32 replies to this topic

[david i]

At the Ohio Pen Show, a long time collector wanted to move all his American pens in one fell swoop. I was happy to be approached, as I've had the pleasure to buy some nice pen collections during the last few years. With a rather huge price tag, I opted to bring in a few pen friends, and invited Rick Propas, Mike Dvoretz, Jim Baer and Richard Binder to play. We spent ten hours reviewing the collection, debating values, assessing condition, generating a spread sheet. When all was said and done, and with pens not in our arena (eg. Maki-e) removed, the total came to just 40% of initial expectation. Still, we were in it together.

This collection harbors some of the iconic pieces from our hobby, pens that have appeared in the Great Pen Books of the 1990's, pens that are few-to-one known.

How's that old expression go... Happy David?

I laid out the check for the hoard. The other guys wrote me checks for their share. The only member of our crew to drive instead of fly took the pens home, and today, nearly a month later, we met at my apartment in Manhattan to start to divide the collection.

We now are the Gang of Five: Pens. We have a Facebook page. Feel free to look in, to follow the blog posts, to comment.



http://www.facebook.com/GangOfFivePens

In the coming days, as we process them you'll see some truly killer pens.

Here is the gang before the Big Divvy, at dinner at one of my favorite kosher steakhouses, Deli Kasbah

And four of the guys at the apartment perusing the pile before we did our football-draft style selection.

We'll have video to follow and images of the 200 pens in the collection. Stay tuned for :

• Waterman Stanhope Woolworth Pen
• Parker #1 Taper Cap mottled
• Waterman 0558, 458, 558
• Solid Gold Sheaffers, Wahl and Conklin
• Carey Black Giant
• Waterman 404
• Parker 75 Queen Elizabeth
• Oh yeah, Sheaffer PFM Masterpiece Solid Gold (British)
• and so much more...

regards

david

[Teej47]

Love that last picture - four guys all looking down through bifocals! Makes me feel not quite so old...

Tim

[Pensee]

Love that last picture - four guys all looking down through bifocals! Makes me feel not quite so old...

Tim

Heh. We're both 47 right? Spring chickens!

As for "Gang of Five"... saying congrads doesn't seem to do justice.

Speechless? Amazed? Dumbfounded?

Green with envy? Yeah! That's the ticket!

Nah! You guys earned that capital to pay out, and probably had to earn respect within pen community to even have opportunity for that kind of deal.

I'm no sycophant, but sincerest compliment I can think of at the moment.

"20 or 30 years from now, I wanna be at a table like that one!"

All the best

--Bruce



All the best

--Bruce

[david i]

SNIP

Speechless? Amazed? Dumbfounded?

Green with envy? Yeah! That's the ticket!

Nah! You guys earned that capital to pay out, and probably had to earn respect within pen community to even have opportunity for that kind of deal.

I'm no sycophant, but sincerest compliment I can think of at the moment.

"20 or 30 years from now, I wanna be at a table like that one!"

All the best

--Bruce

Geez, and you guys have not even seen the pens yet.

regards

david

[Hugh]

So a third UK PFM surfaces ? Or was it the first just "doing the rounds", anyway hope you all shelled out the appropriately large sum of money for it !!

Regards
Hugh

[david i]

So a third UK PFM surfaces ? Or was it the first just "doing the rounds", anyway hope you all shelled out the appropriately large sum of money for it !!

Regards
Hugh

This was the "original". And, I did obtain it for my own collection from the Big Divvy. Price was very nice

regards

david

[david i]

Here are the first 8 items (couple are sets) photographed from the pen collection purchased by the Gang of Five:

Parker 51's.

L to R:

• True Demonstrator (vac-fill)
• Scarce English Rolled Silver set
• English solid 9k-gold "Presidential"
• Pair of Italian Cosca (sp?) brand modified pens
• Solid Gold Fishscale cap
• Solid Gold smooth cap set
• Scarce Watermelon (two tone stripe) cap (on Buckskin pen).

Another 190 or so to follow...


regards

david

[stevlight]

This is incredible--can not wait to see everything.

[Indy-Pen-Dance]

Having seen some of these while at the Ohio Show, I can say that you guys ROCKED this purchase in a major way! Congrats on the UK gold David. Nice Nice NICE pick up! I can't wait to see what pens remain that you guys are going to put up for sale! I am absolutely in the market for a Gang O 5 pen!! Like Bruce, there really is not a great compliment that can be put into mere words for this, but someday I too want to be at a table just like that full of pens that I am a part of purchasing!!



Linda

[JonSzanto]

It's a little hard for a mere mortal like myself to know what to say, except to offer hearty congratulations to all involved. I hope that we are able to view a good number of these rare acquisitions!

[Richard]

Actually, the pic David posted above isn't the first pens photographed. It shows the first tray of pens David photographed. I had the pleasure of holding custody of the hoard until we could forgather in New York, and I photographed many of them. This photo, which I posted on the Gang of Five: Pens Facebook page, shows the first pen I picked in the Pickfest (a Waterman Doll Pen) and a pen that we've decided to sell as a group (a Waterman RHR 418):



So we have a Happy David, and we have a Happy Richard, too. I suspect that we also have a Happy Jim and a Happy Mike and a Happy Rick, but I'll let them speak for themselves.

