Jump to content

Wearing Ring-Top Pens


Ted F

Recommended Posts

I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding the wearing of ring-top pens and in one post the author was looking for photographs. I too have been searching for photos and have only come up with the two below. The one with Winston Churchill shows him with a chain with a bar in his vest buttonhole and the chain going to the left and right vest pockets. I am assuming, and I do mean assuming, that he is not wearing two watches, but rather, has a watch in one pocket and a pen in the other (I hope). Of course, It is well documented that he used full-sized pens. The illustration with the ribbons is from a 1921 Eversharp Catalog. It's not a photograph but does illustrate a way of wearing a pen.

 

Does anyone have a source of photos illustrating the use of these pens?

 

post-106519-0-69508200-1516570806.jpg

 

post-106519-0-66519600-1516570908_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 17
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • sidthecat

    4

  • Addertooth

    3

  • Ted F

    2

  • ParramattaPaul

    2

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

More than likely, Sir Winston has a watch fob on the left end of his watch chain. A watch chain and fob are shown below.http://www.darlor-watch.com/images/fob5150_big.jpg

Edited by ParramattaPaul
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always understood that ring pens were a lady's accessory since the majority of women's clothing of the period rarely had pockets, and men, wearing suits and waistcoats had an abundance of pockets for all manner of things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My paternal grandfather wore vests fairly often until he retired in the mid-1960s. He wore the chain similar to Mr. Churchill but the end without the watch usually had a very nice pocket knife on the end. He owned a lot of pocket knives.

Dave Campbell
Retired Science Teacher and Active Pen Addict
Every day is a chance to reduce my level of ignorance.

fpn_1425200643__fpn_1425160066__super_pi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wear my ringtops on a black silk sautoir (otherwise known as a ribbon with a clasp), some of which I’ve built from findings scavenged from eBay. They look a lot like the ones in the drawings. Someone asked me recently if I was wearing a whistle.

You can make a perfectly acceptable substitute from the kind of lanyard you put on a flash drive...I’m just a snob.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a link to a page on Churchill's watch: https://richardlangworth.com

It's quite an interesting read, however he didn't have a ring top on his watch chain I'm afraid.

I know that pocket knives, vesta cases and sovereign cases (like the one Churchill owned) were popular, so I can see no reason why a ring top pen couldn't be carried in this way.

As an amateur collector of watches as well as writing equipment, I would certainly try it myself.

W.S.P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did wear this once to a pen club meeting :P

Not sure if I could get away with it anywhere else.

post-135048-0-56147100-1517601080_thumb.jpg

A new fashion trend?

(I've seen worse)

 

*stupid auto rotate*

Edited by Nail-Bender
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wear my ringtops on a black silk sautoir (otherwise known as a ribbon with a clasp), some of which I’ve built from findings scavenged from eBay. They look a lot like the ones in the drawings. Someone asked me recently if I was wearing a whistle.

You can make a perfectly acceptable substitute from the kind of lanyard you put on a flash drive...I’m just a snob.

 

Eversharp sold assorted ribbons to dealers (as shown in the line illustration) for individual sale to the customer. I also have a couple of Eversharp ring-tops in the original boxes that came with a black lanyard. It's amazing how difficult it is to find any reliable information about the use of ring-tops. You would think you would at least see them in the old movies. I know that Evesharp had a complete supply of their products stored in California for use by the studios.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I had a local craftsman make me something custom out of fine silver. The links are a special weave which requires a link to break in two places for the chain to fail. I priced how much for her to make it in gold, but because she fuses the links, as versus braising or butting the links, she was only able to make it in 24K gold; the price was too high for me.

 

fpn_1569101061__necklace_and_waterman_45

 

fpn_1569101100__necklace_and_waterman_45

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a local craftsman make me something custom out of fine silver. The links are a special weave which requires a link to break in two places for the chain to fail. I priced how much for her to make it in gold, but because she fuses the links, as versus braising or butting the links, she was only able to make it in 24K gold; the price was too high for me.

 

fpn_1569101061__necklace_and_waterman_45

 

fpn_1569101100__necklace_and_waterman_45

Stunning!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1 to what Mr5x5 said. I didn't do anything nearly as fancy with my first ringtop, a Morrison with a gold-filled filigree overlay. I just added a 14K jump ring and lobster claw clasp (both purchased at a bead supply store near me) to the loop on the cap, and ran a cord through the jump ring.

But that pen doesn't get a lot of use, even thought the nib is awesome -- the pen tends to unscrew itself from the cap when I'm wearing it, and I almost lost it 3 times in the space of a day and a half. Plus, the problem with a pen that small is that unless an ink bottle is really full, it's hard to work the lever to get the pen to fill: the mouth of the bottle gets in the way (that doesn't stop me from wanting a sterling silver filigree overlay one to match the gold-filled one, though... :blush:).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A quarter inch wide (clear) silicone rubber band, which is half on the cap, and half on the body, will keep the cap from unscrewing. As it is clear, it will not diminish the presentation. It also acts as a bumper, to keep the pen from getting dings if it makes casual contact with something. I don't have that shown in the picture. I will be asking the artisan how much they want to sell these necklaces with descender for. She made me a one-time deal, because she was wanting to experiment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And where can one find such a thing? Is it an o-ring, a washer or a band? It needs to be something like 3/4” to 1” around, roughly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So THAT's why I was being inundated with those stupid silicone wedding ring ads on here before getting ad blocker software installed.... :lticaptd:

Because I couldn't believe that was actually a thing, and not just someone doing a real life version of The Magic Christian (also known as "PT Barnum was right...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

What I'm doing instead of that is to put a small dab of silicone glue (easily available at hardware stores or the Internet) onto the cap threads with something about the size of a cotton swab with the swab snipped off. It holds very nicely...no, I don't know if it's reversible, and I don't really care, because I've lost some awfully nice pens before I started doing this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33474
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26573
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...