Toledo

[sargetalon]

4 hours ago, N1003U said:

Of course.

 

If I have trouble breathing, or need detailed technical information on Pelikan products, I know exactly where to go...thanks!

 

Full service here.  Serving all your pulmonary, critical care, and Pelikan needs.

[N1003U]

16 hours ago, zaddick said:

Thanks for the correction all. I don't use the smaller pens myself so I misremembered. Apologies for any confusion I created.

Not at all! Such pedantic discussions are part of what makes this forum interesting to me—something as subtle as the differences between an M600 and M400 (especially pre-1997).

 

I actually look forward to a time when we have things like pen shows and Pelikan Hubs available again, when we can sit around a table with food and/or beverage and relax and have these discussions face-to-face with fellow pen geeks.

[sketchstack]

Thanks for the clarification(s) everyone. 

 

Do I understand correctly that the Toledo is something of a special edition, released in periodic batches? 

[Bo Bo Olson]

There are regular Toledo's some 200 are made in a month, and I assume that counts for special edition ones.....my Green Hunter is a 915, 800 size, sterling  silver and no Pelkians on it but deer, and only 3000 was made the year of issue....'92 or '93, forget exactly right this second.

If I was up to date, I could link you to that; but I'm still green screen in my mind.....hopefully someone will.

Copied from Pelikan Perch, hopefully I'll get forgiveness at least.

 

[zaddick]

It is my understanding the Toledos are hand carved while most of the other metal barrel pens are manufactured. 

[oregano]

They make 50 a month, according to Pelikan...

[TitoThePencilPimp]

2 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

There are regular Toledo's some 200 are made in a month, and I assume that counts for special edition ones.....my Green Hunter is a 915, 800 size, sterling  silver and no Pelkians on it but deer, and only 3000 was made the year of issue....'92 or '93, forget exactly right this second.

If I was up to date, I could link you to that; but I'm still green screen in my mind.....hopefully someone will.

Copied from Pelikan Perch, hopefully I'll get forgiveness at least.

 

Wow. That is a nice pen. I do not care for the regular Pelikan Bird design on the standard Toledo. But this one is actually done classy. Something I would consider Santa Clause would use.

 

I once ran into what I thought were Toledos at a discounted price. My finger was itching, because I assumed it was a website error. So I was going to purchase them for resell and trade bait. The site was in German, and I could have easily used google translator to translate the text on the page, but I was so excited and wanted to share my "bargain" with another member here. Turns out, the German text meant spare parts and he pointed it out to me.🤣🤣

[N1003U]

7 hours ago, zaddick said:

It is my understanding the Toledos are hand carved while most of the other metal barrel pens are manufactured. 

From the descriptions I have heard of the process (there might even be one on the Pelikan website), it is indeed an artisanal process to make Toledos. Supposedly the metal cladding is hand carved and no two pieces are exactly alike.
 

 

6 hours ago, oregano said:

They make 50 a month, according to Pelikan...

That is less than 2 per day, (counting only workdays), so they are either not made very often, and/or the production process is slow.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Artistic handwork takes it's time, and they (the one or two engravers) are paid Meister wages; which I assume is more than my master mechanic makes.

(They still have the Master class in Germany; he can own the shop, and train apprentices and journeymen.) I would expect Pelikan just to hire a Meister, but in he don't have his own shop, so no training of others.)

 

And one don't want to flood the market, and cheapen the product by making a Toledo common.

[N1003U]

26 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

And one don't want to flood the market, and cheapen the product by making a Toledo common.

 

I am a shameless maximizer. I'd flood the market until the marginal return on the cost of the Master goes to zero!

(wait a minute...maybe that has already been achieved with 1 or 2 Toledos per day?... 😛 )

[jchch1950]

50 pens a month that is a small quantity . Is there a demand for more?

[N1003U]

25 minutes ago, jchch1950 said:

50 pens a month that is a small quantity . Is there a demand for more?

Probably only Pelikan and/or their retailers can answer that question... 😛 

 

The Toledos are gorgeous, but at street prices new of roughly 900€ for the M700 (M400 size) and 1300€ for the M900 (M800 size--19%-22% less without VAT), I don't imagine they blow off the shelves of most retailers too quickly.

 

BTW, if one does the quick math in one's head (assume the extra raw material costs are in the two-digit Euro range), I suspect if one Master makes all 50 pens every month, the extra sales margin (compared to say, a normal Souverän model of similar size), even at wholesale, more than pays her or his salary and tool costs.

