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Won An Auction For "vintage Pen" What Would You Recommend To Look For?


Gutbucketeer

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So I was surprised to win my first auction on ebay for a "Nice Vintage Parker? Super Smooth Gold Filled Nib Fountain Pen Black" (see picture). Does anyone know what model it might be? I think it will need some work but the price was so low, it should be a good test case for me to dabble.

 

More importantly, Now that I have broken the ice and continue down the rabbit hole, what other brands and models of vintage pens should I look for that I can probably get for under $30. I see a number of Esterbrooks, Parkers, and Sheaffers (I already have Sheaffer school pens from the 70s and 90s, and a No Nonsense Pen). Are there any brands to avoid? Favorites that are likely to write well, or be repairable? I saw a really nice red Esterbrook go for $10 yesterday (Darn).

 

Are there any vintage flex pens that are worth looking for?

 

JAB

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I find vintage pens have great balance posted. In they are on the whole standard or medium/large. And back then when one wrote all day long, one wanted a light and nimble pen.

Unlike the big heavy note takers of today.

 

I have no idea what $30 buys any more......never did. I was buying off of German Ebay and the E20-30 pens were a decade ago....so prices have gone up.

 

I don't know what a Sheaffer Snorkel goes for....did read here it had gotten cheap. Could be because they pens are old and the rubber sac needed to make them work died. They are a thin great balanced Large pen. Perhaps the best balanced large pen at all.

The previous model the Sheaffer Touchdown will also have great balance. In it too was a flag ship.

 

For $30 I think you can get an Esterbrook DJ.....a 1940-60 pen. A slightly slimmer version is a SJ, and a smaller thin one is the LJ.................DJ = double jewel....and some of the 1940 ones have only a single jewel.

Esterbrook has it's own section here. I lucked out with this lot, about a decade ago on English Ebay. There are Esterbrooks made in England....and Parkers and Sheaffers.

 

Wearever can be nice....of the ones shown below, some are pre and others just after the War. They were good second tier pens....like the Esterbrook. Some with metal caps are later basic 3rd tier pens.

rfUcYs9.jpg

 

Do make sure you can see a nib when buying a pen......the Esterbrooks with a cap on....was lacking the screw in nibs. :yikes: :rolleyes:

There is a slew and a half of Esterbrook nibs one can get for $10-15....do go to the Esterbrook subsection.

 

Esterbrooks after 1960 have a metal cap and are not pretty patterned.....look just like later metal capped Wearevers.

 

 

 

 

Best Buy for a nice springy regular flex piston pen, is a Geha School pen, it has a serial number. Costs E12-E19 if you Hunt in German Ebay. They have to take Pay-Pal and ship world wide.

If you are rich, you can push the Buy Now Idiot button.........and pay Stateside prices. I've seen them go for $89 for idiots in a hurry in the States.

It's a great school pen, well balanced, very nice steel springy regular flex nib.

 

Do Not Buy into the gold nib myth..............German vintage steel nibs, Geha, Osmia are first class.

I was a gold nib snob. For $10 less I could have gotten Osmia pens in great steel nibs.....back when $10 was big money. :rolleyes: :headsmack: .....................Osmia will cost more than your budget.

But a gold and steel nail are = :( A nail is a nail. And a steel nail is so much cheaper you can get a nice ink and a bit of good to better paper.

A Good Gold nib can be as Good as a Good Steel nib. Accent on good.

The golden rule of fountain pen buying is....................take your time.

Look in past auctions to find out a average price. Bid only once or snipe and go no more than 10% over your budget. That pen will be there next week or the week after.................don't bust the budget and unless you are rich don't push the idiot button.

 

There is no reason to spend a small fortune on a Pelikan 120 when the Geha school pen matches or betters the 120.

The Geha's have a reserve tank.

I have 3 Geha 790's a 760 a 725 and two slightly different piston school pens. The nib will be a F.....FK= fine Kugal....it is not the stub of many '50-60's German pens but has the 'American Bump Under'......the normal US under tipping.

Copy and paste...........Geha Schulfüller Füller..................Sadly the two I saw for a fair price....won't ship to the US.........But keep looking. I saw one in good shape for a start price of E 25 which I think is too high....12-19, but he will ship to the states.

