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Has Anyone Heard Of Henry Simpole 2016


RMN

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Well, thank you to our 'roving travel reporter', 'View from the Loft', who keeps us Londoners abreast of up to the minute information with regards to the London Underground system!

Thankfully, I should be in the process of cooking our supper by that time in the evening, [i usually think about leaving my booth at Portobello Road, by about 2.00 to 2.30pm] so I will not be affected. But thank you for the info:

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Post Script, the only things that have turned up during this latest upheaval, has been a number of 'cap-overlays' which I must have created several years ago, and they have been sitting 'somewhere safe', since I put them there!!!

No doubt I will use them at some point, but the fact that they are now in open view, I should imagine that they will all find good homes [pens] fairly soon!

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Truffle Finder. :) :D :excl:

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....The big 'Pay-off' is that when I'm looking for a particular nib, it does make finding it so much easier!

Some might say:- "Master of the bleedin' obvious!!!"

Truffle Finder. :) :D :excl:

Some might say precisely that.... ;)

 

It must be like a treasure hunt though. Do you ever come across something long forgotten and very special?

 

Post Script

PS....So often that his safe has been christened "The Tardis" by another poster here. :P

God is seldom early, never late, and always on time.

~~Larry Brown

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Other than one particular person who will be coming to see me today, I really don't know how busy I will be up at Portobello today.

A man who came to see me a couple of weeks ago, dropped off four vintage pens, which all needed fairly extensive 'surgery', and he will [i hope] be coming today to pick them up. It is always a pleasure for me, to see their reaction when they first see the end results of my repair work!

I will post on here when I get back later today.

Truffle Finder. :) :D

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When I got back yesterday afternoon, I was greeted with the scene of my sister, in the workshop surrounded with piles of books in the middle of the floor, and various boxes of 'stuff' waiting to be 're-housed', in other spots around the room!

To say that I was a 'non-participant' in my sister's ambition to completely re-shuffle all the layout of the workshop, would be an understatement! So, I quickly retreated to the kitchen, and started the preparations for our supper, which I would have had to have done anyway, but at least I didn't have to watch the goings-on back in the workshop!

Sadly yesterday's Portobello, was a bit of a damp-squib, so, I read plenty of my current book, and sold one vintage pen during the course of the whole day!

I was offered two lots of pens to buy, one was a C/S Dinkie pen and pencil set in its' box, and the other was a Parker 51, and a black hard rubber C/S fountain pen, needless to say that I bought both lots, so no doubt they will all be sorted out before next week's Portobello appearance!

That is [of course] as long as I can find everything here in the workshop to do the repairs!!!

Truffle Finder. :) :D :excl:

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Some of the readers on this forum might remember me writing an article about a visit that I made to Jean Esterbrook, after having met her at an American pen show quite a few years ago.

Well, during the course of moving so much 'stuff' around the workshop in the last few weeks, I came across a folder, which Jean had sent to me shortly after my visit to her home in Bronxville, New York, to remind me of my visit.

Yesterday, I 'flipped' over to the Esterbrook Forum, and was quite surprised to see that the thread is very much alive and kicking, and has clocked up over 12,000 viewings!

I just thought that some people here might be interested.

Truffle Finder. :) :D

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Some of the readers on this forum might remember me writing an article about a visit that I made to Jean Esterbrook, after having met her at an American pen show quite a few years ago.

Well, during the course of moving so much 'stuff' around the workshop in the last few weeks, I came across a folder, which Jean had sent to me shortly after my visit to her home in Bronxville, New York, to remind me of my visit.

Yesterday, I 'flipped' over to the Esterbrook Forum, and was quite surprised to see that the thread is very much alive and kicking, and has clocked up over 12,000 viewings!

I just thought that some people here might be interested.

Truffle Finder. :) :D

 

That forum is very active. Seems a popular pen, although I have never come around to getting one.

Maybe those clippings, if suitable, of course, would be of interest to read for the Estie-folk?

Perhaps you could scan them and post in that forum?

 

D.ick

~

KEEP SAFE, WEAR A MASK, KEEP A DISTANCE.

Freedom exists by virtue of self limitation.

~

 

 

 

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That work room continues to deliver hidden treasures....

God is seldom early, never late, and always on time.

~~Larry Brown

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This has been quite a productive week, this week!

I've done all my pen repairs which have come in, and they have all been sent off to their owners. I have also been busy with servicing about 10 or 12 pens of my own, and they are now ready to go in to my stock.

Apparently there are no problems on the Underground Network, and low and behold, the weather is quite mild, which is a pleasant change from the bitter cold that we have had over the last few days!

I haven't received any notification about anyone coming to see me today at Portobello Road, but that is not unusual, so I will just keep an open mind.

Truffle Finder. :) :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

It suddenly dawned on me that the Little Rock Pen Show was on, over this weekend! Having attended it for the last few years, it did feel a little strange, not being there.

