Inscriptions On Pens

[Jjf1989]

Hey all,

I just wanted your opinions on finding vintage pens with inscriptions on them. I know some people really hate this. I'm not sure why. I kind of like inscriptions because I'm buying a used item so it's a neat tie to the past. And it drives the price down.

What do you guys think?

[Bo Bo Olson]

10-20% less, Company inscriptions. Bell Telephone and such.

 

The same if in they have a name engraved in them. Which was back before any one ever heard of selling your used pen.....a mark of class. HS or Collage graduation, surviving to get one's pension. A major birthday, or wedding anniversary.

Even if one had it put on themselves....it was still a mark of class.

And you got your pen stolen lots and lots less.

 

Inscriptions; WW2 ones with Army, Navy, Marines on them are worth more if real.

 

I have a rolled gold capped black bodied, P-45 with someone's name on it....in gold.

Being from that time it don't bother me.

Gee If I'd not been a workers son, I could have had my stolen P-45 engraved $$$ (yep...a couple of dollars was a lot of money) with my name and not had to re-buy that pen 50 years later.

Well it's English, and has a nice springy 'true' regular flex nib.

 

It is after all the nib one chases....right?

 

I do have a few other pens....company or name...that work just fine, and being 10-20% cheaper....means I have that make and model...where I might not or might not have another pen in that make and model was checked off.

 

In I'm not in the wholesale used pen company....or building to a higher pen by working my way up the ladder of pen value. I'm good to go with a pen of good condition, sold like one of poor condition in the coin is not un-circulated, the stamp is missing a corner or some guy Joe Picasso, or someone who knew him had some class.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[sandy101]

For vintage pens, it's the condition of the pen that matters more than whether there is an inscription or not. If it happens to be a vintage MB and its going cheaper because it is branded/inscribed on it, then I don't mind at all.

[inkandseeds]

I'm fine with buying vintage pens with inscriptions, though i prefer some inscriptions more than others. I have a number of Esterbrooks with company names (three Bell Systems, one N.J. Bell Telephone Company, one Commonwealth Edison and one AAA). I am always on the lookout for more. I also have a few other vintage pens with the names of people on them. I am less excited about them, but they do have a richer history than pens without names on them.

[PS104]

Inscriptions don't bother me. I guess I subconsciously set up a hierarchy, names at top, then companies/organizations. They are a link to some person in the past and maybe now gone but through the inscription, not forgotten (at least in name). Even the ones with corporate names (someone must have used the pen). Even in cemeteries there are grave sites that only care they receive is the perfunctory maintenance by the maintenance people. I've come across family cemeteries in rural areas that are so overgrown you could tell that deceased's family had long ago moved on and away. People are rarely remembered after a couple of generations.

And if the price is lower so be it, then it's a win-win situation

[pajaro]

I find the name inscriptions a bit spooky. I once found a Parker 51 with the name of a friend's mother on it. If you don't like them, sometimes you can get a replacement barrel or cap, depending on where the pen is inscribed. Some barrels and caps are, of course, hard to find and costly.

[daljitgroup]

Check this link also http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-406927570/stock-vector-vintage-pen-and-inscription-on-notebook-sheet-hand-drawing-vector-illustration.html

[PaulS]

I've a few with previous owner's initials or names, usually quite discreet, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest, and the fact that these come a little cheaper usually is all to the good. I don't think I'd turn down a good pen for this reason, although probably un-necessary to follow that rule if the model is a common item, and available plentifully without someone's name or initials.

However, do not like company names on pens.......... recently acquired a P/Sonnet ball point in great condition, but in my opinion spoiled by having 'Company crest/Schroders/2004', and underneath '200 Years of Forward Thinking' albeit in a small font, but again, I wouldn't reject the pen outright, since it's in lovely condition.

I think the point here is that those folk in the opposite camp are paranoid about owning a pen which in any way has a feature which detracts one iota from how the pen would have left the factory - in other words it's not original............... and there's a lot of folk do worry about pure originality.

