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You are witnessing fountain pen history being made today. I have in my possession a new, unheard of, undocumented model of the Esterbrook fountain pen. It is the same size as the LJ (5") and identical in design. The only difference is that it has about a dozen vertical black stripes running the length. I have a dark red and a root beer color with these vertical black stripes. Seriously though - where did these come from ? I have looked at the experts web pages and books but don't see one anywhere. I'm sure there is a simple explanation and I would love to hear it. So any help ID ing these would be immensely appreciated. Thanks

Well maybe I did not search hard enough, but I don't seem to find a link to how striated and striped bodies are made (for example http://www.richardspens.com/images/coll/duo_vac.jpg and http://www.richardspens.com/images/coll/silver_max.jpg ) … . I can imagine machining wood or metal, even deep drawing for bodies, making celluloid, acrylic, whatever, bodies with mother of pearl pigments, marbled ebonite, … all imaginable, but how did/do they make these crisp alternating lines (and when length wise even with variation along the line)? Don't recall where I read it, but it was hinted somewhere that it is by laminating alternating transparent and coloured sheets, sounds reasonable for the silver_max picture linked above, making a, say 8” thick laminate, then cutting out blanks of such laminate. But how about the duo_vac picture linked above? If also made by laminating alternating sheets, then the stripes should be unequal and distributed evenly while rotating the body. Some high precision extrusion process? Sounds too expensive too me to get the variation in lines along the body as well. Any clues or links someone?

Hi! Need your help here to identify this Parker ballpen... name of the edition, maybe year and price. Thanks a lot, you guys!