The firm decided to add a raft of collectable sales to their core business of books and works of art on paper.
These included coins, medals, chess sets and stamps, with their first vintage fountain pen and pencil sale held on July 22. Although this 809-lot outing included few head-turners, it managed a respectable enough 78 per cent take-up by lot and sold to the tune of £81,550.
Among the most collectable entries was a 1947 American Parker 51 vacuumatic 'heritage' set in Nassau Green and entered with a matching rotary pencil. Relatively few heritage pens were made during this transitional period of Parker's
production and Nassau Green pens are particularly scarce. In excellent condition, this sold to an Italian collector at £460, while the most expensive vintage pen was a 1931-32 Mont Blanc Meisterstuck cream example that realised £950.
Bloomsbury pen consultant Alexander Crum Ewing (who also consults for CSK) has scheduled the second pen sale to coincide with the 10th London pen show on October 1. At 1000 lots, it is larger than their first sale and sports half a dozen or so blockbusters, including what he describes as the "Rolls-Royce of the vintage pen world": a
hand-made Japanese maki-e lacquer Dunhill-Namiki pen dating to c.1928-30 and decorated with the Noh theatre character Kiyohime.
A lavish pen for a wealthy client, it originally retailed as the most expensive item in Dunhill's first catalogue with a hefty £7 price tag. It is estimated here to fetch £40,000-50,000.
One of the most offbeat and unusual entries is a late 1920s/early 1930s Mont Blanc architect's pen (pictured right). The first pen to use the pistol-filling system, it never appeared in any Mont Blanc catalogue and was possibly a pet project of the firm's managing director and mechanical genius Ernst Rosler. Only around 20 such pens were made and this example is estimated at £2000-3000.
For further information: contact 0207 495 9494.
