I was watching this auction for a purse pen in a "rare" colour on eBay yesterday :

CH Auction Link

You will see that although discoloured, the pen is a light brown or khaki colour.

Richard's chart of the available early and late production colours for the CH does not include this one. Greg's excellent photograph of his collection in a recent post on Esterbrook collectors' habits also doesn't appear to show a khaki CH. Brian's page shows one in this colour as a representative example of the breed.

I have a CH in this colour which I initially thought might be a strangely faded version of the "peach" shown by Richard's page as an early production option, but then I acquired a peach coloured pen and saw that the first pen was in fact a different khaki colour. A fact I could have confirmed by looking inside the barrel ("D'Oh!) .

Anyway, does anyone else other than Brian and the lucky purchaser in the above auction have a khaki coloured CH and are they generally considered rare?

I am not convinced that this tan/khaki color is a rare/uncataloged variant. The picture below is not great, but shows a range of colors from the standard light grey to "rare" color in question. The pen in the middle is what makes me think that the tan is either a batch color variation (intended to be the same grey) or discoloration. The Educational Sample color seems to be fairly even between the two ends of the spectrum.



Best regards, greg

Thanks Greg. Now the plot really does thicken.

I will try to get some photos of the relevant pen that I have and some comparison pens in other colours. I don't have the "brown" pen in front of me but from memory it is 'more brown' than those shown in your photo.

David I. seems to often have a few purse pens for sale, some in the rare colours. I wonder what he thinks about this colour issue?

Here are some comparison photos that show the difference between my true grey and the brown khaki. It is the middle of the trio and on the extreme right of the group shot.

Well, I think these pictures have convinced me that the gray and the tan/khaki are different colors, not variations of the same one.
I'm not sure what to make of my Educational Sample pen, though. Probably a discolored version of one of the other two.

Thanks for sharing such color-distinct photos of your pens.
Best regards, greg

Well, this was a surprise!

I've not visited FPN for a while and was just checking out various threads. On this one I clicked the link to the auction and was startled when it had "This item has been paid through PayPal." line at the top--I was the buyer!

It's nice, the discoloration isn't as noticable in regular room lighting as in the photograph. It is that tan/khaki color. I've not inked it yet to give it test run, though.

Cheers,
Tom

Very good buying Tom. A good pen in what seems to be a rarer colour.

I reckon the "side ways" numbered 9556 nib, which looks to be in good condition, is worth nearly what you paid for the whole pen.

I received an "orchid" coloured purse pen still with its sticker glue visible in this morning's post for $36. I am happy with that.

Yep, still looking for that "I'm jealous" emoticon...................... so how about let's say "Green with Envy"