Having decided it was a good way to get started with vintage pens, I just got my first three Esterbrooks from eBay. Paid a total of about $25 for all three from different sellers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that two out of the three have intact, flexible sacs. (The third has a pile of hard rubber bits instead.)

The idea of a pen from fifty years ago costing $10 and working perfectly boggles my mind. Here are pictures of the two working ones...





The red pen has the usual drawer wear, but the copper pen is shiny. I think someone polished and re-sac'd it. The red one, amazingly, still has an original sac with "ESTERBROOK" on the side, still flexible.

All I need now is a new sac for the third pen, maybe a different nib or two, and a good excuse not to collect all of the colors and sizes...

Good luck on finding that excuse.

Well, I managed to settle my collection goal on just one of each size and one of each colour, so now have a full set, except for wanting a red marbled (I've decided to exclude white / purse pens), and even have three to spare (I'm planning on giving away a dark green J and SJ come Christmas and it's a grey SJ which is my day-to-day user).

William

Yeah, me too...

model relief 314
model b, a, h, short h, j,lj, sj,ch, h....



The first set of 18 should be easy, then you'll want matching pencils, then you'll want the set of 18 dollar pens (which I still don't have all of), then the matching pencils...

Have fun, it's addictive!
Brian

Very nice! Isn't getting new pens fun ?

I am having fun Brian, but I am trying hard to limit myself, hence my foregoing CH and H ``purse'' pens and limiting myself to just the double-jewel J, LJ and SJ, with a pen of each colour and a pen of each size (but _not_ attempting to collect every colour in every size).

I would kind of like to manage to get a unique nib for each pen I own though....

William