I think a personal name leaves some vestige of history on a pen, and leaves just a little curiosity of it's past ............ some folk research these names and apparently come up with some really interesting information - and who knows you might just find a once famous name.

[sandy101]

I find the name inscriptions a bit spooky. I once found a Parker 51 with the name of a friend's mother on it. If you don't like them, sometimes you can get a replacement barrel or cap, depending on where the pen is inscribed. Some barrels and caps are, of course, hard to find and costly.

 

Yes. I won a Parker 51 mk 3 on e-bay for £8. The jewel and clip was missing - a replacement cap cost £20. Four times the cost of the pen which had a gold nib.

[Buzz_130]

I generally avoid vintage pens with personalization. I still see models of vintage pens that I want to collect without customization on them, so I discount my offer if the pen is personalized. I understand the pen writes the same way with or without the customization, but it's still my preference as a user and collector.

 

Buzz

[gregamckinney]

In a scarce pen, or one I'm only going to own a single example of, I would generally prefer to have no inscription- closer to the way it left the factory.

That said, I do find inscriptions very endearing, and have quite a few that I cherish. I love to think about the story of how the inscriptions came to be selected and the pen presented to the "inscribee."

Two of my favorites:

 

http://www.gergyor.com/images/leboeuf-40-grandma.jpg

 

http://www.gergyor.com/images/sheaffer_crest-sterling_christmas-1937_sm.jpg

 

 

Best Regards, greg

Edited November 26, 2016 by gregamckinney

[pajaro]

In a scarce pen, or one I'm only going to own a single example of, I would generally prefer to have no inscription- closer to the way it left the factory.

That said, I do find inscriptions very endearing, and have quite a few that I cherish. I love to think about the story of how the inscriptions came to be selected and the pen presented to the "inscribee."

Two of my favorites:

 

http://www.gergyor.com/images/leboeuf-40-grandma.jpg

 

http://www.gergyor.com/images/sheaffer_crest-sterling_christmas-1937_sm.jpg

 

 

Best Regards, greg

 

Those are fabulous.

 

It can be interesting to search for information on the name on a pen. This can be quite interesting.

[inkstainedruth]

I actually only have a few pens with inscriptions or engraving on them -- although the "first vintage pen" I DIDN'T buy (and am now kicking myself) was a dark blue Esterbrook J series pen (I think) which had a company logo on it. (I didn't buy it when I saw it because at the time I just didn't know enough about vintage pens, and of course when I went back to the antiques store a few months later it was *long* gone).

Mostly imprints and logos don't bother me, unless they're horribly intrusive looking. I tried to look up info about the first engraved pen I ever got (a Wearever that a guy at an antiques fair GAVE me because he claimed he couldn't sell it), and it seems to be the name of a jewelry store in Canonsburg PA from back in the 1940s (there's now an antiques store at that location) -- I saw ads for the store in a page from an old Canonsburg newspaper page posted online someplace. I tried to look up the company logo and name on a stainless steel Parker Vector but found no info. The Red Shadow Wave Vac from the PCA auction at last year's DCSS has a name on it, but it isn't really noticeable (it sort of blends in with the celluloid striations); but the name on the Emerald Pearl Vac I got at the Ohio Pen Show a few weeks ago is *very* obtrusive because it's still got the white (either paint or chalk) inside the letters (OTOH, it was at least ten bucks cheaper than every other Emerald Pearl I saw.... So I can't complain too much.

I haven't had a chance to look up that name ("Jo Noelle [something") I think or the one on the Red Shadow Wave (which is something like "WS James"). I suspect the latter name is going to be hard to pin down because it's kind of ordinary, but the name on the Emerald Pearl is at least sort of unique-sounding (I just wish the letters weren't, well, white....).

