Hi Conwaystewardophylles!!

This is a post for vintage Durophylles

Just wanted to share some images of this very nice RHR Duro-2 FP which I received a couple of weeks ago from Andy (Thanks). Nedless to say it is a very smooth and nice writer, a small treasure that will be kept in a very special and protected place. 9

Enjoy the pictures... and take your time, may be a lenghty download.

Jopen, great pics. The nib looks superb.

Will you ink it and give us a writing sample ?.

Thanks for sharing.

Gary

Fantastic pen and very nice pics! That is very cool the way the feed matches the barrel - never seen that before. How common is this?

Neat pen, and great pics. I love the matching feed. What are the dimensions of the pen?

Thanks,

weepstah

I'm glad my old Duro2 ultimately went to such an appreciative home and Jose is obviously a far better photographer than I am!!

With reference to the previous two posts, I believe the vast majority of Conway Stewart mottled vulcanite pens had matching feed and section, though I'm sure at least a couple of members will pounce on me if I'm wrong!

It is also interesting that the Duro 2 in this precise format is pictured in a colour advertisement of December 1930 dating this particular example very close to that date!

Andy

Yip!! Andy... your Duro-2 found a loving home. It has taken me a couple of weekends, and as you may remember the very nice nib was just a bit scratchy, yes it takes patience and relaxed ambient to tune this fabulous nib. First of all there was some tine alignement to be done and things were much better. Last couple of days (not the whole day!!) were spended looking through 20x and 30x in order to see what was still wrong. Here and there were some tiny holes and spikes in the iridium... some smoothing (and a couple of tea cups...) and finally a rewardind ultrasmooth writing was obtained. I filled it with Waterman's Florida Blue, with the intention to wash it perfectly afterwards (I do not want ink stains to ruin this lovely pen) ... and well... I started with one page ... two... three... then my wife got a go and a WOW!! ... yes but I must confess that the great line variation obtainable with the flex is something I must get used to, too nice for an awful Doc's writing like mine... so the writing sample must wait still a bit

A sample of your wife's writing with it perhaps?

OK, Gary...

Here you have a writing sample... please do not compare with writing artists /:) on the forum I'm just a user, perhaps when I retire I will take some lessons

There is a great difference between this very big and flexy #6 CS nib and the actual rigid ones. It is able to write with a minimal pressure (my actual style) and only shows its potential when getting a bit "relaxed" with it, writing slower and aplying the right pressure here and there. On the other hand, the modern nibs just keep the same wet and consistent line all the time, no matter what you do and are made for everyday FP users like me

Sorry Roger... you got already a bit late...

Jopen,

Thanks for the writing sample. Never appologise for writing style, it's who we are and yours is just fine.

The flexibility of the nib is obvious and they do take a little getting used to but as you said, staying relaxed gets the best out of them.

My Danitrio with med flexi is very flexible, like trying to control and octopus arm but I'm not complaining.

This is what makes most vintage nibs so great.

Thanks for the time taken.

Best

Gary

Congratulations, Jpopen, beautiful pen, extremely jealous. A couple of similar pens (a 24 and a770M) went from eb*y over the weekend. My weak bids being rendered harmless very quickly!

I've always wondered how they made these pens. The ripples look random but when viewed from above there is symmetry in the 'grains'.

One thing I love about HR Pens is that you can rub the body and then smell the rubber. My Dad used to tell me that users would gently rub the body of HR pens along their top lip, the skin oils keeping it looking good. I can vouch for this(!).

With regards to the feed I have a no-name pen in red ripple HR which also has a matching feed, seemed the thing to do as its the same material as the black feeds anyway. I can assure Jopen that the nib in my no-name would not come close in any respect to his.

Greg

Hi Greg

It is the norm for a red mottled hard rubber Conway Stewart pen, or more strictly in olde worlde Conway Stewart speak, red mottled Vulcanite, to have a matching feed.

On the subject of one of the e-place Conway Stewart red mottled Vulcanite pens, it was not actually a Conway Stewart 24 but a Conway Stewart Duro 2A, a particularly unusual variant of the Duro 2 model.

Both pens went very cheap. I was beaten on both and would have bid more but for the fact that I'm paying for 2 kids to go through university at present and don't have the funds available for duplicate pen purchases. Please forgive the sound of the violins in the background! Please help out by visiting my website and buying all the pens I have for sale!

Here are the examples of these pens that I have in my collection:

Conway Stewart Duro 2A in red mottled Vulcanite


Conway Stewart 770M


David Wells
The Penultimate Pen & Pencil Collection

David,

Thanks for bringing to everyone's attention the 'red mottled vulcanite' correction, I could feel knuckles being (metaphorically) rapped as I was reading Greg's post!

You are probably well placed to answer this - do you ever see CS sections and feeds in the plain red (or tan, if you prefer) vulcanite? It seems slightly strange that they made matching pieces in the mottled material if they didn't do the same in the red material.

The only red vulcanite CS to pass through my collection was a 23 and that had a black section and feed.

Andy

Hi Andy

No, I have not come across any red or tan pens with matching sections and feeds. I suspect that the reason is that particular colour/material is suspectible to discolouration by contact with ink. I base this assumption on the fact that I have a Conway Stewart Duro red pen which shows discolouration around the threaded area of the barrel, where it would be in contact with ink deposits inside the cap.



