I don't think so. I've discussed it with him recently, and he had no solution.

"On the cusp"? When was the last time you looked at my Repair & Restoration page?

Hi Evan. Fred Krinke has removed some pretty serious dents from Crest Masterpiece pens for me in the past (three of them) and with great success. I'm not sure why some are saying that Daniel has "figured out" a way to remove the inner cap as Fred does it with frequency. The difference here is that the Masterpiece pens are 14k gold and yours is gold fill over brass. The gold caps have a natural tendency to be rather pliable. He inserts specially shaped wood dowels into the caps to slowly reshape them to their origional specs. Fred is 78 and has been repairing pens professionally since 1945 so I'm sure that's how its been done since the beginning of metal capped pens.

I'm going over there this morning so I'll take him a picture of your cap and see what he says. That is one big dent and in a gold fill cap so I don't know.

Regards,

Pete

ps - one other thing to consider is that the last pen he fixed cost me 45 dollars and I didn't have dents like that. You might want to come to terms with the fact that your pen probably isn't worth having the cap repaired.

Oh, so you're a maven are ya???

david

Some are saying Daniel has figured it out because they believe Daniel has... errrr... figured it out. No one, i believe, suggested that Daniel was the only person ever to have figured it out.

regards

david

I don't have that cap in gold fill but I did talk to Fred. He's not certain the cap can be restored to the place where one couldn't tell it was dented before. Plus the cost of it would probably be more than the thing is worth.

PeteWK

Evan, in truth, given how most of us have learned what we've learned about vintage pens, $20 lost on this venture is hardly wasted. Buying on ebay has risks. Those risks can be mitigated- to a point-by asking questions and to tracking feedback (both depth and breadth).

You still have a nib and some plunger parts, probably worth the $20 you spent. A restored clean pen like this, even with triumph nib (not the early style, which would be worth more), the retail on a pen like this probably is $100. You still have room to play hunting a raw pen in what passes for the wild.

Very often on webboards we hear how folks buy$50 items on ebay that might cost 2-3x that much retail. That is well and good. I do it myself whenever possible.

But, buying on ebay does have risks. It is key to read whether sellers take returns. Those who don't might lead to cheaper final prices, but at increased risk.

$20 spent to obtain parts worth nearly that much is a lesson cheaply learned. Folks who pay $300 for a Vacumatic Maxima on ebay expecting to beat the $500 retail price, who end up getting a $80 Major that has a cracked barrel? Now, there's a lesson.

Don't get me wrong. Lost money makes none of us happy. But, buying used vintage pens sight unseen from unguaranteed sources does open buyers to risk. If such purchases are pursued diligantly and if one learns what he can along the way, in the long term ebay offers some very real bargain. But there will be losses along the way. I know.

regards

david

Would you ask Fred how he removes the inner cap from Crests like this? I think the information would be of general interest.

--Daniel

Looks to me to be a case of the ol' "drawer hammer slammer"...

As others have said, it's an uneconomic repair on this model - but you COULD use it as a lesson and give de-denting a go yourself. Start by making some small new dents on the other side of the cap first before you tackle the big dent if you like. Then get dowelling of various shapes, contours and materials and working from the inside, try and press out the dents starting from the edge of a dent and working your way in - just as car dent repairers do. (don't forget to remove any clutch first!). (I'm sure Danny and others will chip in if I'm miles off in terms of approach - but for our vintage metal business, it was simply a case of "learning by doing" as much of the knowledge and many of the skills had literally died away over past years...)

You won't bring the big dent back to pristine, but the exercise will give you valuable insights and a feel for the task You 'have nix to loose as you still have the other parts which cover the $20 you paid...

Well, that's the trick of it -- not so much remembering to remove the cap liner (no clutch in these), but actually removing it.

--Daniel

I'll do that. I've had him repair dents on three of my solid gold caps and once he had to destroy the inner cap sleeve to get it out (he had several more in his parts bin) and twice he removed it in good condition, so I'm certain it's not a method without some risk.

PeteWK

It's everything -- adhesive, construction, fit... neither manufacturer seems to have intended that the cap would ever be completely disassembled, but Sheaffer really wasn't kidding!

--Daniel