During the 1990’s, when I was gathering information on Italian brands and their origin for the History of the Italian Fountain Pen, I was lucky enough to interview a number of former sales agents and pen shop owners who gave me precious information on many brands.
One of the most difficult brands to catalogue was WELCOME/WELLCOME which was found both on celluloid pens and on pens with semi-precious overlay.
The Cruise line is the last series Omas manufactured before stopping production
Within the scenario of embellishments on Waterman safety pens, many overlays exist which represents mythological, literary or historical scenes with high relief decorations.
Sometimes the decoration is present on the cap only, sometimes it is distributed on the entire barrel of the pen.
Part 2 deals with the analysis of a few overlays which were not included in the book Waterman in Italy and review of the variations found on filigree and cherub patterns.
The 90’s could be defined as “pen roaring” years in Italy.
From the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s the economy was booming and people seemed to be full of trust and entrepreneurial enthusiasm.
At the time, lots of people started considering pens as a profitable investment. It is not by chance that almost every pen maker started producing limited editions to stimulate the growing trend towards “rare” and expensive pens.
The book “Waterman Safety, the Art of Overlay in Italy” was published in 1998. The structure of the book was organized making reference to a single collection of Waterman 42s belonging to the co-author of the book.
90% of the pens depicted in the book came from this same source and only a few examples were borrowed from other collections.
The chapter dedicated to Simplex pens ( vol. II pag. 70, 71), can now have some additions due to the discovery of a number of Simplex pens which were not known when the book was written.
The marketing of Simplex pens is connected with the activity of the Milan-based “ Penne e Pennini di Meda A.” company, located in Corso Magenta.
Lately I have had conversations with a few pen friends abut the history of the Anglo Amer brand. A few of them are doing extensive research on this brand and are investigating the connections between the German, British and Italian markets.
I am convinced that only the exchange of information can contribute to the growth and development of pen knowledge. For this reason I am pubishing here the little information I have gathered on this brand, so that it can be of help or stimulus to other passionate pen people to further research this brand.
The access to the Italian State Trade Mark and Patent Archives and the analysis of a number of pens with overlay have finally made it possible to clarify a few aspects relative to the Milan-based Kosca Company and its production. The chapter about this Company, founded by P. Kohler and C. Schaefer (Vol. I pagg. 269/272) can therefore be enriched with new details and some new interesting information.