The only all red pen that I have is actually a Dandy No 82 Ink Pencil and as the tip of this is never inserted into ink, this would not be an issue if the material did stain when in regular contact with ink.



David

All those reds are really nice and attractive pens but they are no exception... there has to be always some delicate part in such beauties. On the other hand in my limited experience with RMR's, where feeds are also in the same material they seem not sensible to ink staining. The last one was a Waterman Lady Patrician which was cleaned very easy leaving a perfect look. A shame on those spectacular pure reds. Very nice your Duro Red, David

By the way, Andy... a couple of days ago I was about to bid on a very nice 550 but I kept fingers off when I saw you already there...

Your DOG... Does he/she have a RMR nose?? My Lab has a RMHR nose..

I don't know what you saw me bidding on but it wouldn't have been a 550, they are much later than my collecting period. I just bought a pen that was described as a 510 (which is probably not the correct number) but I haven't made a serious bid for anything else. Be very careful with Dinkies on ebay, it is often hard to sort out the bargains from the rubbish (there is currently a pen described as a 526 going for a lot of money which looks spectacular but is in fact a hybrid of at least 3 different pens)! If you really want a 550, contact me, I have a nice price stickered one that is surplus to requirements.


The dog is Ollie, our 3 year old German Shepherd (and my best friend!), I would describe his nose as pink rather than red mottled vulcanite colour - maybe you have more sun in Tenerife to turn pink noses into red!! He is wonderful but he did eat my best CS Executive 60 with a lovely very fine Duro nib when he was a puppy!

Andy

OK, count my knuckles rapped and my vocab corrected. I better not say 'fake wood effect' then!

While on rubbery materials how is it cleaned to bring back the original colours? Even black? Metal polish will merely take off any shine that existed and other polish seems to just leave on a coat of polish.

Greg

For rubbery materials and after cleaning all what I can with a soft brush and water, I go then to the old toothpaste method (using also brush or cottonwool as needed) which usually works very fine and finish it with 3M polishing liquid (the finest one available, without silicones or other strange products - here it comes in a black flask) used on automotive paint work as absolute final finishing stage product. This has the advantage of leaving a clean surface of the base material itself, without the unwanted foreign substances. All the work is done by hand, first using cottonwool and finishing with the traditional old soft washed cloth, all by hand... A pity I did not take pictures of the before and after on my friend's Waterman, it was spectacular indeed. I have used the same procedure on several feeds (CS, Parker, Sheaffer...) with identical results, also on inner cap face and after a cleaning with water and a soft brush to break appart the solidified ink layer (varnish!!) encountered several times. Andys was about perfect, very clean, so no work of this kind on the Duro, all was done..

And now... right into social business...

Brandy, this is Ollie...
...Ollie... this is Brandy...

Ollie says 'Why does Brandy need a sweater in Tenerife?' (He kindly takes us out for our walk up hills in sub zero temperatures with snow on the ground in just his natural fur coat). Maybe he is just a little jealous...

On a more serious note, in case anybody has not yet found them, for pictures of a super large CS Duro, please look at my recent posting in the marketplace (not my pens, unfortunately).

Andy

Hi Andy (and anyone else interested)

I forgot to mention than there are a couple of models of early Conway Stewart fountain pens that have coloured Vulcanite section and cap top on an otherwise black barrel and cap. The models numbers are 750 and 756P. The 750 has a tan Vulcanite cap top and section, but is fitted with a black feed. The 756P has a red mottled Vulcanite cap top, section and feed. Further evidence that tan, or plain red, feeds do not exist, I think!. I will be happy to be proved wrong, but I will want detailed scans of any Conway Stewart fountain pen that does have a tan feed.



Regards
David
The Penultimate Conway Stewart Collection
Information on Vinrtage Conway Stewart

AWESOME PENSO OVER THERE!!!

And thats for Ollie... Brandy just comes dressed from school (was a picture taken for a school funny contest)

David,

Is there a variatioin of the 756 that also has a wide gold cap band? I had one at one time that I subsequently sold that had one.

John

From my collection, here's the inverse of David's 756P, a Duro50 small button filler in mottled vulcanite but with a black section, feed, cap end and blind cap!



This pen presumably dates from around 1933/34 (when mottled pens were becoming less desirable than the other patterns available)and I believe it to be in the original condition. The few Dinkies and Dandys you see in mottled vulcanite from this period do have the traditional CS 'all mottled' style, so why this should be different I don't know. Maybe they just didn't make enough Duro50s in this style to merit producing the other bits and pieces in the mottled material.

Andy

Andy

I do not have a Conway Stewart with this arrangement, but I do have a Le Tigre. The Le Tigre No 120, is also a button filler like your Duro 50.



I think it may be that red mottled button fillers had black blind caps becuase that was the only colour that they had in stock, and it then made sense to match the section to the blind cap. What do you think? Does anyone else have any other Conway Stewart or Le Tigre button filler in red mottled Vulcanite, and are these the same colour combination as Andy's pen and mine?

Regards
David

Hi John

I am not aware of that variation. It might be original, or it could be a custom jewellers addition. Difficult to tell without a picture or the actual pen. Unfortunately, Jonathn Donahaye's site, www.prog2kill.com/conwaystewart has been unavailable for a while, so we can't check with that to see if he knows the answer.

Regards
David