Conway Stewart - Is It Possible?

[Larry Barrieau]

I just spent and inordinate amount of time searching for the answer to: How can I tell if a CS vintage pen is made out of casein? This search engine doesn't list the most recent post first. (I've mentioned this before.) I would like to know what the most recent answer is and then work backward in time. This engine haphazardly tossed me back into 09, then to 16, then to 10, then to 07, etc. And in all that searching, I could not find an answer. None of the experts I read could find had a definite answer. Is it possible that no one knows? That would shock me. Even the pen I was asking about (#12) was unknown as far as casein goes. 'yes it is casein', 'no it isn't casein.

 

Has the CS casein riddle been solved? Thanks.

[tmenyc]

is the model number visible on the imprint? Have you checked that number and model and color against the CS master list?

 

http://jonathandonahaye.conwaystewart.info/csbook/page1.htm

 

It's an old website, and is not searchable, and you're stepping with both feet into the all-time biggest nomenclature mess, but one can generally identify a pen here from what's in your hands...

 

Happy hunting!

 

Tim

[PaulS]

just possible you might get a better response if you post this in the British section. In the absence of casein surface crazing - which is a bit of a giveaway - there are certain known colourways and pen Nos. that were made using this material. Providing the pen No. if known, and a picture might help.

Using the rather crude method of cleaning then sniffing and looking at the cloth, might help possibly to eliminate celluloid and HR.

[Larry Barrieau]

Thanks, I don't have the pen yet. After all these years of veteran pen people collecting CS pens, a check list for casein would seem inevitable. In my search, the question was asked many times.

[PaulS]

Stephen Hull's book 'Fountain Pens for the Million - The History of Conway Stewart' it may be of some limited use in recognizing certain of the C.S. casein colours - good book in any event - but don't think it provides a summary of differentiating casein from other materials.

Possibly because it doesn't appear to be at all easy to make that distinction - celluloid you can smell, HR mostly leaves a colour on the cleaning cloth - but apart from surface crazing don't know there's much to say about casein.

[peterg]

Model number and finish would be a starting point.