Oh, and I have the cap for what had been my mother-in-law's Eversharp Skyline (I keep hoping the rest of the pen might someday turn up -- the cap had been jammed onto a Sheaffer Balance Oversize which -- supposedly -- had been her father's). I got a replacement cap for the Sheaffer and then got it rehabbed at the Ohio Pen Show (but forgot to show it to her at Thanksgiving; the pen is currently sporting (modern) Skrip Purple -- just because... ). Interestingly enough, the Skyline cap has her *married* name on it, not her maiden name, so I can somewhat narrow down when she acquired it (and no, I can't ask her -- she's 93 and didn't realize that the cap was on the wrong pen; but then, I didn't notice until a couple of hours after trying to do research to figure out what model Eversharp it was -- and *then* saw that a) it said "Skyline" on the cap; and the pen imprint said "Sheaffer"... ).

I never really thought about that pens with engraving being creepy. Well, maybe a little. But then, a good number of my pens were vintage -- and they weren't NOS, any of them. So SOMEONE used them at some point in the past....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[praxim]

If you are clutching a pen which has been clutched before by dead people, it is nice to have some initials so you can say g'day, hope they liked it as much as you do.

 

7.5 % of my fountain pens are inscribed, whereas 60% were almost certainly property of the now deceased, and another 22% may have been as they are not new but up to forty years old.

 

This has been an interesting turn of the thread.

 

As for the original query, I do not mind discreet personal inscriptions, but would never buy a company logo. Regarding the financial aspect, the prevailing discount suited me when I bought, so why would I care about the same discount if I sell?

[PaulS]

quote from praxim......... "7.5 % of my fountain pens are inscribed, whereas 60% were almost certainly property of the now deceased, and another 22% may have been as they are not new but up to forty years old.​"

 

please do tell us about the other 10.5% - dying to know

[Chrissy]

I prefer my pens to be the same as they were when they left the factory. I also prefer my books to have no inscriptions in them, but with books I make exceptions for authors' signed copies.

[praxim]

quote from praxim......... "7.5 % of my fountain pens are inscribed, whereas 60% were almost certainly property of the now deceased, and another 22% may have been as they are not new but up to forty years old.​"

 

please do tell us about the other 10.5% - dying to know

 

18% were purchased new by me, added to 60% and 22% gives 100%. The 7.5% of the total comprises pens within the 60 and 22. I trust this is clear now. There was no call to make specific reference to the 22% at the time, and the rest seemed inferentially clear.

[PaulS]

thanks praxim - oh gosh, so sorry to have been thick and not seen what was so inferentially obvious

 

Hi Chrissy - I'd disagree to some extent re the book inscriptions - as a collector of children's and illustrated books, it can often be really helpful in dating some older volumes if Gran and Grandad inscribed something as a Christmas present and included the date, which often they did. Annoyingly, certainly as far as the U.K. goes, it seems to have been a practice with too many books printed roughly between 1850 and 1950 to omit the date of publishing. Provided an inscription is in pencil then I don't think it really affects the quality or value of the book - obviously biro ink willy nilly is not wanted.

Association copies usually become very desirable - provide it's someone famous of course.

​​I would have thought author's signatures were much desired in any event, for whatever book - and you're lucky if you have some of those.

Apologies for deviating from f.ps. - again.

Edited November 27, 2016 by PaulS

[deepak23]

18% were purchased new by me, added to 60% and 22% gives 100%. The 7.5% of the total comprises pens within the 60 and 22. I trust this is clear now. There was no call to make specific reference to the 22% at the time, and the rest seemed inferentially clear.

Had to draw a Venn diagram to sort that out...

[bbs]

Some inscriptions are intriguing and add character to a pen, which I rather like. But generally I prefer them without.

 

On the flip side, I did get my initials engraved in a Yard-o-Led pen that I bought with the reward I got for having been at my company for 20 years.

 

Twenty-five years coming up next year, if I get there. A pen will hopefully mark the occasion, not so sure about engraving it!