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Lucky Find That Almost Wasn't


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#1 BrianMcQueen

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 11:57 PM

I am traveling for work and had a short day today. Since I still had a little of the afternoon left, I decided to go out and hunt for pens. Am I glad I did, too.
I went into an Antique Mall and found the case in the picture below. It was full of military stuff, and I almost missed the pens that were in the case. Can you spot them? I just caught them out of the corner of my eye as I was walking away.
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They are located BEHIND the huge clock in the lower right hand corner! It was like he didn't want to sell them, they were hidden so well

Anyway, onto the fantastic pens I got. Sorry for the picture quality. All I have with me to take pictures is my iPhone.
First, a Black Parker 51, and a PLUM Parker 51 (Yes, it is plum, even though it's hard to tell)
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Then, a nice Striped Duofold
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And an early Lucky Curve Duofold Sr.
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With a STUB nib!
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And finally, a Waterman 472 1/2 Pansy Panel
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#2 david i

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Posted 13 April 2013 - 12:57 AM

I am traveling for work and had a short day today. Since I still had a little of the afternoon left, I decided to go out and hunt for pens. Am I glad I did, too.
I went into an Antique Mall and found the case in the picture below. It was full of military stuff, and I almost missed the pens that were in the case. Can you spot them? I just caught them out of the corner of my eye as I was walking away.
SNIP


Killer find, Brian.

While the 472 1/2 (threaded cap, but eye dropper filler) is way rarer than a 452 1/2 (threaded cap lever filler), it is something of an obscure critter. I suspect I've never seen any 7x pen in pansy panel overlay. And a Stub DF nib. I am cheerfully jealous, no joke :)

regards

david
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#3 JonSzanto

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Posted 13 April 2013 - 01:48 AM

Good grief, Brian! That is an amazing 'lot'. This kind of thing seems to happen to you pretty frequently - is it the area of the country you travel in, or do you just have good karma?

#4 BrianMcQueen

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Posted 13 April 2013 - 02:25 AM

Killer find, Brian.

While the 472 1/2 (threaded cap, but eye dropper filler) is way rarer than a 452 1/2 (threaded cap lever filler), it is something of an obscure critter. I suspect I've never seen any 7x pen in pansy panel overlay. And a Stub DF nib. I am cheerfully jealous, no joke :)

regards

david

David, you must have been working some long hours lately to let the "R" word slip like that. Admittedly, it was used in a comparative fashion, though. I did figure this was a rather uncommon pen, though. I haven't seen much talk about the 7x series in general, so I figured a Sterling overlay 72 1/2 would be a not-often-seen beast. It's a cute little pen, really. It's not in perfect shape, but it's not bad, either. I have added a couple pictures of it below. If you were going to be at the Atlanta show this weekend, David, I'd show it to you tomorrow. Then you could say you HAVE seen a 7x in pansy panel.

If you had one and were going to throw a price tag on it, how much do you think it would be? I honestly have no idea how to price out Watermans.

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Good grief, Brian! That is an amazing 'lot'. This kind of thing seems to happen to you pretty frequently - is it the area of the country you travel in, or do you just have good karma?

Jon, thanks! It takes a lot of looking to find them. I have gone into plenty of places and wound up with nothing. I spent some money today, no doubt. They weren't priced out at basement bargain prices, though I think I still got a really good deal.

#5 79spitfire

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Posted 13 April 2013 - 03:51 AM

That's a pretty stellar score! A Plum 51, a Duofold Stub, and a Pansy overlay 7x Waterman.

I'm pretty sure you could ask for blood for any of those and likely get it! (in any type or quantity!)
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#6 FmrLEO_GJ

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Posted 13 April 2013 - 04:07 AM

Congratulations Brian on a wonderful 'swag' of pens... and thanks for sharing.
Garth
Penguin, NW Tasmania, Australia

We will be forever known by the tracks we leave behind - Sitting Bull

#7 Greg Minuskin

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Posted 14 April 2013 - 08:11 PM

Incredible collection of goodies, thank you for sharing!

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#8 ljwahl

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Posted 14 April 2013 - 08:56 PM

Wow, wow, wow!

#9 Procyon

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Posted 15 April 2013 - 04:23 AM

Brian, that is an astounding group of pens to find in one place! I can never find anything worthwhile in local flea markets, and have generally given up trying. Maybe when I travel I should start making more of an effort. Apparently, there are some good pens somewhere out there! B)

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#10 JonSzanto

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Posted 15 April 2013 - 05:38 AM

Brian, that is an astounding group of pens to find in one place! I can never find anything worthwhile in local flea markets, and have generally given up trying. Maybe when I travel I should start making more of an effort. Apparently, there are some good pens somewhere out there! B)

Location, location, location. How many great surfboards do you think Brian sees? :)

#11 BrianMcQueen

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Posted 15 April 2013 - 04:03 PM

Everyone, thank you for the kind comments. I consider myself very lucky to have found these pens, and I am very excited about them. I especially cannot wait to get home and restore the Big Red so I can write with that stub nib. I took these pens with me to the Atlanta show this weekend, and I got asked by a few people if I was willing to part with any of them. I almost let the Plum 51 go.

#12 Wahl

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Posted 15 April 2013 - 05:24 PM

Congratulations, great find !

I envy that 51 plum and the Stub Big Red.

Edited by Wahl, 15 April 2013 - 05:26 PM.


#13 BrianMcQueen

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 03:35 PM

I got the Waterman cleaned up a bit and took a nicer picture of it.

