I presume these were originally made as fancy technical drawing pens (much like Rotring drawing pens, which were in everyday use in my earlier engineering days).

Anyone have one? Can they be used for writing?

Is the drawing nib holder a push fit into the section, like a normal feed?

They were made for quite a long time so there must be quite a few out there, although I would guess they weren't kept in the same way as a normal fountain pen.


Greg

Hi Greg

The ink pencils were not really intended to be used solely as drawing pens althought they do work very well for that purpose, they also write very well particularly if you like to write quite small. The ink pencils are less scratchy than many people think and are good to use.
The section/nib holder is a friction fit to the barrel on the lever filler and the needle carrier stays with the tube in the CS versions, in others the needle is sprung and attached to the base of the barrel. The nib doesn't seem to want to come out and it is easy enough to pull the needle on its carrier out to flush and clean the tube.

They come in BHR, RHR and many colours and as eye-dropper fillers and lever fillers, I have a #91 and a #151, the 91 being an e-d and the 151 a lever filler, both of these are in BCHR. I think from memory that anything CS with a model number ending in 1 indicates an ink pencil.

I also have examples of ink pencils by several other makers, there was quite a steady market for them for some years. De la Rue made them under the Onoto banner and Mabie Todd sold Swan ink pencils, in the US you are more likely to see Inkograph and a couple of other makers, the names for the moment escape me.

I hope that helps a little,
John

Close, John, but no cigar! The '1' should be at the other end, in that most model numbers in the range 100 - 199 were ink pencils, until they started filling in spaces in the number book more randomly, from the 1950s onwards. Being CS, of course, there are plenty of exceptions, not only the 81 Dandy Ink pencil and the 91 Universal ink pencil, as John mentions, but also an 82, 92 & 93.

I can't add to the useful practical information that John gave, but one thing I do find interesting is the original price difference between nibbed pens and ink pencils. In 1924, around the time of launch, a Pixie nibbed pen cost 7/6, whereas the Pixie ink pencil cost only 3/9. Similarly, the first Dandy nibbed pen cost 6/6, while the Dandy ink pencil was only 2/9. These prices presumably reflect the price of gold at the time, a point reinforced by the huge differential in prices of essentially identical pens with and without rolled gold trim, for instance the Dinkie 540 (no trim), at 5/6, and the Dinkie 526 (2 broad cap bands), at 7/6.

Andy

Just as well I don't smoke Andy,

I should really re-read my posts before I hit the button, somewhere between brain and finger there was a glitch, I don't want to use the politicians excuse that what you heard is not what I meant to say and what I said was not what I meant, but in this case it is near enough to the truth, sorry for leading anyone astray and thanks Andy for putting things straight.

cheers, John

Hugely interesting, many thanks, guys.

Pics are always interesting too!

Also interesting is that people would use the ink pencil for writing. Not sure I can understand the advantage of this, although for small writing, as you say, John, I can see the benefit and in those days entries into ledgers and the like would have been by hand. Perhaps notes on drawings and other types of publications would have been more precisely written with an ink pencil. All conjecture of course.

I do a little drawing myself I was wondering...


Greg

I believe an Ink Pencil is another word for a stylographic pen. In the US, Stylo's were the first reliable fountain pens in the 1870s, pre-dating the Waterman and Wirt fountain pens of the 1880s. I think they kept a following up until the ballpoint took over.

John

Hi Greg,

Like you, I do quite a bit of drawing and yes the CS ink pencils are as good as any other stylographs for this purpose although I tend to use a rather more up to date(1940's) Onoto. The Onoto is a good handwriting pen as well, it uses fountain pen ink and not the specialised drafting inks used in most modern stylographs. If I want waterproof lines for wash work I use a Rapidograph or something similar

Rotring made a cartridge /converter filler pen called the Altro in the 1980's and this was a stylograph, used the standard international cartridge and was designed for writing, with a line width of about 1mm and a ball ended tube so that there was none of the scratching that many people experience when writing with a Rotring/Kooh-i-noor Rapidograph. I have a couple of these but haven't seen any others for a long while although should you run across them they are worth giving a try as an alternative to ball points and rollerballs if you don't like them.

Sorry to stray off the CS topic a bit.

Cheers, John