"empire Made" Pens - Which Parts Of Empire?

[fireskink]

Hoping this is the right place for this topic, since it covers a wide range of countries in the former British empire!

 

I periodically run across (old, presumably originally low-end) pens here in England marked "Empire Made". Searching the forums I've seen their manufacture attributed to Australia, Canada and India. Was the only requirement for this mark that they were made within the British Empire - or were there any requirements for it at all? I know my mum remembers having "Empire Made" pens when she was at school in the 50s and 60s. Are there companies known to have used this term?

 

::curious::

[Cob]

I can recall my asking my father about this when I was very young.

 

"Hong-Kong muck" was his comment.

 

Cob

[fireskink]

Heh, the older equivalent of some of today's lower quality Asian pens? (Such as the 99p one that just vomited ink on my duvet during testing....) It may be a cliche, but they certainly did make them better in those days!

[Zanshin]

That's pretty much the same answer I got from my dad many years ago

 

 

I can recall my asking my father about this when I was very young.

 

"Hong-Kong muck" was his comment.

 

Cob

[peterg]

As above Empire Made was synonymous with Hong Kong but might also have been India (British India).

[northlodge]

Similar - it must be an age thing. Anything cheap and nasty was either Empire made (HK) or foreign (Taiwan).

 

Of course trade restrictions did mean that pens from Canada (Parker) and Australia (Sheaffer) had an advantage over their US stablemates

 

There were also some bvery nice Conway made pens that were called Empire models, they were made for the scout movement I believe. PeterG has a nice example if I recall correctly

Edited September 19, 2015 by northlodge

[peterg]

Who knows? I would have to go through my boxes to find out! Just acquired a rather nice 'torpedo' Major Service in green marble though!

[DKR]

I guess it depends on the age of the item - it's been a long, long while since India and Australia have been provinces of the Empire! I first came across the label in the early 1960s, by which time there was practically no empire left to speak of, but certainly the nascent plastics and light engineering industries in Hong Kong fit the bill.

 

Like so many others, my dad's response was the same; it meant Hong Kong and it meant lower quality than a 'Made in England' stamp. Nowadays I find it not a little quaint.

[Bounce792]

Read this and wanted to share a quaint little anecdote from the side of your colonial subjects.

 

I recently bought my Mom a NOS Parker 45 to satisfy her nostalgia and she started gushing about how when she was growing up in Singapore, they weren't allowed to use pens until Primary 3. Her P3 teacher told her class that they should save their money to buy a Parker pen and avoid the cheaper stuff. "Parker was the most reliable pen according to all the teachers. We even saw them using it so of course we had to get our own!" my Mom said.

 

So even in Singapore during the late 60s and early 70s, when we still had British troops stationed there after independence, it was considered better to use "Made in England" than to compromise economically with the rest of the stuff out there.

[northlodge]

Growing up on English RAF bases during this period I was always envious of those who were returning from RAF Changi (Singapore). They always had houses furnished with intricately carved wooden shelves, chests, and tables, etc, which they always claimed to have purchased for next to nothing

 

If English pens hampered the local economy, furniture sales must have made up for it many times over.

It is still possible to find this type of wooden furniture being sold in "modern auctions" here in the UK, but the Parker 45 would probably cost more at the same auction.