Let's see your vintages and vintage resource information!

[shandy]

I am spurred on to start this thread by seeing Shangas's amazing Mabie Todd &Co "Swan" in this thread
http://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=119565

It would be great if you could explain why you like vintage pens and the reasons for some of your choices of pens. It would be great if those of us who are into vintage and all the gains to be had in owning vintage fountain pens could share this passion so that some of the folks who are new to fountain pens feel encouraged to dip their nib's(so to speak!) into the wonderful world of Vintage!

For my part Vintage is a part of my collection for various reasons. Firstly I love connecting with history and the people in it and I think there is no finer way than with Fountain pens and wristwatches.

Also, Economy! One can find exquisit restored vintage pens that will work as reliably as a modern cheap pen but have the quality of a very expensive modern pen very easily!
There are numerous Vendors of vintage fountain pens out there who will sell you a reliable, sturdy beautiful fountain pen for less than $150 that will be more than up to the task of daily writing!

Older pens often are made wonderful materials such as Casin (a milk protein) and Celluliod (Derived from Cotton) which produce the most amazing colours!

The nibs on older fountain pens tend to be of much higher quality and write so much better in my experience than a new pen of similar price!

Older pens will usually have a captive ink storage system so that you will need to use bottled ink. There are plenty of resources out there that show you how to use and fill the pens though so it is not as black an art as it first may seem!

Here is a list of some of the reliable sources of information and some sellers to get the ball rolling! Anyone who knows of other sites or folks please add them. It would be great to have a resource to helps folks navigate the vintage pen world

In no particular order of favorites! (Most are US based so folks from other countries please add sellers and repairers that you think are good from your countries so that we can make this more international!)

Aaron at Pentiques, he has a neat webcam so that you can watch him restore pens live!
http://pentiques.com/

Rick Conner at Penspotters is highly acknowledged in the vintage pen collecting community, you will find most of what you need to know here!
http://www.rickconner.net/penspotters/index.html

Ron Zorn, another amazing restorer!
http://www.mainstreetpens.com/

David Nishimura not only sells wonderful , rare vintage pens (out with the economy!) but his website is of huge value when it comes to information about pens.
I have linked to a page about how to fill various vintage fountain pens, all the different systems of filling but if you click on his name in the white box you will go to his main page!
http://www.vintagepens.com/filling_i...age_pens.shtml

That will get us going! As I said though, please add more links if you have them!

Just to whet your appetite for vintage here are some of mine!

My 1947 Parker Vacumatic in Golden pearl celluloid. This is a great starter vintage pen, mine was restored in immaculate and cost me $70! It is pictured with a Red perminite 1927 Parker Duofold Jr that is now being used and loved by a friend of mine!



Next. My conway Stewart 84 from the 1950's,this one is in Casin and has a beautiful pattern, this one will be traded this week for the Parker 51! This is a smaller pen,about the size of a MB Mozart!


One of my Fovorite pens.Parker senior special Duofold from 1926 Broad stub flexi factory original nib and a sheer joy to write with! (This pen is used every day!)


So come on folks, let's infect everyone with vintageitis!!