I had a transaction with them gone wrong - I can't remember whether they lost the product or didn't describe it properly. In the end, it was ultimately their fault.

 

I saw Michelle at a show shortly thereafter, and she was completely gracious about it - so much so that I really didn't develop a negative opinion despite the faulty transaction. In the end I didn't lose anything, they offered me a variety of options to make it good. There may be communication issues, but sometimes I guess we need to be more tolerant of some of the non-native English speakers that bring some cultural richness to our hobby.

 

Marc

Hi Greg,

 

If the red Nozac needs a home, let me know.

 

Marc

Final hammer - $735.

 

I will take this as a hopeful sign that Swan pens are starting to come back as a desirable pen - I'm seeing the 30's pens starting to attract higher Ebay prices (even the dreck)..

 

I'll try to perpetuate that at DC this year.

Up for auction on ebay. Started at a high bid, someone bit already. I'm figuring this goes north of $600?

 

Its not my pen, I'm not advertising it, but admiring it. I've got one, but I'm not sure its in this condition. The Swan lapis of blue, black and white is striking.

 

 

I'm far from a Diamond Point expert, but I've bought a few over the past couple of years. I didn't even realize that one was available, or I would have bid too - but not $300+!!

 

That cap band pattern - stacked coin on the bottom and the top - tends to be on a much higher quality product. At least the two I have that share those bands are much nicer than the other ones I have - much bigger nibs, much better construction quality. Maybe it was a deluxe line?

 

I hunted for Diamond Point advertising without much luck. There was a series of articles in Pennant a few years back written by a descendant of the found of the company, but didn't really get into the catalog of pens they made.

Coming at you live from Lagos Nigeria, near the home of my newest two-year contract (Abuja). Its going to put a serious damper on my pen buying, collecting, restoring, admiring, and selling activities. My bank account will be grateful.

 

My work is international development, and sadly sometimes I actually have to do that work from somewhere other than the comfort of my home. To anticipate some of the questions that I'm likely to receive - no, I'm unlikely to find vintage pens in Nigeria, and no, I'm probably not going to look for them. 

 

DC will hopefully be my next show (as a customer only), and I'll miss LA, Chicago, Columbus (particularly Columbus) and all the other shows that are so much fun. More importantly, I'll miss my friends that make those shows so much fun. 

 

I am working on a list of pens I'll bring for use - a Nozac, a Maxima, and a Deco Band are probably the vintage pens I want to have by my side. Probably a vanishing point and this cheapo Sheaffer Valor that I found on Ebay that writes really well (and takes cartridges - big for airplane travel).

 

Please try not to sell very tempting pens over the next two years, the internet makes it way to easy to buy.....

The owner of the site is Mark Hoover, and he is currently an active buyer, seller, and restorer of pens with a lengthy history of being an honest member of the community. Times have not changed (I do business with him quite regularly).

 

I think in this case, he might be reasonably accused by the buyer to not being as responsive as some of the more exemplary sellers, but this doesn't need to degrade into anything further.  

Find the photos of the nib in this auction

 

http://www.ebay.com/...=item19f7ced922

 

 

Suppose your maximum had been $5 over the second bid and you had won the auction.

 

 

But there wasn't. Had there been, I'd pay the maximum.

Widget, I think you are exactly right, and this is a discussion of "what's fair?". Effectively, I'm willing to pay more than anyone else who had the intent and/or means to buy this pen (setting aside the possibility for the moment that someone else's bid did not register). Am I willing to pay 20% more because someone without that intent exposed my maximum? No. I don't think that's fair.  

 

As far as "selling it at a profit", if nobody is willing to pay more than me for the pens when I bought them, how much profit would there be in selling the pens if I paid a 20-25% premium? 

@paul, so your argument is that with sniping, not all of the bids registered. Fair.

But... Should I refuse the 2nd chance offer, she won't go to those unregistered bids either. She would have to go to the 3rd registered bid, in this case $60.

But I take your point that someone else might have wanted to bid higher, it's just that there is no way to know.

A week or so ago, I was outbid on two auctions, both with the same (reputable) seller, both Conklin Nozacs. Basically I was the second highest bidder on both, so the winning bid trumped mine by $5 for each auction.

 

This morning I received 2nd chance offers on both. Apparently the winning buyer had zero feedback and bailed out on the sale. I was offered the pens at my maximum bids.

 

I said "no" - because the next highest bids were between $60 and $80 less than my maximum. Had the zero feedback bidder not jumped in, I would have won those auctions for much less. 

 

I feel I'm in the right to have offered much less (closer to what I would have paid). She might ultimately decide not to accept, that's her right. But I don't think I should have to pay my maximum because someone without any intent (or means) to pay exposed my maximum.

 

I am NOT assuming that the seller put in a shill bid. I've bought from her before and I've been satisfied.

 

 

 

 

Glenn, not to be argumentative, but why does Mercedes have A, C, E, G, M, and S class vehicles? What happened to the other letters in the alphabet? Why did BMW wait so long to create a 2 series and 4 series?

