I just wanted to show off a couple of pictures of my little blue purse pen, which I got from a relative about 25 years ago. This is the pen I used permanent drawing ink in recently, not realizing that was bad. The nib was completely clogged and the sac had solidified and broken into pieces. With all the great advice that I got here, I was able to clean the nib, replace the sac, and remove the ink stains from the exterior. Now it writes great. Thanks to everyone who gave me such helpful advice, I could not have done it without you!

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That is a beautiful looking pen! Congratulations on the good job of restoring it. We all learn from mistakes (our own or others) and I'm guessing the pen is now probably working better than it did before!

What ink are you using in it? It's a wonderful shade.

Matt.

Thank you! Nothing like learning the hard way, I guess. I did practice on several other Esterbrook J-series before attempting the purse pen, just in case . . .

The ink is Noodler's Navajo Turquoise. It really is a lovely color, even better than my photo shows.

It's beautiful! The ink matches the pen too!

Congrats! That's beautiful work Hope my own attempts will turn out as well as yours.

Gorgeous pen! Beautiful ink. Congrats on a job well done.

that pen is astounding. i've wanted a purse pen of my own for a while. could anyone tell me what kind of price range i should be trying to find for a good condition, ready to write purse pen?

Thank you both!



Thank you! Good luck with your own restoration efforts. It isn't as hard as I thought it would be, but it sure does pay to go slowly and be patient. And ask questions here on FPN.



I watched the prices of purse pens on eBay, just out of curiosity. It seemed like the less-rare colors might go for $30-$40, but it's hard to tell from the auctions sometimes what is the condition of the pen.

One thing I've learned is that the purse pens are more fragile than the other J-series pens. Toulouse warned me that the plastic of the purse pens is not as sturdy as that of the pearl colors of the larger pens. That matches with my experience now working with these pens. My purse pen has fine cracks around the edge of the cap, which apparently is fairly common. Also, the section is very short compared to an SJ or J, which makes the purse pen not quite so comfortable to write with, though for a person with small hands it might be a very good fit.

Good luck finding the right one for you!

Nice job: very attractive pen.

Job well done

Beautiful pen! Congrats on getting it working again.