OK, this is mainly aimed at those of you living 'across the pond', but maybe some one on this side might know the answer too..

Has anyone ever heard of the Wembley Pen Company. I am waiting for a BCHR in the original box that I just won on e(nable)Bay from England
NOT going to tell you what I paid until I am reasonably sure I did not make an A** of myself... but it was cheap. I am assuming that the price of 10\6 means 10.6 BP, if so I did not spend much more than that for the pen...
Here is the picture of it.

That olde fountain pen is great. The box is just wonderful too!

From your mouth to God's ear...
I sure hope so.... will take a while to get here from England...

Not my area of expertise, but 10 British Pounds in the 1920's was a huge amount of money. the Pound Sterling was the strongest currency on the planet. My guess is that it was 10 shilling and 6 pence or something like that.

One of Her Majesty's loyal subjects will certainly provide more accurate information.

Andy

Pen looks great- although I've no idea about the company or it's pens.

I can tell you though that 10/6 refers to pre-decimal British Currency (used until 1971), and means 10 shillings and sixpence. There were 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence in a shilling.

About half a pound then represents about £20 now (I think) but this doesn't necessarily mean yours is equivalent to a $35 pen now. Stuff was built to last then!

Whatever it's worth in monetary terms, you've got a lovely pen and a little slice of history. Imagine a pink-faced young office clerk being presented with it on the occasion of his first promotion!

You put it better than me Andy about the strength of the pound in pre-WW1 times. Imagine $35 to someone in rural Africa- that's the relative value of 10/6 back then to the rest of the world.

can't say that i know the pen, but what amh210 is right. no way its £10. its 10 shilings (50 pence) and 6 pence, wasn't decimal back in those days.

maybe if you're intrested enough, you can take a look at this website to get an idea of value.
old money

plugging figures in, for 1920's says its worth £22 for 1930
http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/

let us know how the pen writes when you get it! if it writes as good as it looks, then thats a nice purchase you've got!

i should get myself some more of these old english pens, while i can

oops joe got there before me, while i was posting this! and he was spot on with his figures

Thanks for the monetary information...
I ended up paying £15 including shipping for the pen...
I figured that any decent looking BCHR that writes it worth at least that.

I think that means 10.6 pounds of gold.

Yes indeed, 10/6 was when we had real money not silly decimal stuff; thank goodness we don't have toytown Euros

It translates to 52.5 pence (or New Pence as we were supposed called them for years - most called them "pee" as in 20p = twenty pee). You can get one third of a single tube ride for 50p in London today but not a copy of The Times (which costs 60p).

Nice pen and great old box.

I visited the Museum of Brands recently - a real trip down memory lane for those interested in old packaging etc. Great fun.

Cheers,
Chris

Hi Griz, I don't know of the company itself, but Wembley is a suburb of Northwest London which (among other things) is the site of the famous stadium, now being rebuilt as a 90,000-seater. The area also had one of the world's first "industrial estates" - we now call them "business parks" - which introduced the then-novel idea of grouping factories and small workshops together on one site away from residential housing. It was the beginnings of modern town planning, and ideally placed for easy distribution to London itself. I would imagine that the Wembley Pen Company must have been one of the first occupants.

I think you got a bargain there - let us know how it writes! I got a similar early Swan ED pen on Ebay recently, and it is one of the nicest writers I have.

Hey Old Griz,

I am old enough to remember that the sum of 10/6 has another significance. If you went to a quality store in the 1950s, often the goods were not priced in Pounds, Shillings and Pence, but Guineas. A Guinea was 21 shillings and half a Guinea was 10 shillings and six pence or 10/6. This was an overhang from earlier days and had about faded out by the Swinging 60s, but it gives a clue back to the 20' and 30s.

From this I suspect from the look of the pen and the box, that it would have been sold in a quality stationers, and maybe the ticket would have said half a Guinea rather than 10/6. To my mind that would have been a lot of money for a pen, when you consider that a bank worker maybe earned around £5 a week.

Hope you enjoy it and send us some more pictures when it arrives.

Jim

OT:btboone,

What is that in your avatar?! Ooooh, pretty, bright shiny object, help! I can't stop myself from flying into the light!

Griz

I don't know an awful lot about the pen, only that the design was sold under various names. Yours is called the 'Wembley' others are called 'Prince', 'Princess', Empire and mine is called 'Empress.

