Chicago Pen Show report

Got back from Chicago late last night. Did some good buying, mostly in dip pens and earlier writing equipment, but also brought home some notable fountain pens.

There were some real steals in the show auction, but also some surprises. Most notable was the Canadian Monroe set, which fetched a totally unexpected $880 ($800 hammer, plus 10%). Though this metal-capped version had never been seen before, most of us expected a final price less than half that. The most expensive lot was the large Parker blue-on-blue set, misdescribed by most as a Duofold Senior, which sold at $2500 hammer. The price was a surprise to many, though not to experienced collectors who realized that pen and pencil alike were much less common versions without any Duofold markings, the pen equipped with a #7 Lucky Curve nib. The pen was also a rare example illustrating factory coloring of the barrel imprint: not the crude filling as often done by collectors nowadays with grease pencils and the like, but just a trace of gold at the very bottom of the imprint, its originality guaranteed by the overlapping paper price band.