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ID'ing a pre-Wahl Boston???


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#1 david i

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Posted 13 August 2010 - 12:31 PM

So, I have this lovely wahl-like metal (overlay?) gold-filled pen. Ringtop but with long cap. Laden with "1904" patent imprints. Decent condition. No nib. No Wahl imprints

Did the earliest Wahls have imprints on cap/barrel? If not, this is a Boston?

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d
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#2 Roger W.

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Posted 13 August 2010 - 02:46 PM

So, I have this lovely wahl-like metal (overlay?) gold-filled pen. Ringtop but with long cap. Laden with "1904" patent imprints. Decent condition. No nib. No Wahl imprints

Did the earliest Wahls have imprints on cap/barrel? If not, this is a Boston?

regards

d


David;

Nice picture (C'mon the rules for asking "what is it?" always includes a picture). Overlays in the Boston/Wahl Tempoint period have the 1904 patent dates. Wahl continued almost exactly with the Boston lineup with the key difference being that the pens were now marked Wahl Tempoint. So hard rubber pens are found with the new imprint but, there is no other way to mark the overlay so typically you have to go with the nib that is found in the pen Boston=Boston Tempoint=Tempoint. No nib leaves it to interpretation unless is it one of the few new chasing patterns that were only used by Wahl such as greek key or the single flower on a plain background.

Roger W.

#3 david i

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Posted 14 August 2010 - 01:41 AM

David;

Nice picture (C'mon the rules for asking "what is it?" always includes a picture). Overlays in the Boston/Wahl Tempoint period have the 1904 patent dates. Wahl continued almost exactly with the Boston lineup with the key difference being that the pens were now marked Wahl Tempoint. So hard rubber pens are found with the new imprint but, there is no other way to mark the overlay so typically you have to go with the nib that is found in the pen Boston=Boston Tempoint=Tempoint. No nib leaves it to interpretation unless is it one of the few new chasing patterns that were only used by Wahl such as greek key or the single flower on a plain background.

Roger W.


Yes, yes... I have been known occasionally to break rules on pen boards ;)

Putting aside that I'm sorting though 1000 pens from this ol' hoard, I am back now at work, continuing the run of shifts cause by illness in our group. By next weekend will have worked, oh, 35 of 43 , or something like that. Sleeping so late by day that little time to play with pens in the afternoon. Unless lucky, my next serious photo shoot will be more than week from now. Might be able to squeak a shot of this pen by Monday.

It catches my eye for being not quite the typical Wahl. It is gold-filled with a lined pattern that evokes Waterman's Sheraton pattern. For a ring-top, the cap seems disproportionately long, relative to most Wahls I've seen. Again, "1904" patent marks but no name on pen. Not near mint but decent (bit of brassing at butt, no significant dings).

-d





David R. Isaacson MD. Website: VACUMANIA.com for quality old pens with full warranty.
Email: isaacson@frontiernet.net

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#4 Roger W.

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Posted 14 August 2010 - 01:59 AM

With further study I now note another possible method to tell the difference. I don't actually have many Tempoint overlay examples which duplicate a Boston overlay. The closest I come to an overlap is in plain sterling but, the Tempoint example is easy to detect from the fact that it uses the lever licensed from Sheaffer rather than the Boston DeFrance lever. Now if I had a plain sterling Tempoint in eyedropper it would be hard to decern from a Boston.

This problem is ascerbated by the very method of distinction that I laid out previously in which you can tell by the nib that is in the pen however, there are cases when a Boston nib is in a Tempoint and vice versa. I have just descovered that one of my "Boston's" is in fact a Tempoint as it has the Sheaffer licensed lever but a Boston nib. So now I am one Boston down - I should have noted it before. To get me back to parity I have found a plain sterling with no nib that is clearly a Boston as it has the DeFrance lever so I will now classify that one correctly.

This difference in chasing between Boston overlays and Tempoints could have been deliberate on Wahl's part. As all chasing on hard rubber pens was virtually the same with most pen makers with the name clearly imprinted of the maker or even no names which are encountered. Chasing on overlays varied widely as overly pens were a step up from BCHR. Wahl's 1921 catalogue shows only two paterns that would be possible to confuse with Boston; the unchased eyedropper and the ribbon chased eyedropper (what is commonly called sheraton).

Roger W.

#5 Roger W.

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Posted 14 August 2010 - 04:28 AM

So I took some pics.

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The short ones are standard length ringtops. The ones on the left are Bostons and the ones on the right are Tempoints.

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These are very similar models but the levers tell. The top is a Tempoint (1917-1921) and the lower is a Boston (1916).
Two reasons you can date it to 1916. The patent wasn't applied for until early 1916 and Boston advertises it as new in 1916.

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The above two open. As the lower didn't have a nib the only way to prove what it is is from the DeFrance lever = Boston.

#6 david i

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Posted 15 August 2010 - 12:47 AM

So I took some pics.


The short ones are standard length ringtops. The ones on the left are Bostons and the ones on the right are Tempoints.


These are very similar models but the levers tell.
snip




Nice shots. Especially like fourth from right at top.

OK. Here is the suspect pen (surrounded by couple nice Sheaffers also part of "da hoard" (tribute to Frank).

Does the shape of lever pancake differ between the Wahl and Boston? Seems so in you pic, but could be photo artifact.


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regards

david




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#7 Roger W.

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Posted 15 August 2010 - 01:02 AM

Nice shots. Especially like fourth from right at top.

OK. Here is the suspect pen (surrounded by couple nice Sheaffers also part of "da hoard" (tribute to Frank).

Does the shape of lever pancake differ between the Wahl and Boston? Seems so in you pic, but could be photo artifact.


Posted Image


regards

david


That is a style that could be employed by both Boston and Wahl. The lever is a Tempoint lever though. Note the square flat look and the hump in the middle - the DeFrance lever would not have that. The Tempoint caps are a bit longer than later Wahl caps and Boston caps so your feeling that it is somewhat disproportionate would follow. The caps are not however, as long as long ringtop caps are.

Roger W.




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