BCHR Bankers Service Corp.

This unusual black chased hard rubber lever-filler is marked “The Bankers Service Corporation,” “19 Warren Street, N.Y.” That entity offered a variety of services to banks; here’s one of their ads, from 1922. The pen is of high-quality manufacture, with an unusual groove just aft of the barrel threads — a moat for ink, perhaps?

The nib is a medium-fine with a nice degree of flex, giving a 1.0mm tine spread at 375g of pressure. Unrestored.

$95 plus shipping SOLD.

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A Striking Mabie Todd Blackbird

This is a very sharp-looking pen with an unusual combination of attributes. It has the general exterior form of a pen like the Parker “51” — a torpedo-shaped plastic (celluloid, in this case) barrel, with a patterned metal cap. But the barrel is a beautiful, mineral-like marbled green, and the deeply-chased screw-on cap is finished in rose gold with a yellow gold-finished clip. The pen has a conventional, delightfully-flexible nib which happily opens up to 1.0mm with 350g of pressure, and it will widen a bit more than that. A lever filler, sold unrestored.

$250 plus shipping SOLD.

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First-Year Parker “51”

This is an India Black Parker “51” Vacumatic filler from either the first or second quarter of 1941, the first year of production for the “51”. It has the distinctive white metal jewels in both cap and barrel (these appear to be aluminum, but it’s possible they are silver) and a correct first-version clip with a restored Blue Diamond. The blind cap is properly imprinted for a first-year pen. The barrel is a replacement, as it is also imprinted and bears a 1945 date code; the barrel and blind cap are not a perfect match, as there is a step down from barrel to blind cap (visible in photo of pen capped), but I’d take that over a pen that has had that joint sanded to the dreaded “Coke bottle” profile. Medium, firm nib. Unrestored except for the Blue Diamond.

$320 plus shipping SOLD.

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Sheaffer Ebonized Pearl Balance with Flexible Lifetime Nib

Here’s a Sheaffer short standard lever-filling Balance — that’s a D74VC, for you serious Sheaffer collectors — sporting a scarce flexible nib. There’s a personalization on the barrel, but the color of the pearl chips is outstanding; they don’t show the ambering so often seen in this material. That long-tined flexible nib gives 1.0mm of spread with 450g of 45-degree pressure. Unrestored.

$220 plus shipping SOLD.

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