Chelpark Company History

[Amanjot]

Chelpark purple

[Amanjot]

Help me find chelpark purple and turquoise blue or whatever the name Is? I have used emerald green, permanent black, blue black and royal blue. they are great help me to find out about turquoise blue n purple ink thanks

[Amanjot]

 

Thanks for info!

message me I wanna have turquoise blue.

[Amanjot]

inkyvini, I trust that you have found Crimson Violet from anirban4u. It is a lovely shade.

 

hello kb will u help me to find chelpark turquoise blue

[Sasha Royale]

The close association of Parker Pen Company, in India, to an Indian company,

explains some my long-though questions.

 

In the early 1970's, I married a woman in the hospital business. I met scores

of medical professional. It was a time of many professionals and in-training

professionals, from India, engaged at Adventist Hospitals. (They taught me

of "choley".)

 

Sure, I used a Parker 45 through college, and still carried one daily. I was surprised

that 75% of all the Indian med pros had Parker 45 fountain pens, bought and received

as gifts, in India. Why only Parker ? Half of my Parker 45 collection come from Ebay

sellers in India. Why ?

 

Thanks for the "Chelpark" answer.

 

I wonder if North and East Africa are loaded with Parker fountain pens.

[hari317]

The close association of Parker Pen Company, in India, to an Indian company,

explains some my long-though questions.

 

In the early 1970's, I married a woman in the hospital business. I met scores

of medical professional. It was a time of many professionals and in-training

professionals, from India, engaged at Adventist Hospitals. (They taught me

of "choley".)

 

Sure, I used a Parker 45 through college, and still carried one daily. I was surprised

that 75% of all the Indian med pros had Parker 45 fountain pens, bought and received

as gifts, in India. Why only Parker ? Half of my Parker 45 collection come from Ebay

sellers in India. Why ?

 

Thanks for the "Chelpark" answer.

 

I wonder if North and East Africa are loaded with Parker fountain pens.

why abundance of Parker? why not Sheaffer? this question still remains.

 

FWIW, this Chellaram-Parker association was ONLY for inks as it did not make any sense to import such a cheap but bulky commodity. Pens are a different matter. Parker never made pens in India, only in the 90s they tied up with Luxor to make some pens bearing the Parker name in India.

 

HTH.

[Jerome Tarshis]

why abundance of Parker? why not Sheaffer? this question still remains.

I do not mean to suggest that I am unsympathetic to Hari's cogent question, but would like to add that "why not Sheaffer?" is far from the only question that still remains.

 

There is also "Why not Waterman?" That was another major American brand with good international distribution. Reminding ourselves of the former English presence, why not English brands? I don't ask for Swan ("the pen of the British Empire"), but cheap Platignum pens were ubiquitous among English schoolchildren whose parents might have thought a Parker 51 was out of reach. Or foolish, considering how children lose things. There were enough Indian families with well above average incomes to buy pens of any brand that sprang to mind.

 

Also beyond "why not Sheaffer?" we have "Why Hero?" I have met many an East Asian, Indian and other, who wrote with Hero pens when young. IIRC the importation of Hero pens was illegal in India but was an everyday reality nevertheless. Hari didn't mean to knock down a hornets' nest, but in truth his question leads to other questions about Indian society in the decades after independence. Or so I think. Was there an influx of Russian pens during the period of let us say rapprochement with Moscow?

Edited April 14, 2015 by Jerome Tarshis

[hari317]

I do not mean to suggest that I am unsympathetic to Hari's cogent question, but would like to add that "why not Sheaffer?" is far from the only question that still remains.

 

There is also "Why not Waterman?" That was another major American brand with good international distribution. Reminding ourselves of the former English presence, why not English brands? I don't ask for Swan ("the pen of the British Empire"), but cheap Platignum pens were ubiquitous among English schoolchildren whose parents might have thought a Parker 51 was out of reach. Or foolish, considering how children lose things. There were enough Indian families with well above average incomes to buy pens of any brand that sprang to mind.

 

Also beyond "why not Sheaffer?" we have "Why Hero?" I have met many an East Asian, Indian and other, who wrote with Hero pens when young. IIRC the importation of Hero pens was illegal in India but was an everyday reality nevertheless. Hari didn't mean to knock down a hornets' nest, but in truth his question leads to other questions about Indian society in the decades after independence. Or so I think. Was there an influx of Russian pens during the period of let us say rapprochement with Moscow?

my question was in response to the post i quoted and the context was the apparent overwhelming popularity of Parker and the time era was post Indian Independence (1947). Of course I have found many examples of Sheaffer, Eversharp but very less of watermans from this era.

