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my french kaolo


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#1 penmanila

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Posted 08 July 2010 - 12:58 AM

i've brought this up elsewhere before, but never received a response, so i'm sharing it here again. sometime in the mid-90s, on a visit to ho chi minh city (saigon), i came across a woman selling all manner of wares on the sidewalk--watches, lighters, and, yes, pens, and the one that stood out for me was this lovely safety pen. the brand is kaolo, made in france, and what intrigued me about it was that the barrel and cap are apparently made out of aluminum. how common was that in the 1920s (which period the general form of the pen suggests)? at any rate, i was happy to pick this up for $15.

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when i returned to HCMC last year, i spotted another one of these in a trayful of vintage pens, but it wasn't nearly as nice as my first one and i was being asked $60 for it, so it's probably still there, on antiques row (LKC street):

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#2 Terry

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Posted 08 July 2010 - 01:59 PM

Your Kaolo safety pen was made in the 1940's, not 20's.
During and after the war, such pens were made using aluminium leftovers from the arms industry.
These pens were still produced in the late 40's, mostly for export to Asia and Africa, where "Kaolo" even became a synonym for "pen".

#3 penmanila

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Posted 08 July 2010 - 02:10 PM

many thanks for that valuable information!
Check out my pens here and my blog here.

#4 david i

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Posted 08 July 2010 - 03:10 PM

many thanks for that valuable information!


Yes, really. I'd never heard of the pen. Impressed that with the small initial population on this board, such good info is coming out.

-david



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

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#5 amk

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Posted 08 August 2014 - 09:49 AM

Reviving an old thread, but there's a Kaolo pen on ebay.fr at the moment with its original papers - featuring a prominent palm tree and claiming it as 'Le stylo des pays chauds", the hot-countries' pen. It's a safety pen (à plume rentrante) and is marketed as not leaking 'even in an aeroplane'. It also boasts of being made entirely of ebonite, which together with the typography suggests a date considerably later than the heyday of the ebonite pen and indeed the safety pen. It's obviously an export product.



#6 penmanila

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Posted 11 August 2014 - 01:04 PM

Very interesting, thanks! The eBay.fr pen seems to be attracting a lot of interest.
Check out my pens here and my blog here.

#7 amk

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Posted 11 August 2014 - 07:40 PM

It was a beauty - I was very tempted, but I've bought too many nice pens recently and had to let it go.






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