Unknown BHR Eyedropper

[kkhon]

My first review/"tasting notes".

 

http://x2b.xanga.com/a1db91053773155214653/b37002361.jpg

 

A shot of pen and cap...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/kkhon/mhr-1.jpg

 

Mottled Hard Rubber! (pardon the blur... )

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/kkhon/mhr-2.jpg

Edited May 20, 2006 by kkhon

[PaulK]

WOW!...what a great find. Truly a beauty! That would definitely become a journaling pen for me.

[Dudley]

OO pretty pen i approve

[offbase]

Very nice pen, and no offense, but: what's the point of a "review" of an unidentified pen???

[John54green]

Truly a lovely pen!

[amh210]

Very nice pen, and no offense, but: what's the point of a "review" of an unidentified pen???

The purpose, I think, is that we get to hear about a neat pen. That we don't know the manufacturer just means we can't lust after it by name.

 

I'd always choose to encourage literary creativity, and a FP review is just that!

 

Andy

[einv]

the age of the pen is around 80 years old. MHR pens first appear around that era. as for make it could be any one of small second or third tier manufacturers that turned pens imitating the famous pens of the day, like waterman. size 4 nib means your pen imitates a size 14 waterman, which is slightly larger than the ubiquitous size 12.

 

do you find any number imprints at the end of the barrel?

 

it could of course be a named pen whose imprints have been buffed away, and whose nib replaced by a warranted nib, such nibs were sold at drugstores everywhere during the age of eyedroppers because flex nibs do not last when overly flexed. dip pen users must have tried pretty hard to flex the early nibs to get the same effect of shading, and cracks must have appeared near the breather hole area, forcing a warranted nib replacement.

 

as for filling with eyedropper, do not be guided by the term 'eyedropper filler'. i have found that the best way to fill these pens is using a plastic pipette of 3 ml capacity. most of the EDs of size 12-15 fill with one pipette load. with an eyedropper, you may need 3-4 operations. a blunted 3 ml syringe is another way to fill an ED. using a syringe or a pipette, you can moreover gauge the capacity of the ED in terms of ink volume.

 

i love MHR, especially the french safeties in this color!

[JRodriguez]

Thanks for sharing your find Kkhon. And thanks for the background info Einv.

[kkhon]

Thanks all for your kind reply.

 

Einv: Thank you for the info and advice. Age really doesn't show on this pen. (No, there aren't any imprints at the end of the barrel.)

 

Offbase: That's a tough question.... but how about tempting you so that the next MHR you see won't slip away from your hands? (I thought that's what reviews are for! )

 

 

Cheers,

K.K.Hon

[offbase]

In hindsight, I think my comment was rude. Please accept my apologies.

[kkhon]

Don't worry, offbase.

[French]

nice review.

 

I especially like posting a handwritten review so we can see a writing sample and read the review at the same time. Perhaps I'll try it for my next review.

 

french

[Johnny Appleseed]

Well I hate to revive a thread this old, but wanted to add that MHR actually goes back into the 1860s or 70s. It is a pretty early development in the evolution of HR. That said, I would guess this pen closer to the teens and 20s, based on styling.

 

John

[jonro]

Nice looking pen and thanks for the review. I'm going to keep an eye out for these on eBay.

[artaddict]

I'm glad I found this review.

I just inadvertently won an unidentified BCHR with a 14K Warranted nib. I've read that this type of nib was a common replacement when pens needed repair.

My BCHR is a lever filler though. One of these days I'll get an eyedropper.

[HLeopold]

I'm glad I found this review.

I just inadvertently won an unidentified BCHR with a 14K Warranted nib. I've read that this type of nib was a common replacement when pens needed repair.

My BCHR is a lever filler though. One of these days I'll get an eyedropper.

 

I have two eye-dropper BHR pens, both Laughlins, BUT both need nibs, and one probably needs a new feed, it has a chip out of the side under the nib. I thought the one, which I bought first, was unused, since it shows no wear at all, but I filled it with water and got a bit of blue out of it, and some crud oozed out of the cap (I had let it sit in the pen cup filled for a few days to loosen anything in it, the cap on, I guess enough humidity was in the cap that it caused the crud to flow out.)

 

So if anyone knows of a good nib for an eye-dropper, please let me know. The nibs that were in both pens are identical and one inch in length. The pens themselves are five and a half inches for the really good one, and five and three eights inch for the other. Both are near twins to the other, slender at three eights inch across the body and seven sixteenths across the caps.

 

Slip fit caps, tapered sections. The feeds are the very early type, about four mm across and an inch and three quarters in length.

 

I would love to find a couple of Laughlin nibs, but that may take a while, so would like to find anything, warranted or even steel if that is an option, that might fit properly and get these up and writing again.

 

Both nibs cracked lengthwise, one completely, the other from both ends and nearly meeting in the middle. Lots of stress on those early nibs especially from the small diameter feeds they were wrapped around.

[Johnny Appleseed]

The trick with any replacement nib is to get the right size. If the pen has a small feed, you will have to find a small nib to go with it - but it is easier said then done. Without sizing a number of nibs to the feed, it is hard to find one that will fit. You might try to find a Welty - they are occasionally for sale online and as I recall have a base curved for slipping around a smaller feed. Warranted nibs come in all shapes and sizes, and the numbers mean nothing - I have two warranted nib with a small triangle logo that was found on nibs used in National Pen Co. pens. One is a #3, and one a #8 - but the #8 is actually smaller than the #3.

 

It might help if you could tell us the #on the Laughlin nib - someone might know a comperable size in other brands.

 

Warranted nibs were not neccessarily a replacement nib - they were often the original nib sold with many 2nd tier pens, including budget line pens from major pen makers (Wahl's "Olympian" brand, for example, or Sheaffer's "Craig"). There were many, many pens that used Warranted nibs, including many no-name pens. I would suspect the BCHR lever-filler came originally with a Warranted nib.

 

John

Edited June 26, 2007 by Johnny Appleseed

[HLeopold]

The trick with any replacement nib is to get the right size. If the pen has a small feed, you will have to find a small nib to go with it - but it is easier said then done. Without sizing a number of nibs to the feed, it is hard to find one that will fit. You might try to find a Welty - they are occasionally for sale online and as I recall have a base curved for slipping around a smaller feed. Warranted nibs come in all shapes and sizes, and the numbers mean nothing - I have two warranted nib with a small triangle logo that was found on nibs used in National Pen Co. pens. One is a #3, and one a #8 - but the #8 is actually smaller than the #3.

 

It might help if you could tell us the #on the Laughlin nib - someone might know a comperable size in other brands.

 

Warranted nibs were not neccessarily a replacement nib - they were often the original nib sold with many 2nd tier pens, including budget line pens from major pen makers (Wahl's "Olympian" brand, for example, or Sheaffer's "Craig"). There were many, many pens that used Warranted nibs, including many no-name pens. I would suspect the BCHR lever-filler came originally with a Warranted nib.

 

John

 

No number of either nib, which are both the same size, approximately 1” in overall length, (or 25 to 26mm). I know that lots of pens came originally with Warranted nibs, some of which are quite nice, I have one for an “ALL WRITE” flat-top that is probably one of the nicest flexible medium nibs I have ever gotten my hands on.

 

Here is a picture of the two from the top:

 

 

And one from the rear of the one not completely split:

 

 

Not the best shots I have taken, but nibs are small and I don’t have a macro lens.