Clipless Swan
#1
Posted 18 November 2012 - 03:30 AM
#2
Posted 18 November 2012 - 09:52 AM
Regards
Hugh
#3
Posted 18 November 2012 - 05:12 PM
I have this weird quirk, where I like to see documentation of items in my collection. I have several nifty items, that on the surface appear to be unique, which is unlikely. Probably, has more to do with the fact they are close to a hundred years old and were household items.
#4
Posted 18 November 2012 - 06:18 PM
As I said in FPN, clips were supplied as an optional extra by most British companies during the period that your pen was produced, hence the ability to fit a clip if it was required. It may well be that there are examples around that have clips, but bear in mind that this is a decidedly uncommon pen. In many years of concentrating on Swans yours is the first of that model that I've seen. I've never seen a Swan with quite that construction of cap - at any size. I have quite a collection of Swan advertising but nothing quite like your pen appears in any of them. For the moment (until the next one appears) your pen is beyond rare - it's unique!Yes, I doubt it ever had a clip as well. That said, why make such an end cap if a clip was never going to be available? Hopefully someone else will have one of these with a clip and post a picture, even a smaller size. Of course, I would be delighted if someone said he just happened to have a clip he would sell. Even some advertising would be great.
I have this weird quirk, where I like to see documentation of items in my collection. I have several nifty items, that on the surface appear to be unique, which is unlikely. Probably, has more to do with the fact they are close to a hundred years old and were household items.
#8
Posted 19 November 2012 - 08:40 AM
From the CS advertising of the time it is clear that the removable cap end / inner cap preceded washer clips, these came as an afterthought. The design appears to have been developed c. 1925 for ease of cleaning and (probably) ease of manufacture, though pens with this feature did carry a price premium, as can be seen from the Dandy range. The 800 and 820 were virtually identical but the 820 had a removable (domed) cap end and it cost a shilling more than the 800, about a 15% increase in price.
More may be revealed when Steve Hull finally gets round to the definitive Swan book in a few years' time!
Andy
#9
Posted 19 November 2012 - 09:44 AM
That type of cap construction is very typical of Conway Stewart from the mid 1920s onwards. There was much cross-fertilisation going on in the UK market at this time and it may just be that Swan tried out the concept and didn't like it, for whatever reason, so it never made mainstream. In a similar way, CS copied some competitors by using full lever boxes on a few pens around the same time but they never caught on in the CS range either and they patented their own 'locking lever' system in 1925.
That's an interesting theory that fits the facts. Quite a convincing explanation.
#11
Posted 19 December 2012 - 10:44 AM
Andy
#13
Posted 19 December 2012 - 04:16 PM
Andy
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users