 

To take things a step farther with Wahl, they had barrel lengths of 4, 6, and 7. What happened to 5? With Mabie Todd, a 4 was the long barrel and the 5 was the vest pocket size. How does that make sense? Where's the MontBlanc 148?

 

I'm not sure marketers share your need for order.

Glenn,

 

Have you tried measuring the nibs to see if there's some sort of relationship between the length of the nib and the number? Would each increasing number represent a fixed length interval?

 

Alternatively it could be a measure of weight of gold

I once had a Doric with an adjustable #6 nib - it was 18k made for the French Market. So maybe a 4 and 8 exist too.

One of the things he mentions regarding those pens is that there's almost no logic to the numbering.MT uses the same (second) number for different patterns.

These pens are particularly hard to define without the barrel imprints. Mabie Todd was particular about its imprints, and without them, its really tough to tell what the pen is. As can be seen above, its been claimed to be both American and British, and it seems that at that time pre-Eternal pens were identical and produced in both countries. 

 

The 1915 on the stepped clip suggests its a bit earlier (they switched to a swan on the clip in the late 20's) but that was already apparent from the 7 cap rings. 

 

Its also tough to tell if that is indeed a 142 - the barrel seems a bit too big for a "2" nib - might be a 144. Again, almost impossible to draw conclusions by just looking at it.

 

All of those BHCR pens with multiple odd cap band arrangements are interesting and collectible pens, and I suspect the price (if its still NZ$200) is quite reasonable for this. Assuming no cracks, no threading problems or anything, this pen could easily fetch US$350 or so cleaned up. 

Anyone else watching this auction?

 

This is a debate that I had with a restorer who does mainly cosmetics. He offered to fix a crack, and I said "ok, but I have to list it as a repaired crack" and he debated that with me.

 

His point is that a solvent-welded crack is really the pen coming together with itself. At that point, there is no crack anymore. I could say "we had to solvent-weld a crack to finish it", but maybe this is splitting hairs but there is no crack anymore.

 

The obvious exception is that if the underlying cause (shrinkage, etc) is still there or if the repair increases the brittleness, that must be declared. But there isn't a repaired crack - there isn't any kind of crack anymore.

 

Maybe just semantics. I'm not sure I buy his point of view either.

My point is - if its the same pen it was when it was originally made - regardless of what happened in the meantime - does it matter what's been done to get it there? No new materials introduced, no glues holding it together, no filler material, etc.

 

If roughness is fixed through a combination of heat and smoothing, and the pen is essentially the same thing as before the roughness - why would you have to declare it repaired?

 

If you had to take a donor cap from another pen (same model, same color) to create a "mint" pen, should that be declared?

Question:

 

Lets say I have a Wahl Doric, unrestored. The pen's sac is dead, clip is showing brassing, feed is all gunked up, and it has a cap lip crack.

 

Obviously if all that was necessary was to replace the sac and clean the feed, and the other problems weren't there, we'd say the pen is "restored".

 

Here's the question - if we replate the clip, do we report the pen as "restored"? Or should we add that the clip has been replated?

 

If we repair the crack by fusing the plastic on both sides of the crack by essentially melting the plastic, is that a repaired crack, or is the pen now restored? If we use matching donor material to fill a crack, is that a repaired crack, or is the pen restored?

 

I would argue that since Wahl's pens were originally gold filled, the thin plating we use should be declared. However, if we fuse two original pieces of plastic together, and the repaired crack would stand up to visual and fingernail scrutiny, the pen is "restored".

 

That is a relatively common (well, as common as celluloid US Swans go) Mabie Todd pens. The black plastic with the jade bands were the first celluloid pens in black that Mabie Todd produced I think. There was a period of time where they produced plastic pens with stacked coin bands, and I don't know if they made a black plastic in that. They came in three nib sizes, that's the middle size. And I believe that they produced two pen lengths, the 44, and the 54 a vest pocket version (although I haven't seen one in a 54 yet).

 

44's (and 42s and 46s) came in four colors of what they called "Eternalite" - Jade, Lapis Blue, Cracked Ice, and Black. They also continued to make them in red hard rubber, mottled hard rubber, and black hard rubber. 

 

The Eternal was their high end of the Swan line. The nibs were thicker gold than the standard Swan nibs (and typically not as flexible).

 

If you are REALLY interested in reading more about it, there are used copies of David Moak's book "Mabie in America" floating around. That details the history of the company in the United States (leaving out the prolific history of Mabie Todd in the UK and elsewhere in the world). David documented these things in great detail.

 

 

 

If anyone wants to travel for the weekend to the Ohio Show, I'll provide the wheels if someone wants to share in the gas (and maybe driving). I'm going to leave early on Thursday the 6th and return on Sunday in the afternoon.

 

The car will be packed with stuff, so it will probably be a single seat available. Still, I'm open to ideas.

 

Marc