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#14 david i

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 03:39 PM

In another thread related to this, Brian asked what makes this pen scarce/interesting.

Here's my response from that thread.


Hi Brian,

Suspect your signal was lost in the noise of this thread Posted Image

While I'm not quite as sharp on details of 1910's-1920's as some others who play here, here is my view...

7x pens are at least relatively uncommon. By 1917, when I believe the major revamp of Waterman's numbering system occurred (the 1xPSF lever filler became the 5x, the 1xPOC became the 7x, the1xS safety became the 4x), Waterman had lever-fill (screw cap, though I learned here at FPB this month that some rare lever-fill slip cap pens also exist) and eye-dropper fill (safety, conventional screw cap, and slip cap).

The 7x pens of course were the eye droppers with screw cap. They looked at first peek quite like the 5x lever fillers (52, 56, etc), but lacked the lever.

My speculation (not unreasonable) is that with the surge in self-fillers, the screw-cap eyedroppers were not a hot cluster. Certainly while the 52 might today be the most common Waterman from the era, 72 shows up but occasionally. Larger 7x pens are more scarce still, though I own a 76 and though a Ripple 78 was claimed by Mike Dvoretz as part of the Gang of Five pen purchase at Ohio November 2012.

Now, recognizing I have not closely examined every one of the multitudes of apparent overlay 5x pens I've seen at pen shows (eg. 452, a silver overly 5x pen with #2 nib) to make sure the pen wasn't lacking a lever (thus making it a 472), I note that I have been aware of seeing really very few Sterling 7x pens. I've never seen (or never realized I've seen) a 47x in Pansy. Obviously, someone with stronger Waterman focus (David Nishimura, Bob Novak, Gary Lehrer) might have seen such. But, still, these are very scarce.

How many Sterling pens were made at far higher retail cost than plain black HR, back in the day? Plain pens are far more common today, and probably more of the plain pens were tossed over the years (people were more likely, I assert, to keep silver 'jewelry' pens over the years than old black pens), meaning the plain pens were reeaaaallllly more common at time of issue. This makes sense. How many bics are sold today vs MB 149 Posted Image

For someone to invest in a sterling overlay on what apparently was already a far less popular pen (7x eye dropper vs 5x lever filler), must have been an uncommon occurrence.

Thus, the pens today are scarce.

regards

david i


Feel free to critique...

regards

david
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Email: isaacson@frontiernet.net

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#15 FmrLEO_GJ

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 11:33 PM

I got the Waterman cleaned up a bit and took a nicer picture of it.

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G'day Brian ;)

That looks truly beautiful now that you have cleaned it up! B)
Can I ask you to explain what you did / used to get it from where it was to where it IS now? Please?
[You can PM me if you feel others would already know how-to]

Also, if the pen had been Gold, would you have used the same method, or something specific to it.

I have a Sterling Silver 'repousseé' Onoto, and a Gold 18K overlay I would like to attempt to bring to something close to yours.

Regards
Garth
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#16 Procyon

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Posted 22 April 2013 - 12:02 AM

Brian,

That is really an outstanding pen. I have several Pansy Panels overlays, and most of the engraving looks similar ( although there are several different patterns that are called the same thing) - the different thing about your pen is how extraordinarily deep the engraving gets for "holes" in the pattern. Don't know how else to describe them - they are often at the center of the Pansy blossom. It really gives your pen an impressive look. By the way, is the cap top nice and circular? That is sort of the Achilles heel for Waterman overlays, and it is often dented. Congrats again on some terrific pens!

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Regards,
Allan


#17 BrianMcQueen

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Posted 22 April 2013 - 12:59 AM

G'day Brian ;)

That looks truly beautiful now that you have cleaned it up! B)
Can I ask you to explain what you did / used to get it from where it was to where it IS now? Please?
[You can PM me if you feel others would already know how-to]

Also, if the pen had been Gold, would you have used the same method, or something specific to it.

I have a Sterling Silver 'repousseé' Onoto, and a Gold 18K overlay I would like to attempt to bring to something close to yours.

Regards


Garth,
I just used a Sunshine Cloth to give it the shine. It honestly didn't change much in appearance from the initial pictures. It was mostly a better photography setup that makes it look so good in the "after" picture.

I would use the same thing on a gold pen, too. Never use a cream or liquid on any sort of filigree, or it will get caught in the empty spaces and damage the hard rubber. Using a sunshine (or similar) cloth, a heavy repoussee would get the high spots polished out to a shine, and the deep portions would retain their dark patina (a look that I personally think would look fantastic)

Brian,

That is really an outstanding pen. I have several Pansy Panels overlays, and most of the engraving looks similar ( although there are several different patterns that are called the same thing) - the different thing about your pen is how extraordinarily deep the engraving gets for "holes" in the pattern. Don't know how else to describe them - they are often at the center of the Pansy blossom. It really gives your pen an impressive look. By the way, is the cap top nice and circular? That is sort of the Achilles heel for Waterman overlays, and it is often dented. Congrats again on some terrific pens!


The cap top isn't the best I've ever seen, but it's not the worst either. This pen was definitely used quite a bit in its lifetime.

#18 FmrLEO_GJ

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Posted 22 April 2013 - 01:22 AM

Thanks Brian ;)

I will try and find a local outlet that may sell them, or at least find something similar.
Garth
Penguin, NW Tasmania, Australia

We will be forever known by the tracks we leave behind - Sitting Bull




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