I'm going to disclaimer this by saying I have no intention of doing what I'm about to ask, it's just a thought that popped into my head while reading some posts. With that being said, onto the question.


What stops people from faking a more "rare" Estie (or any pen for that matter). I know a while back someone had bought a silver Estie that had the "wrong" jewels on the end. My thought is what is stopping people from ripping off the jewels from say two pencils and throwing it on a fountain pen and then calling it a rare variant. Or say cleaning up a pen really good, filling in the Esterbrook imprint to make it white again and claiming it to be NOS. Or say a Frankenpen of different Estie parts and claiming it to be some rare pen.

I know there has to be a sense of trust and assumed honesty with people that they aren't doing this. But does it make you a little leary when you see something on eBay that is claimed to be different??

Hi Penguin master,
I can think of several reasons why people don't tend to fake Esties but basically it isn't worth anyones while, good everyday workhorses and as goodlooking as they are in many peoples eyes they aren't worth enough

Concocting a Frankenpen is one thing, these can happen from circumstances over the years and in a way be as genuine as any other pen, the jewel has gone from a schoolboy's working pen (not very likely on most Esties) it looks bad and there is another different model pen in the drawer so the jewel from that ends up in the boy's Estie or a lost cap replaced with one from a different year or whatever
Making a batch of deliberate fakes is quite another thing, Esties as a rule do not fetch big bucks and making pens is not cheap, finding suitable materials like Icicle plastic is next to impossible, setting up for injection moulding, machining or metall stamping isn't cheap either to make it worth while one would have to go for a big run and then the scarce pen is no longer scarce and the fraud is obvious

It would take an encyclopaedic knowledge of the brand to know what to try and fake, if someone knew that much about the brand they would make more by buying and selling genuine rare or scarce pens and wouldn't need too indulge in skullduggery.

People like Gerry and Brian who come across oddballs from people like the 'Benz Collection's' barker tend to let those collectors that frequent places like here and the other pen sites know about them, for example the 'rare colour' Estie that showed up a while ago on offer from the 'Benz Collection' was being discussed and debunked in a matter of a couple of hours after the listing appeared.

On top of all those reasons is the fact that Esties don't have the greed and posing factor of other pens that do get faked, the name of the most faked escapes me for diplomacy's sake .

Sorry for the long post,

cheers, John

Not much to add to John's excellent post, but I will say when you consider an average hard to find esterbrook runs in the $150-$200 range (with few exceptions above that which could not be easily faked, twist fillers, for example), not the $1000's you might expect for nicer Waterman's or other brands. If I were a crook, I could see spending some time inventing a rare variant of a Patrician which might net me a cool couple grand, but for $200? I doubt it.

That's not to say people don't intentionally mislead or assume things. I've seen all sorts of auctions from reputable dealers who claim rare estie sets (pen and pencil from different models, or with wrong caps, "This is how I got it, therefore must be correct"), or the occasional, "This came from an estate in Camden, NJ, so therefore must be a rare early prototype". These people are just salesmen trying to get a quick buck and don't really add much to the hobby.

Best-
Brian