Sorry to disappoint but 10/6 (indeed 10 shillings and sixpence, translating to 52.5p in modern money) was not a lot of money for a pen (the box for my 'Empress' says 15/-). It is likely to have a 14ct gold plated nib, mine was black and unusable so I replaced it with a 14ct 'Warranted' nib - lovely.

The body, cap etc will be absolutely fine, the feed holds ink from leaking and the body will take a good sized sac.

The wording, if not the lettering, is identical on the box of my 'Empress' as is the clip etc. but mine doesn't have the rings on the cap, so maybe yours is a higher level model.

I had the feeling it wasn't as old as it looks, certainly the price isn't from the 1920s. If anyone knows any more I'd be interested.

I very much like my pen, I'm sure it has little monetary value but is not for sale.

I hope you enjoy yours as much.


Greg

Elaine,
Bruce Boone makes titanium wedding rings and some of the most gorgeous hand made metal pens you have ever seen....
Here is a link to his B Boone Extras page...
Let me warn you in advance the fountain pens are not cheap by any means.. but when you consider the amount of design time and machining that went into each of them they are well worth it...
AND, they are not too heavy to use... even though they are metal they are well balanced and a nice weight...

OK, Bruce, you know where to send the commission check...

Hello.

No help i'm afraid. I haven't come across one before.

I do try to pick up these pens by smaller manufacturers as they are often extremely nice pens and as a bonus don't command such high prices.

Shame about the nib condition.

Who exactly is Mrs Wheelbarrow?

Greg,

Now this value bit is bugging me

It may be that old age and poverty are finally taking their toll, but my feeling is that this is from the late 30s by virtue of the packaging. Now I remember from the 1950's that 10 Shillings was quite a lot of money, or it seemed so to me, but then it is only about £22 in todays money.

So I did a quick check. I bought this house for £66,000 in 1986, which converted to todays money comes out at about £130,000 give or take a bit. Now considering that the house next door which is a bit smaller has just sold for £330,000 what does that tells us about relative values or whatever?

I also know that in 1954 my parents bought a house in Epsom, Surrey for £1,100 which converted to todays money would be just over £20,000. That house has just sold for just under £400,000 to be converted into 4 apartments.

Given that a 1950's Parker "51" would have been around £5, then 10/6 would not have been that much, but then the "51" was a top end pen then, (and still is, but I would say that ), but still a not insignificant purchase. If however it dates from the 1930s, then it would be significantly more in relative terms.

Sorry for the hijack Old Griz, but this value thing is just bugging me.........

Oh and here are my references.

http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/resea...99/rp99-020.pdf

Finally, the famous quote from Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain "There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." or as I prefer from A E Houseman "statistics to an engineer are like a lampost to a drunk, more for support than illumination"

Jim

Hi Tom, I just ran across the post. I'm currently working on a version of that one with acrylic spirals and a cap. It should be a nice one.

Hi Jim

I'm not sure house prices are a typical standard for value. Their value in the UK has increased way above inflation both in the early 70s and in recent years and the cost of housing is a much larger proportion of our outgoings than in the 50s, for example. Our house has increased in value more 4 fold in 15 years, which is ridiculous.

Bicycles on the other hand, are much cheaper, relatively, nowadays, a decent model now being a small proportion of a monthly salary.

Pens are also relatively cheaper items today and £5 for Parker, a popular model, would have been half a weeks wages. That would be around £200 now, certainly a big investment for a popular model.

I wonder that the price markings on the boxes of the pens we are talking about, which are not in the league of a Parker 51, might have been high (the boxes of Parkers, CSs etc didn't have prices printed on) to allow the shop to offer them knocked down.

The BCHR is an old material for pens but I also wonder that these were old fashioned even when new (as opposed to the innovative Parkers and Sheaffers of this world) and that they are not from much before the 40s, maybe 50s. The examples I have seen on eb*y are always nice and black showing little real ageing.

So my guess is that these were made in the 40s or 50s, sold in newsagents for less that 10/6 (or 15/- in the case of mine) and were not up to date models in order to keep down costs. I also would guess that the various names all came from the same manufacturer (Griz's pen is the 'Wembley' pen, not made by the Wembley Pen Co.). Wembley, for those that may not know, was famous for its 100,000 capacity stadium, built for the 1923 British Empire exhibition and was the most famous football (soccer to some) stadium in the world.

Greg