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segunda-feira, 25 de fevereiro de 2013

Four unusual SWAN pens



First pen is a US SWAN made at the final production of that factory. What it is unusual is that the barrel's imprint says: SWAN VICHY PEN and under this imprint there are another one saying PDG  ( wich means in French:  President Directeur General the corresponding in US to the CEO ). The other unusual detail is the fact that this pen it is not a lever filler as usual but a button filler ! Can we conclude that it was an export Swan pen made on the beginning of the war and exported to France ?

After I post this pen and my comments I received this email
 from  George  Kovalenko who of course is right in all the comments he did:


Luiz:

The carat mark on the Swan pen may be hiding under the section, 
but I don't think it is a for the French market. I think it is a "Capacity" 
pen, not "Vichy", and "PDG" may stand for "Pending", as in "Other 
Patents Pending". Earlier the pen was a spiral-twist-rod piston filler, 
patent no. 1,518,548, but David Moak's book, p.177, says it was later 
made as a button filler, possibly Carman's patent no. 2,003,479.

After reading this I did laugh until tears rolled down my face !!!! And  let me tell you that I was tempted to remove all the text I wrote when I posted the pen. It was a ridiculous text and 
a shame  for any collector. Anyway and after thinking a little I decided to left the original text with the considerations because : 
1 - the goal of my blog it is not " I there , look to pens I have " 
but a blog to discuss some pens of my collection : their 
complexity, used raw materials, design, colors, filling systems  and so on.



2 - as the name says it is a blog for fun and for that reason not a perfect blog.

3 - finally it is an example how a a fast and not well fundamented approach ( even seeming correct ) can be a disaster and very shameful . So this was a lesson to myself and in the future I will be more cautious





MESSAGE :
If you think you know everything , bear in your mind that you don't.
Keep away your hubris , be modest and try to listen and discuss in a modest way the opinions of the other collectors.
Try to fundament your opinions even when you think that it is not necessary because everything is to obvious ( the presented case it  is a nice example ! )












The imprint is faint but you can read it all on the various pics












Two Eternal Swan pens, in scarlet color and  nice condition ( NOS ) .















A mottled olive hard rubber clipless SWAN lever filler pen






sábado, 9 de fevereiro de 2013

The Reddy Todd #4 pen



The Edward Todd & Co. begun its activity manufacturing nibs and pencil  leads. The company was founded in 1871 by Edward Todd Sr. In New York city after he bought a company called Kurtz & Monaghan.
Edward Todd was later on, cofounder of the well known Mabie , Todd & Company ( 1860-1868 ).

Edward Todd Jr. son of the company founder sued his father and his partner ( Mabie ) on the 30th of October 1897 in order to obtain the “volunteers” dissolution of the company .
Edward Todd Sr. died three years later wich means that the Edward Todd pen models made on the beginning of the XX century until 1930 were made under the direction of the company by Edward Todd Jr. after the rupture with Mabie in 1897.
This pen is made in red hard rubber , with engraved vertical lines a lever filler system, with 10,8 cm lenght when closed and  probably produced during the 20s .
Photos are a courtesy of Carlos Sanches Álamo from whom I bought this pen and the text was translated from the text he publishd in “ Castelhano language “ .

Today the 7th of April 2013 I received this email from my friend and fountain pen collector Thierry Nguyen to whom I wish to thank for his collaboration :



Dear Luiz,

As a regular reader of Pentrace, I miss your Sunday postings, so this morning I decided to visit your blog, to see if you are still posting there.
Once again, I discovered many wonderful pens from your collection and interesting articles.
As you know, my main interest is for French pens and, of course, Mabie Todd Swan. That's why I was even more interested in The Reddy Todd #4 pen article.
However, there is some confusion about the history of the company and specially about the father against son court case.
As you correctly wrote, although it should not be "later on" but "earlier on", "Edward Todd was later on, cofounder of the well known Mabie, Todd & Company" and he remained a partner there from 1860 to 1868, when he left the Mabie Todd company.
So in 1897, when Edward Todd Jr. sued his partners in the Edward Todd company, the other partner beside his father was not "(Mabie)", as you state in your article, but a certain Charles S. Freer.
At that date it had been nearly 30 years that Edward Todd had not been in business with the Mabie Todd company!
I know it's only a small detail in history, but I think there has been enough confusion during many years between the two companies that we should do our best to avoid to add some more.
I look forward to read many more articles from you and see more pens from your fantastic collection.
Best regards,
Thierry