Do you use your inkwells? And show us your inkwells!

[MHBru]

my mom picked this up at a stray antique store ages ago because she thought it was cool. she was cleaning house having moved into a smaller place and this came home with me... along with my great grandfather's shaving mug. 

[txomsy]

@MHBru Wow! That's a gorgeous inkwell. Looks like silver. It is streamlined, simple, elegant and discreet. A true piece of art.

 

@Bo Bo Olson, That  Clevis Royal Salute looks as a most interesting piece to hunt, though I lean more to single malt than to blends.

 

Speaking of bourbon, I went to Andorra to ski on Christmas, and found there some limited editions (1l and tin plates) of Jack Daniels Tennessee old no. 7, apple, and Fire. So I had to get some. I have only tried the apple one, and it is indeed interesting.

[lapis]

Fantastic. Looks like brass to me which I like better than silver, apart from the fact that it (brass) doesn't tarnish.

[Bo Bo Olson]

MHBeu, a beautiful inkwell!!!

 

First I'll start with a close up of a inkwell shown at a distance, art nouveau. Then see how it goes.

The first picture from on my book case is not as clear as when that inkwell was first bought.

 

Steingute=earthenware or Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature.

 

The one on the left is 'normal' affordable at the time, stoneware. And the top is missing, replaced with a manufactured cork found somewhere. If one is missing just a top one can do wonders with a dremmel.

 

IMO 1930's stoneware pottery.

 

 

My wife thinks this is early 20th century Meissen....we got dirt cheap. E-35 at a second hand shop that did mostly furniture so knowledge was lacking to what the crossed swords can mean.....if not faked.

This one we did NOT win at a live auction....but it is Meissen 17th century. I'd vague hopes of stealing it at E-400, and by the time it hit E-600 came to my senses. My wife had wanted it more for me, than I did. Sometimes a man just has to do what his wife wants.

Some one said over in Mancave that many had little to no experience with porcelain inkwells. So decided to show this one with the bell too. The bell rests in a bell holder on the platter. It is the only one I've seen with a bell.

 

 

This I did win....you lay your dip pen across the 'bumps' on top of the two inkwells. KPM is an acronym for Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin, which translates to “Royal Porcelain Factory in Berlin.” The company was founded in 1763 by Frederick II of Prussia**, who bought the factory from its previous owner, Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky, in the wake of its bankruptcy.

 

**Freddy the Great who had a hand in the seven year long American French and Indian War, in he was picking on three women having started a war in the middle of Europe and points east....fortunately for him a couple of them women up and died, ..... so he won.

My wife dates the inkwell  to @ 1900. She's been collecting Porcelain for 45 years.

 

Next metal and or silver plated or silver topped inkwells.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

 

Three days....no posts.

Do I continue?

Metal was next.

[MsRedpen]

6 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

 

 

Do I continue?

Metal was next.

Yes, please... 

(and thank you!)

[Bo Bo Olson]

Metal

Start light....

Silver Plated English 1890-1920's Mooring Bollard.

Another.....with out the cleaning brush.

Got this one in Sweden. Is not glass, is full metal.

 

Big; a foot tall, 33cm. Was silver plated, using the photo I got with the buy. 15/9/1915 the Germans under Hindenburg won a major battle in the East and this celebrates it.....given to some weapon maker; obviously.

I had this above, but it is a metal on a black glass stand.

Almost forgot this one. 1890-1900. What the Germans call Hirsutismus; when between 1872 the French war and start of one Germany, and 1910 all new rich tried to add an old flair to what wasn't inherited after all.

A various combinations of old styles from gothic up.

 

Silver, French @ 1850. Notice cuttlefish shaker/sand wasn't used to dry ink, but to keep two sheets from coming into contact when as the inks dried.

Also...French @ 1850.

 

Flea markets, live auctions and even German Ebay.

I've missed winning  a few Ink Wells from England that some day I might find again....fool, how was I to know Brexit was coming....

[lapis]

 

I like these the most -- silver on light blue -- but I'd hit on salt and pepper.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Various glass.

Sterling silver tops.

Seem to have misplaced a few of them...should be 5 and find only two.

 

 

Black smooth hard rubber top. a 146 came with the inkwell, and I wanted the ink well more. A 146 BB stub + inkwell cost E-150.

'20's-30's

 

As soon as wished, the marble single and double inkwells.

[Bo Bo Olson]

One I don't have, but wanted except for one small problem it had cost a fortune...don't remember how much now but E-360 rings a bell.

Visconti.

I think I was on my third or forth inkwell when I couldn't afford this one.

One of those thoughts, if I'd gotten that one, I'd not have my collection. It would have been like starting out with an MB...where do you go from there.

[txomsy]

Please do go ahead. I have no more inkwells to show, but I'm eager to see others' collections.

[I-am-not-really-here]

3 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

One I don't have, but wanted except for one small problem it had cost a fortune...don't remember how much now but E-360 rings a bell.

Visconti.

I think I was on my third or forth inkwell when I couldn't afford this one.

One of those thoughts, if I'd gotten that one, I'd not have my collection. It would have been like starting out with an MB...where do you go from there.

That one is modern, its piano gloss finish a giveaway.  The bottom half is a drawer, holding 10 or 12 pens.  €360 a steal, should have bought two!  A pair of cut glass jars alone probably cost that much today.
 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Marble

This one is tiny, a inkwell for a Lady to write a thank you or acceptance note.

The dip pen is steel and Russian.

 

Some day I've got to load my car full of inkwells and go down intot he Black Forest and find a glasshutte...glass blowing factory and get different sized inkwell inserts.

This one has the proper glass insert.

Not quite a match of stamp and letter opener,

 

I'd been looking for this picture for above, but forgot.