 

I have really come to like the springy regular flex nibs....................semi-flex is a bit down the road for you in a Geha 790 goes for E60 (the Best Buy in semi-flex)......lots cheaper than the Pelikan 140/400/400nn for E90-100-120.....if you Hunt. A Cartel has been flooding the pure auction section with pens they Buy Now for a bid E-10 under their idiot hunting price on the Buy Now section, to drive up the prices generally.

Any noobie seller will of course ask for E-250 instead of the E1.00 he was going to ask for. "Everyone" is.

You can if you wish pay $200 or 250 or even more for those Pelikans........I don't see time being money for folks with out money like us.

Hunt and hope....the Hunt is half the fun......yes...yes... :unsure: :headsmack: nope...Next week a new thrill. :bunny01:

 

Do Not Buy a Geha cartridge pen. :angry: They were the first in Germany to make them so had their own cartridge.............they stopped making pens in 1972, and there are no modern cartridge that fits.

 

A P-45 could be in your range.

Eventually a P-51 and a P-75....down the road.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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Thanks for your detailed reply, and for the hints on the non-standard (at least in the States) brands to look for. What a hall with the lot of Esterbrooks you bought !!!. I have been buying some new pens on the cheaper side (Noodlers, Fountain Pen Revolution, Serwex, Sheaffer, ...) and am thinking that for the same price range, I can really explore some vintage options. This will be fun.

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I am probably going to "step on a few toes" here, but be careful when buying "vintage" pens. Sometimes, all you end up buying is someone else's problems, or someone else's garbage.

 

If you are relatively new to fountain pens, I recommend going to a pen show. Plan on spending some time learning. There are lots of pen restorers there who can help you understand what you are purchasing.

 

Also, get to know some of the pen sellers. If they know what you are looking for, they will keep an eye out for it. You may want to get to know some of the great pen restorers that frequent FPN here. Check out some of Ron Zorn's posts (Main Street Pens).

 

Check out Richard Binder's website (www.richardspens.com). He has some great information about an assortment of vintage pens.

 

Lastly, be really careful and know what you are purchasing on ebay. When I got back into fountain pens, I purchased "vintage pen" after "vintage pen" and all were not worth the money I spent for them. The nibs were sprung, the pistons didn't work, etc. etc. Now that I know more, I have purchased some great true vintage pens that are a permanent part of my pen rotation.

Edited by DrPenfection

"Today will be gone in less than 24 hours. When it is gone, it is gone. Be wise, but enjoy! - anonymous today

 

 

 

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I saw a true three ring Geha 790 780 From '59-60...I have one/790. Of course I bought mine for E-30. a long time ago; nearly a decade. It did polish up better than this picture which I take when I buy a pen....to lazy and a horrible picture taker. oWb4qI2.jpg

 

382935224824 has a start bid of E39.00 and E.6.00 for the mailing. I'd not bid more than E60....but it is a semi-flex nib and the OB is like a fat modern OM....vintage nibs running @ 1/2 a width narrower than modern. It is a writing nib.....not a signature nib.

 

It is similar to the 790 I have but is labeled 780 and is OB...that is is a steel nib with the gold plating wearing off has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the nib. Geha semi-flex steel nibs are real nice. I once had a loose steel OB that I used to do some swapping with. I did nave some Osmia OB & OBB's so they matched....being made by the same company.

 

1950-72 Geha nibs on piston pens are a tad better than Pelikan. The nibs were made by Degussa, the company that made nibs for Osmia and toward the end Soennecken. Their like Osmia gold nibs are as good as their steel nibs.............no BS.

 

And if not still look for the School pen....but under E-20.

I fell into a swamp of semi-flex, but when I came out I liked the springy regular flex.....

Semi-flex gives one line variation with out doing anything...........how ever is a bit wet.

For two toned shading inks, I like the dryer springy regular flex.

 

 

Dr. Penfection could well be right for US pens, especially people springing nibs.

But Germany is still close enough to the Day, that I've not had any problems with Jack Hammer users or folks trying to make a semi-flex nib write like a superflex.......................of course that was pre.....Olympic Splits of You tube and other Ebay flexing a P-51...............a joke. a P-51 is a nail.

 

There are many horror stories of what happens to a poor nib, when a Ball Point Barbarian gets his hands on one for 2 1/2 seconds.

Always carry a ball point to loan........Always.

A Pen show would be good.....or the guys selling on our sales section....in they have to back the pen up with their good name.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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It looks like a second or third tier pen (that's no real indication of quality, just not a name-brand)

 

I'd be careful trying to win stuff under 30. I'd avoid key words like flex, because if the seller knows it's a flexible nib, the price will rise accordingly. Semi-flex is however in the price range of 30 sometimes.

