obsession....

ok... so, if the last one wasn't your thing, how about this?

MONDIAL BCHR WITH BOHEMIAN GLASS NIB

This unusual pen is from Austria. The maker is Mondial, which was an Italian company. These
pens do not often pop up in the US, but in Europe they are not uncommon. The pen is fitted
with an original Bohemian glass nib of very high quality.





Spec Information:

• Mondial midsized fountain pen produced late 1920s- early 1930s
• Black Chased Hard Rubber, ripple pattern
• colour is perfectly black (10/10); very clean pen
• chasing is fairly worn, but evenly so
• lever fill
• fitted with a slip-on clip
• clip and lever are nickel-plated (silver-colour)
• no brassing on metal parts; very clean
• Bohemian glass nib, original, c 1920s-30s, actually made in Bohemia, amber colour
• nib is a F/M point
• pen is fully restored and glass nib is smoothed

photos by QM2

Lust....

it's in my heart. and it has been since i first saw her. and not a day has gone by over the past year that i haven't thought of her. and today, i plan on taking her for a test drive, and if she makes me happy, i'll be putting down cold hard cash. if she doesn't make me happy, i'll spurn her forever - i have my eye on another....






so, i guess the real questions are.....

• does one need a $550+ pen? no, but one wants his precious.....
• $550? Seriously? yup... handmade with loving care. And that's not actually expensive.... a friend of mine bought a Visconti Art Nouveau at $900. The store carries pens up to $3,500 (actually I think they have a couple of $5k-6k pens). I've seen collector pens going at $12,000 USD.
  
• does a pen like this actually write better? actually, yes.... it's supposed to be an amazing nib. Part of the price of more expensive pens is materials and gold nibs.
  
• are you fucking crazy? ummmmm........ what was the question again?
  

it's on sale for quite a bit less or i wouldn't even consider it. the only problem is.... it's only available in yellow. although the colour sort of appeals to me.


And in case you're wondering about the slightly odd looking pen clip.... each side rotates out, creating a little set of legs that turns it into a stand.


i'll let you know how it goes.....



images from: http://www.nibs.com/OmasEmotica.htm except for the last one, which was borrowed from the Pen Boutique Ltd.

your fate is sealed....

as well as the two german wax seals, i recently picked up another seal. i happened upon it quite by chance, so i see it as fortuitous. i did manage to contact someone who is knowledgeable about these things, and got a rough market value, and some information.

the seal is likely a cast steel stock item, that was then hand engraved by a skilled engraver. the time period estimated for the piece is likely early British Victorian (The Victorian era spanned roughly 1833~1901).

one of these days, i'll bite the bullet and pay to have someone who deals with heraldic symbols to translate this seal - the possible history of it intrigues me. seals were generally used as identification. letters or documents were sealed to prevent/show tampering, and guarantee the identity of the sender. when the owner of a seal died, the seal was generally destroyed as well to prevent (what i guess equates to in these days) identity theft. i imagine they weren't terribly common either, as they were probably fairly expensive to have made, and not really required by the working classes.

i myself wonder if this was for a wedding ban - as it appears to be two family crests hung together by a tied ribbon from a crown, and wreathed by some type of flowering vine.

quite an amazing amount of detail, given that the oval is just over an inch at it's longest point.

spending money.....

took wednesday off since the weather was nice, and headed to a small town an hour or so away that has a decent collection of antique stores. i don't usually buy much - prices are, well... antique store prices. but once in a while you find something you either just have to have, or the price is reasonable (because the person doesn't really know what they have).

it's also interesting because you can tell where my current focus is when i head out there by what i've bought. in the past couple of years, it's been tools mostly. this round was something different.

behold:
the Art Deco Swivodex Zephyr Glass Inkwell, with unspillable swivelling base. (mine didn't include the pen, but i've included the image so you get a better sense of it.)

Zephyr American Corp "Swivodex"
Trade mark pats. Pending New York , N.Y.

The price wasn't a steal (it was pretty much the average
of the price I see online for these - $65 CDN)

i also ran across a fountain pen - i'd never heard of the brand, so i walked away, only to spend 3 hours of extra driving to go back the next day ;P

the Globetrotter, by Elysee - slim pen in bright steel with a map of the world applied in 24k gold plate, fine nib in 14k gold, 1992-c1997.


The company had a short history, but I have yet to read a bad review about these pens - so far i'm very impressed by how nice it is to write with, although perhaps a little slimmer than I'm used to (slightly larger diameter than a pencil or bic stick pen).

1925 Paul Dummert begins making jewelry in Pforzheim, Germany
1980 Élysée brand is created
1991 Staedtler acquires Élysée
2000 Élysée ceases production