, a surprising amount of flex in Swans, Watermans and a Kaweco so far, with quite a few more to go.

It looks like I may have to take the sales website down for a few days while testing and completing of updates goes on, so don’t be surprised if it suddenly isn’t there!  It will be back.

The site will certainly be there for the remainder of this week.  It will probably disappear on Monday and I’m not sure at the moment how long that will last but I’ll keep you informed.

I’m sorry but pens have had to take a backseat this last week or so.  The weather has been so good and the garden is in need of attention.  We’ve been planting climbing roses, fuchsias, impatiens and goodness knows what else.  Several shrubs are on the way and the ground needs prepared for them.

Among many other tasks, hubby weather-proofed the garden bench, with the idea that once it dried we could relax there after our many hard labours.  It didn’t work out that way.  My assistant decided that she should test-drive it first.  Having found it to be quite to her taste, she stayed there for the rest of the afternoon.

 

It’s all this good weather!  In a fit of madness brought on by sunstroke I’ve slashed all prices on the sales site by 20%.  It won’t last long.  We will soon go back to our usual weather regime of rain, wind and overcast skies and I’ll recover my senses, so grab the pens you fancy while you can!

I expect my lunacy will last about a week.

The wind of change is blowing through my sales site.  To put that in a less overblown way, the work preparatory to changing web hosts and improving the site in the process has reached a critical juncture.  There will come a point, probably over a weekend, when the site is replaced by an “under construction” sign as we go through a series of tests to ensure that the site will work as I intend.  A friend in California has been doing the coding for me, and has been beavering away assiduously for several weeks now.

Some of the transfer procedures have turned out not to be quite as automatic as we had hoped.  Though the “index” pictures for each pen will transfer just fine, all the other pictures are not quite so cooperative and will have to be moved manually.  I need to reduce the amount of stock on the site to avoid being overwhelmed by the amount of work this would require, so I’ll be having a sale with deep price cuts in the near future.  It will, of course, be announced here.

I’ve uploaded some pens tonight, some rarities and some flexible pens among them.  Tonight and probably into tomorrow, I’ll be uploading some odds and ends into the “Ephemera” section.  I titled that section wrongly – it should have been “Odds and Ends” or “Bits and Pieces” as most of the things I am offering for sale there aren’t particularly ephemeral.

There is a big upgrade of my sales site underway and that’s one of several things that will be changed.

 

Sales Site

A wide variety of pens has been uploaded to the sales site today.  There are quite a few you won’t see anywhere else.

I’ve had the other things for years but the bullet dip pen arrived today.

Here are some of the pens I’ll be uploading to the sales site in the next few days (Deo volente).  I would like to write about all of them in much greater detail but I just don’t have the time.  There are a number of others that I have written about already.

This one’s a sturdy Valentine which bears some resemblance to the 1947 Parker Victory Mark III so it’s doubtless of a similar date.  I’m not usually fond of Valentines; most of those I come across are flimsy, fragile things but this one is the opposite.

The De La Rue pen is a close relative of the Onoto and this one sports a number 22 nib which is fitted to some of the Onotos as well.  The handsome mottled hard rubber section is correct; it’s a feature of these pens.

The jade cap lip on this American Swan ringtop is very distinctive; a very rare pen.

Another of those splendid Italian marble Swans.  I’ve been very lucky in picking up several this past year.  This one’s an SM 100/59.

A fine old Swan safety screw cap.  A little faded, but sound and bearing an accommodation clip.

A superb Conway Stewart 479M, the Universal pen.  This is the earliest version, dating to around 1931, identified by the inserted clip, flange lever and domed top.  The colours of the mottled hard rubber are very rich.

A very fresh Cross in matte black with a broad stub nib.

This is a Blackbird Self-Filling Pen of the earliest type with the spoon feed, soon to be abandoned in favour of the ladder feed.  The embossed gold-plated broad band is very attractive.

This Mabie Todd “The Swan Pen” is around 100 years old and still working splendidly with its over-and-under feed, New York nib and slip cap.

This one is an oddity: a Pilot with a “fude” nib, intended for writing Chinese characters.  The more you angle the pen the wider the line becomes.

“Rosemary – that’s for remembrance”, a beautiful lever filler made for National Security to commemorate those lost in the Great War.  In excellent condition, bearing a hallmarked broad cap ring.

This boxed Excelsior is New Old Stock.  Interestingly, it’s an accordion filler.  A most uncommon pen here in Britain.

An excellent Parker 61 of the capillary type.  It has been thoroughly flushed out and is ready to write.  The box is in first class condition and filling instructions are included.

A Parker Aerometric pen and pencil set.  There is some staining on the interior of the box but it’s otherwise sound.