 

Also look very closely. putting a new sac on a pen is a snap but I will not buy a pen that I can't see a good picture of the nib on.

 

Avoid the big models like parker 51, sheaffer balance, vacumatics, etc. Waterman tends to run high on the value train, and I don't recommend keyword searching a model. Ideally, you want to find something that the seller does not know what it is, and the fewer the keywords, the fewer people will be watching it to snipe at the last second.

Edited by Honeybadgers

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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You can also try searching for misspelled brand names like Shaffer, Coklin, Cooklin, etc. I have had good luck searching for "antique fountain pen" and "vintage fountain pen." It's time-consuming but I have picked up some really nice pens at really low prices that way. Examine nib photos carefully and, if they aren't clear and in focus, contact the seller for a better picture. Make sure that important parts of the pen (like the clip) are not consistently hidden in photos to conceal their absence or damage. If you are on a budget eBay seller (and FPN member) Speerbob usually has some lower price vintage pens.

 

Perusing the Classifieds on FPN can turn up some nice pens at reasonable prices and it is an education on what to look for.

 

Vintage is a rabbit hole but it can be a fun journey. Both the hunt and the restoration can be enormously satisfying. Enjoy the trip.

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

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I've gotten some great deals on eBay. but I've also gotten burned.

Ask LOTS of questions -- particularly as to the condition of the nib. Also ask about stuff like cracks and bite marks. Ask for better photos (a lot of times the closeups are too blurry to make out detail, such as whether the tines are aligned. And remember, the watchwords are "Caveat emptor" -- I overpaid on a pen that the seller glibly told another potential bidder that he wasn't seeing any cracks -- even though there really looked like one in the cap. I should have filed a dispute on that one (in fact, when I went to get it repaired, the REPAIR PERSON told me that -- then told me how much that sort of repair would cost and take.... :(

Don't get caught up in the frenzy of bidding. I did that with an Esterbrook without looking at the photos carefully -- and when I got the pen, the tines looked something like this in profile:

__

/__

 

And of course the photos clearly showed that -- and yes, I DID give the seller high ratings for "Item as described'.... :blush:

Don't get discouraged if you lose an auction. There will always most likely be another pen (and possibly even for less than the one you lost). It often (but doesn't always) help to see what recent sales of similar pens go for on eBay (remember that the prices are going to be all over the map -- sellers who think that anything "old" means it's valuable, and won't budge on the price, vs. those who think it'a a piece of junk and wlll be greatful, if not dumbstruck, that anyone actually paid money for Great Aunt Sadie's pen that they thought was worthy of tossing in the trash....

If you have access to a pen show (or several), definitely go to them; don't do what I did, though, which was to go to DCSS for my first show. It was completely overwhelming, because I didn't know what I wanted, didn't know prices, didn't even know where to look (or for what) because there were pens EVERYWHERE (DCSS is -- or at least was, the three years I got to go -- ginormous...).

Also be prepared to haunt antiques shops and flea markets and even estate sales (you may not find anything -- or you may come home with a gem). But for estate sales? I don't know where you live, but here in the Pgh area, they sometimes start at 7 AM, and you'll have to be prepared to get there *early* -- and then be prepared to walk away if the pen seems to be in poor condition or the price is too high; the one I went to yesterday? It was about 45 minutes from my house and started at 8 AM; I was out my door by 20 after 6 and when I got there (5 after 7) there were already nearly 50 people in line! And then after all that, no pens that I wanted (and I had gone to that sale specifically because I'd looked online at photos ahead of time. Then later in the day, when I hit some antiques stores a few hours north? Found what I think is a pre-1927 Sheaffer flat top lever-filler, in pretty decent shape other than needing a new sac and possibly a little nib work -- for less than the estate sale company had priced each of the Esterbrooks at (two had nibs I already have, and the third was a 1554). Prices were okay but I've paid less for better nibs than 1xxx series ones. And then, three or four hours later? There was the other pen in more or less butt-nowhere NW PA.... (And another place across the street had a really interesting looking marble swirl no-name that was pretty but in relatively poor condition.... It's a case of YMMV. For every deal/steal I can tell you three stories about overpriced junkers (like the Waterman with its nibs bent at about a 40° angle -- and it was NOT a fude pen...).

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."

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Great advice by Ruth.

