Category Archives: Pen Identification


A tale of an orange obsession….

So I won’t lie – one of my ‘grail pens’ was the Delta Dolce Vita. From the first time I got my grubby paws on a Fountain Pen Hospital catalog, I fell in love with that radiant orange, and the contrast with it and the black and silver cap & trim. From there began a quest for orange pens, since I could not afford a Delta. (Still really can’t afford the one I’d love, but there’s a lot of pens like that….)

Funny thing is, turns out that orange, black, and silver look is pretty easy to find. Below are (and I’m not telling you the order they’re in!) A Delta Dolce Vita, a Conklin ‘Orange Nights,’ a custom-made Atelier Lusso with sterling fittings, and a no-name Chinese (I’m assuming) pen that came to me in a batch lot, but I’m guessing could not have cost more than $10.00. Can you tell which it which?

Unless you know each pen intimately, it’s tough to tell, isn’t it? They all have clips and clip bands which sit below the top of the cap, they all have a silver trim ring at the end of the barrel, on what might or night not be a blind cap, and then there’s the lovely gleaming marbled orange resin! It’s not easy! OK, here’s the real order: 

  1. Atelier Lusso custom-made Carina with sterling silver fittings, and a fire opal set in as the cap jewel.
  2. This is the Delta Dolce Vita Frederico, with a 14K nib, piston fill.
  3. Conklin Duragraph in Orange Nights, with a steel nib, converter fill.
  4. Chinese pen, probably a Jinhao our a Huashilai, steel nib, converter fill.

A Bit of a Mystery…

UnionThe pen is huge, with a gorgeous woodgrain ebonite body, a big ball-ended clip, and a big, smooth, wet 14K Warranted #8 nib. Not much flex, but it writes like silk. The section has a couple of dings, indicating the sac was changed (or someone tried to open it), but otherwise, it seems to be in amazing condition.

The cap reads “(The) Union.” The clip reads “Union” with “LM” in a circle on the rounded end of the clip. And of course, the nib reads as any Warranted nib would. (All images will open larger)

And that’s it. No barrel imprint, nothing. According to Richard Binder’s reference pages, Union was a sub-brand of Morrison, but the pens he describes look nothing like this one. However, it looks an awful lot like the pens here on this FPN thread: Diamond Point.

One fellow who collects pencils mentions a pen marked similarly, which seems to have been made by Diamond Point. (The entry is HERE, but beware, he refers to the pen part of the set as “one of those pesky pens I don’t collect,” so watch your blood pressure…)

So, pen maniacs; what do you know? Ever see a pen like this before?


UnionClip Union-lever

 

tinyrule