Jump to content


Photo

Gifted, as they say...


  • Please log in to reply
2 replies to this topic

#1 Teej47

Teej47

    journeyman

  • Members
  • 527 posts
  • LocationSpokane, WA

Posted 04 August 2010 - 06:45 PM

Last week I was chatting with a friend of mine telling him about the couple of pens I'd just picked up while down in San Diego. A few days later I received a phone message that the very next day he'd been helping his mom 'clean out some stuff' because she was moving and had discovered a couple pens in his dad's old desk. Said he figured I'd have more use for them than him and wondered if I'd like to have them. He went on to say that "one says Lifetime on it and the other just says Parker". Whoa. Does this kind of thing really happen?

So yesterday I picked up the pens. Black Sheaffer Lifetime ('63 or '64) with a medium nib that actually has a little give to it (not really flex, but not at all firm... way more flex than I'd expect). Pristine condition. Judging by the wear, or actually lack of, and minimal ink residue (including none whatsoever in the cap), it appears to me that the guy used the one or two cartridges that came with the pen and then never used the pen again. I happened to have an empty cartridge for it (from another one once given to me that appears to have been run over be a car), and am actually using it today. I officially disdain cartridge pens, but I like this one.

The other is a Demi "51" in black. This was apparently the pen my friend's dad actually used, though he took imaculate care of it. The cap jewel has the slightest bit of what appears to be crazing inside, but there's nary a scuff on the cap. The last load of blue black ink came out easily enough, and it only took a couple minutes to buff the barrel to a like new sheen, making the 9 date code pop (the nib is dated 1948). The only issue is that the breather tube looks like shiny silver swiss cheese, and had completely corroded through where it attached to the feed. If not for that little set-back, I'd probably have both pens with me at work today.

Neither are 'high cache' I suppose, but what can be better than a pen (or two) from a friend? I'll post a picture one of these days.

Happy Tim!
The only sense that's common is nonsense...

#2 penmanila

penmanila

    journeyman

  • Members
  • 618 posts
  • LocationManila/Virginia/San Diego

Posted 04 August 2010 - 11:40 PM

indeed, gift pens can bring the greatest joy, being unexpected.... and sometimes, also unexpectedly, they turn out to be truly lovely and quite valuable pens. i've had this experience of receiving fabulous pens as gifts from friends simply because i had let people know that i collect FPs. i'm posting a couple of these below--a pilot "two cranes" maki-e pen from a friend who had this rolling arpund unused in his drawer for years (it was also a gift to him by a japanese visitor back when he was a university official), and a sheaffer commemorative from, shall we way, a friend of some means, who thought to pick this up for me at the airport pen shop in singapore:

Posted Image

Posted Image
Check out my pens here and my blog here.

#3 Teej47

Teej47

    journeyman

  • Members
  • 527 posts
  • LocationSpokane, WA

Posted 05 August 2010 - 03:17 PM

Very cool!

I finished my refurb of the "51" last night. Had to cannibalize and modify a breather tube from a Hero pen I happened to have (and don't use)... which should do until I can come up with better. I inked it for the first time a few minutes ago and it's like writing in butter. This is the first "51" I've used that I like. If it was blue it would be perfect!

Tim
The only sense that's common is nonsense...




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users