[Jim B]

Love that last picture - four guys all looking down through bifocals! Makes me feel not quite so old...

Tim

Heh. We're both 47 right? Spring chickens!

As for "Gang of Five"... saying congrads doesn't seem to do justice.

Speechless? Amazed? Dumbfounded?

Green with envy? Yeah! That's the ticket!

Nah! You guys earned that capital to pay out, and probably had to earn respect within pen community to even have opportunity for that kind of deal.

I'm no sycophant, but sincerest compliment I can think of at the moment.

"20 or 30 years from now, I wanna be at a table like that one!"

All the best

--Bruce



All the best

--Bruce

Well I have bifocals, and I think at least one other member has trifocals

Riding home now after the big divvy reflecting on all that has happened since that fateful moment ( for me) when David asked if I would like to participate in this monster buy. Although I could raise the funds, the amount made me gulp while simultaneously trying to decide how I could possibly square it with my wife, Holy **** that's a huge amount of $ to put into pens and no way to get it approved by the "boss" before I had to say Yea or Nay. I took 5 minutes, spun around in a daze, went back to David and took the fateful plunge.

It has turned out to be one of the most intense, incredible experiences of my life.

But really,truly,not just for the pens.

Sure, getting a bunch of amazing, in many cases superlative, iconic pens for bargain cost would seem the be- all ,end- all of the experience. Especially after somewhat stressful negotiations with the seller.

For me, going through the entire process with the 4 pen people I most respect, admire, and am lucky enough to call my friends was the truly sublime part.

It was a unique bonding experience filled with a rich stew of varying emotions
that will forever mark it as prehaps my most memorable pen experience.

So yes, getting to sit at that table was all and more than you preceptively imagined.

Edited by Jim B, 06 December 2012 - 06:29 PM.

[david i]

Items 9-17 or so, of the 200:

• Waterman 454 Night and Day (sterling slotted overlay). Superb
• Waterman 0512 1/2 Secretary Pen (really just a name for a slender HR pen from its era). Clean gold-filled smooth overly
• Waterman 100-year (1939-ish) first year green.
• Waterman Patrician, Moss Agate
• Waterman 444. a 4-size Safety Pen with sterling "filigree"
• Waterman 404 early straight-cap pen with repousse (snail-ish) sterling overly. Fully marked ("404" on butt)
• Waterman 100-year 1940 Supersize set in red (first style of oversized pen)
• Waterman Patrician in black
• "Berliner" Frankenpen. An iconic hobby pen featured in PenWorld back in the 1990's, in which Geoff put an overlay on a mottled Waterman, just to show it could be done.

regards

David

[John Jenkins]

Wow!

Congrats on the purchase. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall as the negotiations proceeded. Considering the personalities, I'm sure there was some real golden moments.

They certainly look like great quality. Show more!

John

[david i]

Items 18-20 of 200

• Parker #1. Taper cap. Mottled HR. Superb condition
• Parker 61 18k-gold "Presidential". English.
• Parker 51 set. Smooth solid gold.

Items 21- 29 of 200

• Conklin 1920's "Halloween" set.
• Conklin RHR Crescent-fill.
• Conklin MHR Crescent-fill
• Conklin Crescent, sterling "filigree" overlay (replacement crescent?)
• Conklin flat-top sub-Endura line. Pastel Green
• Another Conklin flat-top sub-Endura line. Pastel Green.
• Conklin Nozac. Black herringbone
• Conklin Noazc OS. Green Herringbone
• Conklin NOzac. Gray/red marble

regards

david

[JonSzanto]

Incredible. Those "Halloweens" look like a brand new set!

[Hugh]

The RHR crescent filler is a serious pen, this is one amazing high end collection you guys have managed to acquire and no doubt some serious ( gee this seems to be becoming a bit over used...) money changed hands....

Regards
Hugh

[FmrLEO_GJ]

Congratulations gentlemen in purchasing, and sharing out the booty equitably it seems.

I agree with Hugh and Jon [above] regarding those particular examples.

A little further above in the photo including the #1 Parker taper... Stunning.
The #61 Parker next to it seems a little bent.... OR... is the cap simply not put on squarely?

Respectfully

[david i]

The Parke 61 is straight. Position and shadows I think hit the image.

Here's a tray with items 30-38 of 200: Security Fountain Pens, many with the classic check protector feature. Also are a couple dedicated check-protector units, meant to accompany (but not be integral to) the pens. Recollection is that Security pens were assembled by college students to help pay their way through school. Red Hard Rubber pens are clean, without cracks. The Jade is scarce. Security is among the many quite high quality small-make/short-existence sort that collectors cherish (as with Dunn, Sanford and Bennet, Carey and others of this sort). These are not low-tier items, and they can match/trump similar size/appearance pens from the Big Guys.

Items 39- 45 of 200: More Security and ??? More of the dedicated check protector units to match pens (Never saw those prior to this purchase) and more pens. We're not sure about the red pen with gold-filled overlay. There was thought it might be a Security product, but it... might not be.

regards

david

[philm]

Wow,

Just got back from my annual trip off the grid to the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) in Las Vegas, and look what I missed. Great glimpse into a "new" collection.

Phil