Never ever, get in a nickle and dime bidding ego war on the Bay :wacko: :headsmack: ..............make one bid. Either make your max bid early and forget....or snipe. If you like the adrenaline rush, :notworthy1: make your single bid 15 seconds before the end.

There will be another pen like it, next week....or in rare cases, with in a month. The Hunt is half the fun.

 

We have all seen low level pens go for a good sized fortune when two idiot egos nickle and dime each other to death.

Make only one bid. The worse that can happen is you made someone else pay a fair price for it.

 

Look up what that pen went for in past auctions to give yourself a ball park figure and don't go more than 10% over it.

 

Don't bid $20.00 bid $23.85. Gets rid of the $22 bidder and those who bid $X.50 or X.75. Same goes for pens you think will go a bit higher....bid $27.85. Don't bid $25.00. Same goes for any start number, be that $23.85, $43.85, $67.85 etc.

If you hit for lower fine......but if you are averaging....and someone else might too, it is better to be a tad higher....and the odd numbers help be that slight tad higher.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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Great advice by Ruth.

Never ever, get in a nickle and dime bidding ego war on the Bay :wacko: :headsmack: ..............make one bid. Either make your max bid early and forget....or snipe. If you like the adrenaline rush, :notworthy1: make your single bid 15 seconds before the end.

There will be another pen like it, next week....or in rare cases, with in a month. The Hunt is half the fun.

 

We have all seen low level pens go for a good sized fortune when two idiot egos nickle and dime each other to death.

Make only one bid. The worse that can happen is you made someone else pay a fair price for it.

 

Look up what that pen went for in past auctions to give yourself a ball park figure and don't go more than 10% over it.

 

Don't bid $20.00 bid $23.85. Gets rid of the $22 bidder and those who bid $X.50 or X.75. Same goes for pens you think will go a bit higher....bid $27.85. Don't bid $25.00. Same goes for any start number, be that $23.85, $43.85, $67.85 etc.

If you hit for lower fine......but if you are averaging....and someone else might too, it is better to be a tad higher....and the odd numbers help be that slight tad higher.

 

Excellent advice! Someone gave me the advice of bidding in weird increments when I first started looking at pens on eBay (I think it was OcalaFlGuy, who was very kindly helping me scope out Parker 51s, and Bruce *also* gave me useful questions to ask sellers about condition). And I remember a few years ago Teri of Peyton Street Pens was goggling in a thread she started over the final bid on some pen where a couple of bidders got into a war (the final price was great for her bottom line, but even SHE was more or less going "This is stupid! What is wrong with these idiots?"

I did a last minute bid on a little Morrison ringtop lever filler a couple of years ago. Ran across the auction with an hour to go and got the pen. Shipping cost more than I paid for the pen! Makes up for the Cordovan Brown 51 Vac that I got sniped on with seconds to go (I was particularly cranky over that because I'd built up a good rapport with the seller, who was being the go-between with the pen's original owner -- I'd ask a question, and the seller would check back the pen's original owner for an answer, and then get back to me; and then I GOT SNIPED! :angry:). Oh well, I expected to get outbid on the Plum Demi 51 -- as in "What is this 'snipe' of which you speak?" -- as I watched the price creep up over the course of the week... and then didn't even hit my intermediate maximum! Go figure... (the previous Plum Demi I dropped out of the bidding in the $70s US and it ended up going for around $102; mine? Under $72 including shipping, and I don't think I ever got outbid.... Just lucky, I guess (or it was "my time" or I just was abnormally good at bluffing that week... :huh:). Of course Farmersmum got a *way* better deal on a full size Plum the same weekend -- on a listing *I* ignored because the pen was listed by the seller as being black....

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."

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I've drifted away from antique malls and thrift shops as my family has died or moved away...and my husband had bad feet so he didn't care for the game...but when I was collecting Vacumatics I found a lot of them that way.

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You just need to be watchful.

 

I have acquired a good number of vintage pens for well below 30 EUR in the last months, some of them gorgeous and even flexible writers, mostly piston fillers and eyedroppers.

 

German eBay is a great resource.

If you are to be ephemeral, leave a good scent.

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I've had a lot of fun buying Jinhao X450s, and a handful of nibs from say, Goulet pens, then swap out the nibs. The Jinhaos are really cheap, write nicely as is, and the nibs are super easy to change. Plus they take ink cartridges.

