I was in the old area of Kuwait City the other day, where I stumbled across a pen shop that I didn't know existed. Everythink in the shop is old stocks. Apparently they stopped importing new items. The newest items they had were from the 80's. Anyway, I found some vintage and discontinued inks, which I got a few bottles of. I got the discontinued Parker Penman inks, but unfortunately they didn't have the Sapphire Blue anymore. So I wrote a small review of the ones I got.

I used Pelikanos with medium nibs for the review.

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Ebony Black
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Mocha Brown
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Ruby Red
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Emerald Green
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On Elco Classic Verge Paper (laid finish - 100gm2)
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On Elco Record Paper (80gm2 - roughish surface)
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On generic ink-jet paper
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Water resistance testing; the page was left to dry for 2 hours, then put under running water for 10 minutes.
Inks on the page from top to bottom; Ebony, Mocha, Ruby, and Emerald.
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The inks did fairly well. All left a clear legible line.

Great reviews. Isn't it a great feeling to walk into a shop and find all of this "treasure" just sitting on the shelf waiting for you?

Yeah, especially when and where you least expect them. I plan to make that shop a regular visiting destination. They got a good number of NOS Parkers, Sheaffers, Watermans and other brands I've never heard of before, such as Tropen. I was dishearted when the man told they didn't have the Penman Spphire Blue, but they do have some vintage inks that I would like to try.

Those stores are just like time-travel! Great finds and many thanks for sharing.

I'm curious to hear about the pens; especially Sheaffer's and Parker made great pens during the 80's.

Watch out for nice Sterling Silver Sheaffer's pens and more rare Parker Models like the 85, 105 or nice Duofold and 75 variants.

By the way Tropen is a German brand which come from the town I grew up in. They are nice, good working pens (they even made celluloid pens) but of course do not have the same quality as e.g. modern MB or Pelikan pens. By the way Tropen specialized in producing "plastic" parts for other pen manufacturers (e.g. the cap domes from som MB have been produced in the Tropen factury during the 1980's and 1990's) or car maunfacturers (they use to make the little buttons for Audi's air-condition displays).


Take a look here: http://www.tropenschroeder.de/

(if you speak German or just look at the pictures anyways )

Cheers

Michael


PS: the scans look pretty accurate on my monitor; except my Ruby looks less purple in real life

Thank you Michael for the compliments, and also the link. I got one of the Tropens, I think its name is Scholar. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like a good pen. I have no experience in vintage Parkers, Sheaffers or Watermans, but I'll look out for the pens you mentioned the next time I go to the shop.

What a great find!

@Darius: What are the prices there like?

Might you consider coordinating a mass order from FPN?

If you could just post a couple of photos of the pens in the store...

As I said I'm not knowledgeable in vintage pens. When I was there I only asked about the Parker 51, since it's the most mentioned vintage pen. They had a few, prices in the range of US$300+/- , but I didn't get any because I didn't know what the fair price for them was. Instead, I got a Parker 21 Super. I haven't tried it yet. Anyway, the next time I'm in the shop I'll be better prepared with all the information the more experienced members have mentioned.