Here it is at last – my relaunched sales website, rather later than intended for which I apologise but it’s better to get it right than to launch prematurely and have to sort out problems on-the-fly.  It looks pretty much the same as it did before but it works better.  I have a new web address, http://www.goodwriterssales.com (note the double S).  For a few weeks, if you go to the old site you will be redirected to the new one.

Come along and have a look at the new stock.  I think you’ll find that there is something there for everyone.

Here is another of those subtly coloured 1930s Swans.  This one is in pattern 57, which is a blue/black/bronze marbled mixture.  Contained in its original Royal Blue box it still has a deep glossy shine, showing little wear for the passage of so many years.  I’ve written about these pens before and there is little to add so I’ll let the photographs speak for themselves.

My apologies for missing the deadline for re-launching the sales website.  Right at the very last an unexpected problem arose which continues to hold back opening up the site again.  I believe it’s an osCommerce problem which affects PayPal transactions.  I am assured that those who have the knowledge to overcome this glitch are working hard on getting it done and I hope to reopen the site very soon.

Website uploads and testing going on at a fever pitch now…. apologies for not having made the August 1st deadline I was aiming for, but we are getting very close, with lots of lovely flexy pens soon to be up for sale.  A few more glitches to smooth out, and soon – fingers crossed – I’ll be ready to throw the doors open once again 🙂

I sent away for a Pilot Capless a couple weeks ago.  It was coming from Japan and I’d almost forgotten about it but it arrived today.  It came in a cardboard box, wrapped up in a Japanese newspaper.  I was quite pleased with that as I’d never seen a Japanese newspaper before.  I used it as background for these photos.

Anyway, inside the cardboard box was this:

And once that was removed, there was this:

And finally we got down to this:

Having bought the cheapest version possible, I didn’t get a converter, just one Pilot cartridge.  That’s okay by me because as I understand it, the converter that comes with the pen is called the con-50 and it holds so little ink as to be useless.  Separately, I’ve ordered a con-20 converter, which I understand holds a more sensible amount of ink.

I’m not fond of gimmicky or over-engineered pens, and I expected not to be impressed by the Capless.  Actually I am, goshdarnit!  I expected it to be very heavy, given all the gubbins inside this pen, but it isn’t.  It’s a sensible weight.  I didn’t think I would enjoy writing with it but I do.

To be sure, this isn’t the pen that you would choose to write wedding invitations with, or even to do your correspondence.  There are many better pens for those jobs, most of them older than me.  However, for a pen that sits on the desk to take notes as you work it’s perfect.  The clicky mechanism that exposes the nib is light and positive and the little cover protects the nib from drying out when the pen is not in use.  To my shame, I must admit that I’ve used a rollerball in my everyday working note-taking, but no more!  The pen is actually a pleasure to write with.  The nib is a fine because that’s what you want for note-taking.  As such, it’s not the smoothest nib in the world – there is just the right amount of feedback.  It’s comfortable in the hand and the pocket clip doesn’t get in the way at all.

These, then, are the practicalities.  What about the aesthetics?  To be honest, I think it’s kind of ugly.  They say that beauty is the meeting of form and function but I don’t think it is in this case.  Given what it is expected to do it is hard to see how it could be any other shape.  It’s the Ugly Duckling that will never attain the elegance of a Swan SF230, but I like it anyway.  In consolation we can say that the gloss burgundy finish is very nice.

There is more to be said about this pen, I think, and it will all come out in time when I’ve used it a bit more.

Here’s a beautiful Waterman 94 in the pattern known as grey pearl.  It’s a stunning pattern raised from the obscurity of just another grey marble by the splashes of red throughout.  The 94 is a good size of pen at 12.6 cm, and it’s quite thick.  It makes for a very comfortable pen to write with.

The nib is a beauty: smooth, flexible and wet.  The nib is where Waterman, like Swan, comes into its own.

Though I’m no expert on American Watermans, I suspect that there is a problem with this pen.

That, to my mind, is not a 94 cap.  It’s the cap from an Ink-Vue, I believe.  The cap fits well, the pattern is the same but the clip is not something I’ve seen on a 94, nor is the band.

So this beauty is a Frankenpen.  That doesn’t bother me too much.  It’s going to sit on my desk and be my daily writer and here’s why:

Big Ben pens can be quite confusing: there is a modern kit pen that goes by that name, there is a Big Ben that is a sub-brand of Wyvern and finally there is the excellent Danish piston filler.

This is an example of the latter.  The pen is in green marble with black lines and there is a translucent area so that you can check how much ink is left in the pen.  The clip screw, blind cap and section are black.  The nib is marked “Big Ben 14K 585 1” which doubtless means that this is their version of a number one nib, though it seems a little larger than I would expect for that size.  The pencil is marked “Original Big Ben 15” and it works very well.

I find this pen quite hard to date but I suspect that it’s pre-war.  The cap bears the the number 451168, which I astonished myself by being able to find in Espacenet.  It relates to the piston filling system and was written by two Germans, Heinrich Hebborn and Heinrich Schlicksupp, trading as Hebborn and Co., Cologne.  It’s dated 30th of July 1936.

I understand from Paul LeClercq’s troubles and tribulations reported in Fountain Pen Geeks that these pens can be very difficult, or even impossible to repair.  This one is working – for the moment – but I won’t be selling it until I have it checked over by an expert.  Which is not me, I hasten to add, where piston fillers are concerned.

Work on the improved sales site continues apace!  Testing has gone well (she said, hoping not to jinx it), and the last thing to work out is making the PayPal module play nicely with the site.  I don’t know if I’ll make it all happen by August 1st, as I am also working on batches of new uploads…. but it will be close!

I think this one takes the biscuit for rarity and mystery.  In most respects it’s a perfectly ordinary Mentmore Diploma.  What makes it stand out from the crowd is its translucent barrel.

The explanation for this that comes first to mind is that it’s a demonstrator.  There are a couple of problems with that, though.  So far as I am aware, British manufacturers just didn’t do demonstrators in the 30s and 40s.  We are used to ink-in-the-barrel demonstrators nowadays, and the idea of a clear barrel to demonstrate the operation of a button filler seems rather strange.  It’s not impossible, though.  We can’t discount the possibility.

Could it be, perhaps, a trial of a new and experimental celluloid?  Others, like De La Rue, had developed semitransparent plastics.  Mentmore was never afraid to try something new and perhaps this was a prototype that never went into production.

Finally, this may just be a freak celluloid that lost its colour and became transparent.  This is the least likely explanation.  One would expect there to be a batch of tens if not hundreds of similar pens, and they just don’t seem to exist.  In my many years of fascination with pens, this is the one and only example that I have seen.

Whatever the explanation may be, it makes an interesting pen.  Fitted with a translucent plastic sac as this one is, the amount of ink available is visible.  Also, you can see the action of the pressure bar as the button is depressed.  That’s not something you see every day!

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.