They did teal nice stuff with hard rubber.

My Pelikan pen set, one fits an 800/1000 the other the 400/600. a 915 sterling silver 1992/3 Toledo Hunter..

A dip pen case. The pen is now in that dainty little white marble and fire gilded brass.

 

I had missed this one, rather simple, silver plated.

Not the missing sterling silver topped inkwells but others that came with the stand. My Touchdown and the black feather 'dip pen' came with the stand, and not having any of my goose feathers any more kept the black feather as decoration. Above and below  my NOS W.German 200 set. the pen stands don't quite match, but sometimes when one is buying in a live auction they have other items in your lot. 

Not the sharpest picture of one of my two wooden roller blotters.

A plain light brown wooden didn't get into any pictures.

The blotter in this picture showed me, one should not blot a ED blob, just let the blob dry naturally.

Polished agate

[Bo Bo Olson]

1 hour ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

 €360 a steal, should have bought two!

Would have been, but I was more than likely hovering at under e-100 as a max for a pen then....grimacing at spending E-70 for this the sharpest 'cut' BCHR pen I have.

By the time a couple years later when I seriously thought of mortgaging my soul, they stopped making them.

 

There was a time 'Before the War', when even no-names where grand.

 

This is a E-350 pen that I didn't buy either. For the same price, Would have wanted the Soennecken 111 Extra in Heringbone.....(missing a nose in the air smilie). Lizard wasn't good enough....for a grail pen.

Osmia Supra, a pen Osmia took aim at the big three, Soennecken, MB and Kaweco. IMO caught them. Pelikan wasn't quite  Big Three yet.

Pictures....for folks that like wide nibs. ? BBBBB?

 

 

My Pelikan 500 I eyeball to a OBBB and it takes 2/3rds or 3/4ths a page to write a 15 letter legal signature. One wants extra wide paper for a signature using that pen.

 

Eventually I got E-750 together for that Soennecken 111 Extra....and for well over 6 months none showed up....seeing it had taken 5-6 years since it first became a gail pen, had allowed 'more than enough' with double the last seen price.

Would have gladly taken that Osmia.........

 

Some Idiot Hunter wanted only $900 for a Soennecken 111 Extra....it was up for some 6-8 months, and I don't know if he found his idiot or he took less money. It was in the wrong herringbone color....so the money burnt a hole in my pocket and a flock of Pelikans followed me home from the wharf.

 

 

 

[lapis]

Really fantastic items. One's more beautiful and/or nostalgic, majestic, eternal than the other. And I thought you collected inks!

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you....

 

No only have 85-93 inks give or take.

You are one I 'listen' to about inks.

 

Though we once swapped bottles of ESSR ink back when it was 'new & hot' on the com, and or you gave me yours. We were getting slightly different readings.

A few were antique shop buys, some were live auction house wins, others from flea markets.

The softball sized one was found at a flea market.

Back when E-35-40 was a lot of money for pen stuff, I bargained someone down to that. That is a heavy ball of glass.

 

The blacksmith was bigger than thought, was an en Ebay win....couldn't have been more then e-20-25.

 

Unfortunately, now that the banks don't give interest a lot of people are investing in inkwells I wanted....and could have well afforded two years ago. ...grumble cubed...two-pen inkwell collectors.

 

 

Must say, I really don't have all that much space left....without it becoming real busy, and creating the heresy of empty bookshelves, with inkwells blocking sight of others.

[lapis]

Wow.... softball-sized. That must weigh a ton. Presumably lead crystal. Watch out that it doesn't hit the floor or it'll wreck it (the floor) like my bottle of Tiananmen once did. As to collecting bookshelves, may I suggest the good ol' Billy versions? I have 15 of 'em in my room, each with two height extension units. Two of them are filled up exclusively with my inks.

[Audrey T]

On 1/21/2022 at 9:56 PM, MHBru said:

she was cleaning house

Lucky you! That is just gorgeous. Very cool indeed.

[Bo Bo Olson]

You haven't seen my collection of pewter topped beer mugs in my glass door'ed Billy's. (the rest don't have doors one losses space. 6 books per book case if doors, glass or sold are added. Once that mattered.)  In I worked at Ikea I got them cheap. The old good ones; the new ones are now cheaper made.

 

In my old place, a long thin room, I had some 15-16 if counting half book cases, with extensions of course.

 

Then we moved into our own apartment and I lost halve of my book cases. Not only that the wife took one and a half just for her books on porcelain.

Not counting the beer mug and ink storage glass doored Bill.  Now for me, only 5 full book cases, 3 halves; and one and a corner Billy for my wife.

 

The Americans had a thrift shop where books were a quarter apiece, so I'd stuffed those book cases.

 

It's sickening to get of so many books....And then just last year, 600 of the three times culled books, had to go to have space for my inkwells, in the wife wanted to use her living room, for more than inkwell storage.

I even had a pewter top made for my Clydesdale Budweiser mug. The tall one in the far right corner of the top shelf.

 

Those got thinned of the last of my party mugs....the ones if broken so what.

My porcelain skull beer mug is out in my wife's top moccacup/demi-tasse lighted glass tower, with her top cups.

Dam I've not drank out of it this decade....just put that on my list of things to do.

 

Got 10 swords....missing two or three. Don't have pictures of them, but two taken from the auction house.

Left handed, Spanish/Portuguese 'court' small sword @ 1850. More were killed with a small sword than a rapier also. Was in use longer and being shorter, the drunks didn't stumble over it.

Dutch cutlass, @ 1900.

More than likely more folks were killed with a cutlass than a rapier.

It and it's cousin the Falchone and or (German Grosse Messer) were in use since the late 15th century.

[amberleadavis]

Please keep the pictures coming. This is a wonderful collection.