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

You spent $50 on an obsolete fountain pen!!!!!

 

No I don't think demand is heavy. I bought used pens, in they was lots cheaper; as good as new in Pelikan and affordable.

 

I really can't afford new pens...........out side of the 200's, and once or twice in a decade. I could get top of the line for E100-120 140/400/400nn in Germany....which costs $285 in the States.....

Used in my case this time with the Toledo, was not cheap.....and affordable came in afterwards, when looking at the total  value of the lot.............the other guy would have gotten it on the next bid...........but even used pens can have a high value.

 

I can afford live auctions a bit more than, which is mostly dealers who have to make a profit, vs Ebay where collectors out bid me....on grail pens.

[Kalessin]

The hand-carving part of making Toledo pens is only the making of the little detail marks in the design, the little cuts that sparkle in the surface of the higher-relief parts.  The overall design is created by acid-etching.

 

Over time, three maker's marks have appeared: CT, JB, and EH.  I don't know of any others.  Web searching reveals some stories and posts in FPN.

 

The numbers that appear along with the marks are serial numbers, probably used to track the metal bindes as they travel from Pelikan to the artisans and back.  Except for early examples (like the M910 Silver Toledo for Ebel), the numbers for the M910 Silver Toledo follow the pattern:

 

[1-9][A-E] / [01-99]

 

I would guess the first digit and letter are the lot number, then the pen number in the lot after the slash.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

3 hours ago, Kalessin said:

Except for early examples (like the M910 Silver Toledo for Ebel), the numbers for the M910 Silver Toledo follow the pattern:

 

[1-9][A-E] / [01-99]

Thank you, will look at mine in the morning.

[Kalessin]

4 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Thank you, will look at mine in the morning.

 

I should have been more precise with my words -- the numbers seem to follow a certain pattern.  

 

Last year over the course of a few days, I recorded the M910 serial numbers that I was able to find online after I bought one for myself, and came up with a list of serials.  The first two were from the Ebel edition.  All of the pens in the list are black (no red or yellow), and have the black plastic captop with metal disc trademark, rather than the the all-metal captop from the 2012 M910 Special Edition.

 

Serial number	Maker's mark
A60	CT
C11	CT
1B/09	CT
1B/60	CT
2E/12	JB
4A/49	not visible
4B/29	CT
4B/61	JB
4E/86	JB
5A/44	CT
5A/45	CT
5E/96	JB
6B/60	CT
6C/88	CT
7A/08	CT
7C/75	not visible
8A/12	CT
8A/18	CT
8C/88	CT
9C/10	CT

 

By the way, I'm happy to find that I can cut and paste cells from  Google Sheets (formerly known as Google Doc spreadsheet) and have them appear correctly!

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

I don't find the other numbers, please tell me where to look.

 

What I found on my 915 '93 Hunter, full green (3,000 made), was the 925  silver mark and 1/3 inch  away GN, on the cap band. And tell me whom GN is.

 

Us Swaave and de'boner Toledo owners know who carved our pens... and the other secret (hidden) marks.

[Kalessin]

11 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

I don't find the other numbers, please tell me where to look.

 

What I found on my 915 '93 Hunter, full green (3,000 made), was the 925  silver mark and 1/3 inch  away GN, on the cap band. And tell me whom GN is.

 

Us Swaave and de'boner Toledo owners know who carved our pens... and the other secret (hidden) marks.

 

The Toledo pens have the markings on the metal binde, at the knob end.  The 910 has a silver-content "925" on one side,  and the mysterious serial number together on the opposite side of the binde (the metal barrel overlay).  The other Toledo generations, sizes and/or colors (red or yellow body and cap, or gold metal) appear to have serial numbers with different formats. The cap of my pen has "PELIKAN 925 GERMANY" on the wider cap ring.

 

I briefly entertained the idea of starting a shared document and get as many people as I could to collect as many serial numbers and makers marks as possible, but I already have too many other claims on my time.

 

Though I like the looks, I've never held a Hunting model.  From pictures that I can find on the web, the mark "925" plus the maker's mark appears on the binde.  One that I found showed the "CT" mark, which has the T rotated to the right 90 degrees and the foot of the letter inside the C.  It's possible that the serial number in this case is the limited edition number, which is on the cap, in the form of 1234/3000.

 

[Jeffrey Newman]

Serial number with engraver's mark from an M900 I purchased in 2019

 

9/CCxx VFW (the xx are numbers)

[mbradley]

My M900 purchased this year also bears the initials VFW. I am amazed by the Toledo, so elegant.