A Conway Stewart Blue Stardust Duro that was made in 2004 with a Hallmark from the Birmingham Assay Office. This one is somewhat unusual because it is a button filler.
Here is the "button" that is depressed to fill the fountain pen.
and some Hallmarks. The first is from the Birmingham Assay Office. You can tell because it has the symbol of the anchor as one of the marks (4th. from the left).
The first mark is the "Client Mark" in this case the CS for Conway Stewart, the scales and the 750 come next. They show that it assayed at 75% gold, and is not plated or rolled. Then you see the anchor which is the symbol for the Birmingham Assay Office and then a lower case "e" in a square with angled corners. The "e" is a date stamp and in this case means 2004. Finally this sample has a crown at the end which is the symbol for Gold.
Here is another example. This one is from a different assay office.
Notice the order is sometimes different. This one has the "client mark", then the scales and the 750, but next is a Rose. The Rose is the mark for the Sheffield Assay office. Also this one has the crown next and the date mark last, a lower case "h" in the same square with angled corners.
So what year was this pen made?
-- Edited by jar on Thursday 13th of August 2009 04:11:58 PM
I have a rather dated reference book (last entry was for 1976 - upper case "B") but my calculation has the letter "h" representing 2008.
One has to avoid the trap in thinking that each office is represented by the same letter for each year. Whilst it may be the case an exception can be found in Dublin when in 1976 the used a lower case "i"
Have to say they look like nice pens - something to aspire to.
I have a rather dated reference book (last entry was for 1976 - upper case "B") but my calculation has the letter "h" representing 2008.
One has to avoid the trap in thinking that each office is represented by the same letter for each year. Whilst it may be the case an exception can be found in Dublin when in 1976 the used a lower case "i"
Have to say they look like nice pens - something to aspire to.
Roger
Close, it was 2007. The earlier series with the uppercase "B" for 1976 ran through 1999 and skipped the uppercase "J". In this cycle they skip the lowercase "i".
Your right - I should have noted that "J" was also missing in the previous couple of series.
Interesting to note that between 1776 and 1823 the date letters were not in any sort of order that represented alphabetical order. They seem to have got things under control now.