Antique store browsing.

January 19, 2006

I had a couple minutes to kill today and stopped by an antique store and a vintage store and was checking out some of thier pens. I also killed two birds with one stone as I was also able to check out some DE razors and straight razors for my shaving experience as well. Another post and deffinatly another board.

So I saw quite a few out there. Waterman, Esterbrook (SP?) Parker, and a couple others.

Now I am fairly new to pen collecting but have been using a pen or pencil for most of my life I have used FP's for years but they have been the cartridge ones and all have been bought new. These were mostly piston fill I assume by the lever on the outside of the pen. Some ranged from $10-$125. But the thing that scared me about some of these were they were very light and looked like they had been used very hard. They were very scuffed and some of the piston filler levers were loose and dangled when you turned them upside down. I don't think that should happen but I could be wrong :blink: Also some of the nibs were bent and some looked like they had been put through a flame. I mean they were dark in some places and looked steeley in others.

So I guess what I am asking is what should I look for when browsing antique stores, flea markets and garage sales? Any thing to stay away from? I was just wanting to get into a pison filler without dropping a whole lot of cash on a new pen. Maybe I should just wait and buy from a seller who specializes in pens. So confused! :bonk:

Thanks for the input.

January 19, 2006

Floppy lever fillers usually means the sac has either perished and got squashed or has been taken out. Some lever fillers are sprung and it depends on the pen. They could be either floating bar or J-bar. J-bar will definitely be springy unless it has come loose inside.

Bent nibs. I usually leave well alone unless it is just missaligned tynes. Also check the tip, you need some tipping (irridium usually).

Discoulored nibs could just be old ink staining, however is they are steel nibs it means they are corroded etc..Always try to read what is on the nib. Most old pens will have 14ct nibs.

Light weight. Most vintage pens are and often made of vulcanised rubber (ebonite).

If you give it a rub with your thumb to warm it will smell of burnt rubber. Check the caps for cracks around the edge, often posting caused cracks. Swan leverless fillers were always bad for this.

You probably need to get more info than this if you're going to part with hard earned cash.

It hope this helps some though.

Gary

January 19, 2006

Floppy lever fillers usually means the sac has either perished and got squashed or has been taken out. Some lever fillers are sprung and it depends on the pen. They could be either floating bar or J-bar. J-bar will definitely be springy unless it has come loose inside.
Bent nibs. I usually leave well alone unless it is just missaligned tynes. Also check the tip, you need some tipping (irridium usually).
Discoulored nibs could just be old ink staining, however is they are steel nibs it means they are corroded etc..Always try to read what is on the nib. Most old pens will have 14ct nibs.
Light weight. Most vintage pens are and often made of vulcanised rubber (ebonite).
If you give it a rub with your thumb to warm it will smell of burnt rubber. Check the caps for cracks around the edge, often posting caused cracks. Swan leverless fillers were always bad for this.
You probably need to get more info than this if you're going to part with hard earned cash.
It hope this helps some though.
Gary

Just the kind of input I was looking for. Thanks and keep it coming!

January 19, 2006

Gatorade:

I'm glad you asked this question because I've wondered the same thing. (I also picked up a lot of my Gillette razors in antique shops) I've made one trip to the antique stores and found absolutely nothing so I'm going to make a run to a nearby town that boasts lots of antique shops to see what I can find!

I'm seeing more and more members of SMF and B&B on this forum now!

Jerry

January 19, 2006

Gatorade,

To add to my last post, the simpler the pen mechanism the less likely to fail and/or easier to fix or get repaired.

A lever filler is quite easy (generally), button fillers can be a little tricky but it is just another method of squeezing the ink sac. Piston fillers, snorkels, touchdowns etc can be a nightmare unless you are prepaired to send off to an expert to fix.

Always check the trim for "brassing". This is where the gold plating has come off the base metal, you can polish but it will always tarnish where the gold is missing.

Later model Parker 51's with aerometric (squeezy thing inside) fillers arew good value, just check the hooded part for cracks and of course check the nib.

Gary

January 19, 2006

Gatorade:

I'm glad you asked this question because I've wondered the same thing. (I also picked up a lot of my Gillette razors in antique shops) I've made one trip to the antique stores and found absolutely nothing so I'm going to make a run to a nearby town that boasts lots of antique shops to see what I can find!

I'm seeing more and more members of SMF and B&B on this forum now!