 

BTW, if you like, send me a pm and I'll send a couple of Wearever pens your way. As long as it's a US address and no customs are involved, I'd be happy to do It :)

Doug

Edited by Zookie
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I just got a restored Esterbrook SJ (2556) fountain pen that I really like, so it's really nice that this topic is so recent. I am surprised, but not so surprised, that the Esterbrook Dollar Pens seem to come at a premium on eBay, since the webpage I read about them from is a few years old. I suppose it's time to go thrifting as well as check out the FPN classifieds.

 

Like I said, I really like the Esterbrook nib, but it seems to be very delicate for what it is, compared to every other nib I've used.

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This pen never showed up in the mail, and the buyer remembers shipping it, but can't find any record of it. So they refunded my money.

 

Since then, I've gone absolutely Crazy on ebay and won a Wearever, Esterbrook J which have been delivered and a Penlawn and a a Esterbrook plus pen and pencil set which I'm waiting on. For the delivered pens, I need to figure out how to repair a hairline crack in the barrel where it overlays the section but otherwise it only has minor clean up and has a good sac. I can certainly notice the difference in quality between the Esterbrook and Wearever. The Wearever is much lighter and seems just more cheaply made. The sac was all hardened and I had to scrape it out of the barrel. How do I find out what size to obtain, and how to get rid of the old shellac, etc. Doug, thanks for the offer but I think I will not explore any other Wearevers for now, the one that I now have give me some great experience.

 

Thanks all for your sharing.

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I just got a restored Esterbrook SJ (2556) fountain pen that I really like, so it's really nice that this topic is so recent. I am surprised, but not so surprised, that the Esterbrook Dollar Pens seem to come at a premium on eBay, since the webpage I read about them from is a few years old. I suppose it's time to go thrifting as well as check out the FPN classifieds.

 

Like I said, I really like the Esterbrook nib, but it seems to be very delicate for what it is, compared to every other nib I've used.

The old pens had a few different screw in nib sets, none delicate. IMO. The 1xxx wore out after a year, the 2xxx were reputed to be good for 2 or so years back when they were used every day, and the pretty 3xxx or 9xxx nibs with 'iridium' tips were good for the basic 7-10 years, instead lesser time of cheaper the rolled steel tipping of the 1/2xxx nib sets. I did notice there was a slight difference in quality between the 1xxx which I only had one and the 2xxx that I had most of. Only had one 9XXX.....still have it.

 

the Esterbrook Dollar Pens????? Are they the new ones....In I'd not heard of the Estie's being called that before.

There is an Esterbrook subsection right here on the com.....haven't been there in ages since I got down to only two Esties.

 

AH, HA!!!! Some are regular flex nibs, not all are manifold or nails.

There is even a "semi-flex" that I never chased because I had enough German semi-flex pens, and the Esterbrook semi-flex was reputed to be a hard semi-flex.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I learned something. I bought a vintage Sheaffer recently. Seller said they put a new sac on it. They did.

 

When I got it, I filled it and while it filled, almost nothing came out of it. Cleared the ink out of the sac and flushed it and the water came out other colors. The guy put a sac on but did nothing to clean it out. It has now been sitting in water for over 2 weeks. I threw the sac out and will redo it properly. My point: the lesson I learned is unless the pen comes from someone you trust to do the restoration work, consider the pen unrestored.

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The old pens had a few different screw in nib sets, none delicate. IMO. The 1xxx wore out after a year, the 2xxx were reputed to be good for 2 or so years back when they were used every day, and the pretty 3xxx or 9xxx nibs with 'iridium' tips were good for the basic 7-10 years, instead lesser time of cheaper the rolled steel tipping of the 1/2xxx nib sets. I did notice there was a slight difference in quality between the 1xxx which I only had one and the 2xxx that I had most of. Only had one 9XXX.....still have it.

 

 

What I mean is that I had a hard start, pushed down a little (and just a little) and one of the tines creased slightly. I've never ever had that happen before, and I do not at all bear down on nibs. I'm aware that it's not a flex nib. Regardless, I now do have a spare. Good to know about the life expectancy of the 2000 series nibs.

 

http://www.esterbrook.net/bah.shtml - $1.00 pens.

Edited by rosmarinaus
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Some Sheaffer Balance Jr. pens can be a gamble because there's no way to tell how fragile the body of the pen might be due to age and exposure. I have a small collection of nice nibs and feeds from pens that gave up the ghost either in the process of repair of after a short period of heavy use.

 

YMMV

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