My day up at Portobello was quiet, but satisfying, in that one of my 'dealer' friends had found a Pullman Pen and he had told me that he would save it for me to see.

For anyone not familiar with these fountain pens, they are unique, in that the barrel of the pen is 'pushed' through the elongated 'cap' of the pen, and the nib 'appears' through a small trap door, to make the pen ready for use.

They were made by a company called Proctor and Brenna, and it was considered to be a 'Dandy's' Pen, but sadly, the company went broke within a few years, which has made them very rare to find, and their fragility means that more often than not there is a great deal of restoration to be done to get them back in to working order.

I have repaired several of them over the years since I first started to collect fountain pens, but the one that I bought yesterday is probably as big a challenge as I have ever had with this particular model of pen!

I will be posting news about progress on this thread in due course.

Truffle Finder. :) :D

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Yes, He does!

And it may be a case of doing a plain one for this little baby!!! If I can't manage to repair all the missing bits from that cap, it might be the only option!

Truffle Finder. :) :D :yikes: :excl:

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And here's another one of Henry's projects, restored and ready to go? It's a rarity, a pearl & black Esterbrook Relief, and English too!

 

Henry can tell you all about it...

 

:yikes:

 

fpn_1457179666__henrysreliefpen.jpg

Edited by billydo
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Many thanks Neal, once again for your wonderful photography!

This is an interesting story, in that this pen turned up one morning up at Portobello Road, [about 6 months or more ago], but sadly there was no cap to the pen!

When I got it home, I looked through the Easterbrook spares, but I knew that there were not any 'Relief' black and pearl caps there, so I just picked out the appropriate black hard rubber cap which fitted that particular model. So well and good, but it was always going to be a 'marriage', of cap and barrel, despite it being a fairly uncommon pattern.

Just a week ago, one of my dealer friends came to see me at my booth, with a small bag full of pens and 'bits' of pens!

You've probably guessed what was in there! Yes! A black and pearl cap, which fitted the Easterbrook pen perfectly!

The incredible thing was that usually the casein on these pens have got a shrinkage mark nearly half way down the cap, but this one was as good as you can see in the pictures above.

It is now a very treasured pen amongst my pension scheme!

Truffle Finder. :) :D :excl:

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Wow....Was meant to be, that lovely Estie rehab....I think I might need that one.... ;)

Can't wait to see what happens to the Pullman!!!

God is seldom early, never late, and always on time.

~~Larry Brown

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I am pleased to report that yesterday's Portobello was really quite busy, [not exactly 'outstanding' in terms of income, but it kept me busy during the course of the day.

A young collector/dealer friend of mine came along, to pick up four 'major surgery' vintage pens, which I had worked on, and then left me with four more to have repairs done to them.

The weather was quite kind both on the outward and the return journey, so I have quite a lot to be grateful for, and the tube trains were working well!

Truffle Finder. :) :D

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The restoration of this Pullman Pen was without a doubt, a bit of a 'Tour De Force' for me to do!

There were several stages of the repairs which had to be done, before the re-assembly of the actual pen could be done.

Firstly, the casein covering over the cap was badly cracked, [as they usually are, because the casein is very thin, and with moisture and dryness, the casein cannot shrink, because it is mounted on the metal barrel of the pen!] and that coupled with a couple of 'missing pieces' in the black and pearl pattern, meant that I had to 'fill' the gaps with dyed resin!

The nib was in a terrible state, [in fact it looked as though it may have been used as a dart at some sad point in it's life!] So I re-shaped it.

The little 'trap-door' of the pen was also separate from the cap, so that had to be re-set in place.

The pen needed to be re-sacked, [not that anyone in their right mind would want to actually use such a fragile writing instrument].

As you have probably noticed from the 'before' photographs above, the clip had been broken off at the base of the triangular piece [with the letter 'P' inscribed on it], so I wanted to try to use that piece if at all possible, as I have never come across an inscribed clip like that before. I found a 'donor-clip' [with a 'dog-leg' profile], to sit snugly underneath the triangular piece of the original clip. This had to be re-shaped, and I had to drill two holes through the donor clip, so that the two prongs could grip the cap body, but before I could put it in place, I had to drill away the casein underneath to take up the space [approximately the same thickness of the casein layer, which was lucky!] I used 'slow cure Araldite adhesive' to secure the assembled clip in place, taped it up, and left things to set overnight. It is now very secure, and makes a very satisfying 'click' when tested using my finger-nail!

The last stage of the monumental restoration project, was to assemble the pen. So I telephoned a long standing pen enthusiast friend of mine to discuss it with him. He was nearly as excited about it as I was! Such is the pleasure of being a dedicated Pen-Nerd, at times!

It was without a doubt one of the hardest repairs that I have ever undertaken.

Truffle Finder. :) :D :excl:

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