Jerry

Then I guess the 8 or so pens that I did see wasn't as bad as I thought. Most just didn't look like daily writers though. Most looked like they wouldn't hold ink if filled. Thanks to Gary's posts I now know that some may not be as bad as I thought. So you use some of the Gellette razors that you found out there? Also good to know. Just for the record this was the first of the three forums that I joined. Actually found the others from here. B&B and SMF. Also recently joined a pocket watch forum. These things could end up eclipsing my sports card addiction if I let them get out of hand! Cards, pens, razors, and pocket watches!

Charlie

January 24, 2006

Finding pens in "the wild" can be fun and there can be some great buys out there. The real secret is to know what to look for - get to know as much as you can about the vintage brands and different filler mechanisms so you can know what you are looking at, and know what to watch out for (like 14K Plated nibs, where they bury the "plated" part of the imprint down in the section - dealers often don't look too closely and assume these are 14K).

Antique dealers are notorious for not knowing about their pens. There are a lot of overpriced pens in antique shops because the sellers have no clue and pulled a price out of a book somewhere (the price in the book for a mint pen, that is, not the brassed one at the store). But when you know what to look for you can get some deals. I just picked up an old Baird-North eyedropper for $18 - the dealer thought it was a dip pen because he couldn't figure out where the section unscrewed.

A couple of years ago I picked up a perfect Parker 61 for $20 from an antique shop in Seattle. It was right next to a row of Parker 51s which all needed work, selling for ~$35 (a reasonable price, considering most of the condition). I can only assume the dealer just didn't get the filling system of the 61, and priced it low assuming it was some sort of cartridge pen or something.

I have also seen places try to get $65 for a Waterman 52 1/2 V with a cracked cap (which would fetch at most $10 on ebay), or an unrestored vacumatic with a bent nib for $135.00.

John

Edited January 24, 2006 by Johnny Appleseed

January 24, 2006

Hey Johnny,

I hear what you're saying. Some antique dealers think pieces of junk are worth moonbeams.

I'm trying to educated my local dealers, with some success. They seem to think spare original nibs grow on trees, that brassing can be magically reversed and that cracks only take a bit of glueing. They also think a badly bent nib is easy to fix even if it has a 90deg bend.

Anything with Conway Stewart on it must be expensive and yet I got a Swan Eternal for $10 just because it was covered in grime and encrusted ink and they couldn't identify the pen. BTW is was perfect underneath and cleaned up a treat.

I try to bide my time and now wait for bargains to show up, at least I now know (through expensive experience) what to look for.

Why wasn't there FP101 at school

Gary

ps Just got a Conway Stewart 85L blue herringbone for $50 and a black 45 (with #40 duro nib) for $15. :)9 :)9 :)9

January 24, 2006

Yea, you really need to know what you are looking for, and sometimes patience pays. I have a Sheaffer hard rubber white-dot desk pen that I picked up at the Fremont Sunday market. The color and trim are fantastic, but the Lifetime nib was seperated at the tines. She wanted $40 for it. I watched it for almost a year, until the price went down to $20 and she sold it to me for $10.

On the other hand, I found a Conklin crescent in fantastic condition at the same sunday market - only the clip looked like it was bent out, so I passed on it. Only later did I realise that the clip is supposed to look like that . A little more knowledge on my part could have put a really nice pen in my collection.

On the other hand, sometimes you find great stuff just by chance. I found a Good Service ringtop once for $5.00. It's no Parker Big Red to be sure, but it was a great little pen. The Baird-North I just picked up is similar - I'd never heard of Baird-North before, and I wasn't even sure if it was a Pen Company or an advertising imprint - but it was a nice hard-rubber ED pen with an Aikin Lambert nib, so I grabbed it.

ps Just got a Conway Stewart 85L blue herringbone for $50

Well Gary, you shouldn't have. I mean, it's a little late for my Birthday, but don't worry, I won't mind. I'll PM you my address.

John

Edited January 24, 2006 by Johnny Appleseed

January 24, 2006

Good try John :lol:

You never know though, once restored it may show up in "the marketplace" if I deem it worthy.

The CS 45 if it turns out to be BHR with duro 40 nib and I can restore it to a good cond' will also be for sale...maybe

Edited January 24, 2006 by garythepenman

January 24, 2006

Being in the right place at the right time also helps - while killing time in an "antique mall" the other day, I came across a Vacuum-Fil (as I'm new to this, I had no idea at the time what it really was) and picked it up for $4.00.

Sometimes, dumb luck helps!