"RELIEF" M 35/-

[gregamckinney]

Good evening-

I just received a new Esterbrook in the mail today- an English model that looks like a LJ that has gf fittings. It is actually the second example I own, but this one has the orignal chalk markings on the cap.

I didn't see it on your site, Brian, and I don't remember if we've discussed this one before.

The chalk marks read:

 

"RELIEF" M 35/-

 

Here's a scan of the pen and of the marks:

Esterbrook Relief

 

Best regards, greg

[Brian Anderson]

Nice to find one with the original chalk markings. Now if we can only decipher what they mean.

 

I have one in green that I picked up quite a while back, but never knew exactly how to classify it. It is obviously an LJ in size, but to call it a Relief in the sense of the Conway Stewart Relief is a bit confusing. If I recall, the barrel marking is just Esterbrook, with the only mention of Relief being the nib.

 

So can we call this model the Relief M?

 

Best-

Brian

[antoniosz]

Greg, great find!..

It is a late relief similar to one of mine below.

My guess that M refers to the medium size of relief nibs.

The 35/- looks like a price. But 35 shillings no pence does not make sense.

Andy where are you? We need you here

 

http://www.streamload.com/azavalia/UKE1.jpg

http://www.streamload.com/azavalia/UKE2.jpg

Edited June 25, 2006 by antoniosz

[gregamckinney]

I was mistaken about the size. This "relief" pen is SJ length.

See sj_length_relief

 

The Relief marking is only on the nib as you suggest, Brian.

 

The only other "unusual" thing about this pen is the clip. I don't believe I've seen

this clip imprint on any other pen:

relief_clip

 

Best regards,

greg

[andyr7]

My thought would be that you have a medium nib and pen costing 35 shillings (1.75 GBP in modern money, or around $3 at present exchange rates)! Why would the zero pence be a worry?

 

CS and presumably Relief prices remained absolutely stable up to the war but prices post-war would change more frequently. CS pens pre-1960 were always priced with stickers I think, only when they moved to the plain coloured injection moulded barrels in the 1960s did they begin to use chalk marked prices.

 

Andy

[antoniosz]

My thought would be that you have a medium nib and pen costing 35 shillings (1.75 GBP in modern money, or around $3 at present exchange rates)! Why would the zero pence be a worry?

 

CS and presumably Relief prices remained absolutely stable up to the war but prices post-war would change more frequently. CS pens pre-1960 were always priced with stickers I think, only when they moved to the plain coloured injection moulded barrels in the 1960s did they begin to use chalk marked prices.

 

Andy

I was not "worried" about the 0 pence, but I thought that a "35 shillings" price would be posted as 1 pound and 15 shillings rather than 35/-? But I guess this is a british thing... so 35/- may be the way they do it in the land where they drive on the opposite side of the road

[andyr7]

35/- would be correct! The alternative way of writing it would have been £1 15s 0d, which as you can see takes up a lot more space, so 5/6, 27/9 etc. was the way most items costing less than a few pounds were priced informally. When larger items were sold, such as radios, furniture etc., prices were often quoted in guineas (a guinea was worth £1 1s 0d)! (I'm not sure if our pound sign (£) is interpreted correctly throughout the world but hopefully you'll see what I mean!)

 

It's such a shame we changed to decimal currency in 1970. I think this was done mostly to allow us to more easily use electronic calculators for adding up amounts of money. If we'd just held out 20 years or so, computers would have become sophisticated enough to handle our good old system with ease!

 

Andy

 

so 35/- may be the way they do it in the land where they drive on the opposite side of the road 

When the tunnel was first proposed joining us to France (where, like you, they also drive on the incorrect side of the road) it was thought that, rather than using shuttle trains, cars would simply drive through the tunnel. Somebody suggested in a letter to a newspaper that, just to get each of us used to conditions in the other country, the French should drive on the left when coming to Britain, conversely we should drive on the right when going to France!

[antoniosz]

Lets resurrect this old post, since I just got another one of these beauties. This time with box and papers.