 

To answer some of your questions in the wider context that you ask: Pre independence Watermans are indeed found, mostly safeties. Swan pens and also Swan ink was very very popular and commonly used upto atleast till the 1950s. In fact post independence, in the 50s to 70s, Mabie todd and co pens, Waterman pens and Pilot pens were made in India. I have documented the examples.

 

Why Hero?: Cheap and good quality unmatched by any Indian company at that price point(Hero's quality now has deteriorated terribly). The better off kids would use Wilson or Indian Pilot. Some who had folks abroad would use Parker or Sheaffer brought home by some Uncle or Aunt. (I was a Sheaffer kid). This was the protectionist market regime and imports were discouraged by imposing exorbitant import duty.

 

Soviet and later Russian era pens, I have never seen nor heard of in India. India did not want pens from them.

[Jerome Tarshis]

First, thanks to Hari for reading into the record some things I feel curious about and did not know As for Hero, I do understand that given the actual choices, Hero pens looked good. The underlying question was why, as between two countries both of which had had trouble with foreign Powers, and not only European Powers, the Chinese with the Manchus and the Indians with the Mughals, but all of that has receded, both countries are able to make thermonuclear weapons, how did it happen that India, with a huge domestic market, didn't do the equivalent of cheap Hero pens? And export them to other East Asian countries, as Hero did.

 

I don't mean to be unpleasantly persistent, but there may in fact be a story. Tata family tries FPs and lamentably fails, discouraging other entrants. A dozen tiny, artisanal companies try and fail, discouraging others. Something that might have happened did not happen.

[hari317]

The underlying question was why, as between two countries both of which had had trouble with foreign Powers, and not only European Powers, the Chinese with the Manchus and the Indians with the Mughals, but all of that has receded, both countries are able to make thermonuclear weapons, how did it happen that India, with a huge domestic market, didn't do the equivalent of cheap Hero pens? And export them to other East Asian countries, as Hero did.

 

I don't mean to be unpleasantly persistent, but there may in fact be a story. Tata family tries FPs and lamentably fails, discouraging other entrants. A dozen tiny, artisanal companies try and fail, discouraging others. Something that might have happened did not happen.

 

There were hugely successful pen making firms. Wilson, TTK group (a google search of TTK with pens might yield some good reading material), "Mhatre pens and Plastics" were the big players, also Pilot of India controlled by a private individual. Tata were busy making bigger things like Steel and commercial transport vehicles etc.

 

Now why did these pen companies not export? The trade laws in India at that time did not leave much incentive for exports. It is a big topic beyond the scope of this thread. However, they did limited exports, their audience was Africa and the middle east IIRC from the literature available on the old Wilson website. These regions are still the target for present Indian big pen companies like Montex.

 

http://www.montexpen.com/corporate.asp

 

HTH.

[Jerome Tarshis]

Thanks to Hari. In fact I have not been trying to put gray hairs on his head; I've hoped others would leap forward. But I am glad to see all this information posted by someone.

 

And I'm glad he mentioned Wilson. Although most of the pens they manufactured in imitation of major Western brands looked to Parker, they also made a fair number of not-Targas. It is this sort of thing that might give me the mistaken idea that Sheaffer had a larger presence in India than it actually did have.

 

It does suddenly occur to me that all of this, interesting as it may be as Pen History, takes us away from Chelpark history. Here I am, another foreign invader disrupting the not always even tenor of Indian life and discourse. Back to Chelpark ink and if we are lucky Chelpark pens.

[welch]

Can I take it that Chelpark is definitely out of the pen-and-ink business? That is, Chelpark ink has not reappeared since this discussion began in 2013?

 

I notice that Camel ink is available on Ebay at about $5 - $6 USD per bottle. The only Chelpark ink is offered at about $15 USD per bottle...suggesting that the Chelpark is old stock while Camlin Kokuyo continues production.

[panna]

I have the same question, welch. I was quite excited to know that Chelpark inks had been spotted by our friends here, in Bangalore and Calcutta as late as July last year. Are they still around? They seem to have disappeared from Bombay.

[amarjit]

I have the same question, welch. I was quite excited to know that Chelpark inks had been spotted by our friends here, in Bangalore and Calcutta as late as July last year. Are they still around? They seem to have disappeared from Bombay.

yeah i asked lot of shops and some of them have not heard of chelpark

[benbot517]

*Deleted: Phone Pocket Posted*

Edited July 15, 2015 by benbot517

[Shyahi]

Chelpark last meetin

 

As per this website their last Annual General Meeting (AGM) was last held on 31 December 2020.

 

So i guess they are diversified into other stationary products as well.

 

 I'm looking for Chelpark black ink

 Any way to contact their customer support