Thursday, May 28, 2020

Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 20 (update!)

A day after sending me photos of his new find, Christopher sent me this email and the photo below:

"I do have a final note regarding this Webster ‘Big Red style flattop. For one, I did not tell you that I replaced the cap band on this pen. The original band was not a perfect fit. It seemed to have been applied upside down, so that the curved in end, which should have been on the bottom open end, was at the top. This left a small misfit re the space at the open end, between the plastic cap and the cap ring. It bugged me so much that I tried to reverse it, but it was even worse, with a bigger gap between the band on the plastic cap, at the top of the band. Fortunately, I had just the right size replacement, which fit both perfectly and correctly. Plus, like the original, it was 14K Gold filled. Hmmm, I think that the original cap band probably was lost and whoever had this pen after, just applied another band which didn’t stay on unless it was mounted incorrectly."

(~click on photo to enlarge~)



"But that was not the only concern I felt I had to deal with regarding this pen. I think I mentioned that it had a big 14K Gold Warranted nib. And that the nib seems to be both a good writer and with responsible flex. Still, on studying this point, there seemed to be something off about it! First of all, on closer inspection, about 85% of the tipping was gone. And it seemed like the proportions of the nib were wrong. The tines looked to short in proportion to the nib’s shoulders. Then I noticed the imprinting. It looked scratchy and unprofessional. The engraving was uneven. It matched another Warranted nib I compared it to in font and placement of the text, but just did not look like the manufacturer’s engraving. My feeling is that the previous owner, reground the nib but in doing so, lost the imprinting. Then replaced it with his own copy."

"Fortunately, I had another Warranted 14K gold nib, at one size bigger (a No.6) but in mint undiddled with condition. So I applied it to this pen, and now can say the pen is 100% restored. Not that the original nib cannot be used, since it writes beautifully with responsible flex but my replacement now only looks correct and writes well but has almost twice the flex. I think I should write a book.....’Confessions of a pen restorer’! I know it would be super boring but at least it would illustrate that I am discerning about the pens I restore."

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