Pre Ww2 Chinese Pen

[penomania]

Hello, can anyone help, I have found a quality pre WW2 beautiful pen from Shanghai, company name is Wolff, anyone possess any information on this brand????

I will try to post pix over the weekend, but any help would be appreciated. Thank you...

[Seele]

Awaiting pictures.

[penomania]

 

 

[Seele]

Thanks for the pictrues; these pens, to my mind, are very desirable, good thing you can't see me salivating.

 

"Kinsin Pen Co." is now better known as "Jinxing" or "Golden Star", and these were made in their Shanghai factory: they opened a branch factory in Beijing after the war, at first assembling pens using Shanghai-made parts, but then they started getting parts from their local parts producers, and eventually acquired them, so the Beijing operation out-lasted the Shanghai one for quite some time as pen makers.

 

"Wolff Pen Mfg. Co.", when rendered in Chinese, would be pronounced as "Huafu" and this became the standard romanized rendition of the firm which eventually became Hero of today. They still own the "Huafu" brand and make - or at least made pens under that brand until quite recently.

 

By the way I wonder if you can find the model numbers on these pens: I suspect they are relatively small button-fillers.

 

Thanks again for sharing!

Edited October 23, 2015 by Seele

[penomania]

Wow, thanks for the great information, did not realize that these firms are still around today.

I have not been able to find any info on these at all!!

 

The Kinsins are significantly large, the blue one is the size of a Parker Maxima and the smaller one a major. These pens do not have any

model marks on them.

 

The Wolff, is a size between the 2 Kinsins and appears to me to be better made, (although all 3 are very well made, very similar to the Vacs)

AND... it does have a sticker on the cap, stating "183 fine", the nib is a monster!!!.

 

let me know if the Kinsins had a different place for numbers for ID, do not see any imprinted numbers, only the sticker on the Wolff.

 

Thx for help!!!

[penomania]

Would you know any other names of early Chinese companies, these pens do seem to resemble Parker Vac looks, but mechanism are different and they

truly are very well made, nibs appear superior to the Parkers.

[Seele]

penomania,

While Hero is still around, Golden Star has ceased trading for some time; they were competitors as there has always been a rivalry between the cities they're based.

When Golden Star was operating out of both the Shanghai and Beijing works, there were four-letter codes marked on the pens to tell them apart; as you have not found anything it only means they were made before they started the Beijing operation.

The third of the grand makers in China has to be William K Rockman, now better known as Guanleming; while the bloodline of the original firm - established in NYC and moved to Shanghai - stopped in 1950 its spiritual successor continues to this day.

[penomania]

Hello Seele, much thanks for the help,

Yes, I think these are very early pens, I would say mid to late 1930's

Do you know the approximate date when Golden Star started to make pens in Beijing??

 

Can you please list the top five penmakers in China in the pre WW2 era.

You say there were 3 grand makers, are you refrring to Guanleming, Kinsin and Wolff and their respective

companies still in operation??

 

Much thanks again!

[Seele]

penomania,

 

The Chinese pen industries has never been documented sufficiently well - to put it mildly - which leaves us little more than tantalizing snippets of rarely verified information, so it's hard to put definite dates on early pens, but it seems likely that they're of pre-war manufacture.

 

Rockman started in NYC in 1926 and moved to Shanghai in 1929; Wolff started in 1931, KinSin/Golden Star started in 1932 and its Beijing operation started in 1952. With the addition of Guoyi (established in 1926) which later became Doctor, these four became the most respected Shanghai pen makers in the 1940s. Of course, Doctor became a Hero operation many years ago. Besides these, there had been scores, or perhaps more than a hundred pen manufacturers over the years, some fizzled out, most got lost during several rounds of mergers. It's after China "opened up" that many of the new brands came into being, but that's another story.

[richardandtracy]

I have come across a modern Guang Ming, which may be a residue of Guanleming (don't really know..) and reviewed it here: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/89856-guang-ming-812-review/ It wasn't good..

 

Regards,

 

Richard

[Seele]

Richard,

 

Guang Ming and Guanleming are totally unrelated.

[richardandtracy]

Thought they might be, but there have been a lot of mergers & changes of names.

 

In fact I'm pleased they're unrelated. It would have been an example of how far the mighty could fall if they were related.

 

Regards,

 

Richard

[Seele]

Guanleming in Chinese is 關勒銘 and was the name of the founder's son.

 

Guang Ming in Chinese in 光明 , a word which means bright, or brightness. There seems to be a Guang Ming Fountain Pen Factory (or with a name to that effect) based in Changsu but there also seemed to be a firm of that name, probably Shanghai-based, which was acquired by Wing Sung decades ago, which has in turn ceased to manufacture in the early 90s.