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Thread: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    In 2013, when there was little information available on Mabie Todd pens, John Brindle spent weeks gathering information on every one of their pens that he could find. Someone else created the website and several of us added photographs of the pens. At the time it was a tremendous reference. It’s perhaps less important now because Stephen Hull’s The Swan Pen is so informative about the company and their pens. However, I think the listing still has a purpose as a quick, easily available reference.

    http://www.mabietoddpenlists.co.uk/

    An enthusiast contacted me a few weeks ago because he had photographs of pens that he wished to add to the list. He had used the site’s contact button but it no longer worked. I found that John’s personal website and his email addresses had gone. I can only conclude that John is no longer with us. He was elderly and clearly frail when he produced the site seven years ago.

    Rather than let yet another British fountain pen site slip into abeyance I contacted the gentleman who had put the site together for John. The bad news is that the site was written with software that is no longer supported, so it cannot be updated. The good news is that the site will continue as it is for the moment.

    It has been accepted that I will take over responsibility for the Mabie Todd list. As time permits – and time is supplied in small quantity – I will attempt to create another version of the list using WordPress. It will of course include all of John’s work and can be updated as new information and photographs come along. It will always be John Brindle’s Mabie Todd pen list.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Good for you, Deb! Taking the baton will keep the list alive. While MT pens are out of my reach, I do enjoy rummaging through images. Over the last 5 years I've owned half a dozen or so, all subsequently sold or given away, but they are as rare as hen's teeth here.

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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you. It will take some time as I have to wait for the encoded information to come, then try to put something together. A new field for me.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Deb, I salute your dedication to preserve what Mr. Brindle's had put a lot of effort into.

    I assume that you are in contact with whoever is currently funding the upkeep of the website, so the person (or persons) could decide whether they will continue to fund the publishing of the list when you moved it to the new software/platform.
    - Will
    Unique and restored vintage pens: Redeem Pens

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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    At the moment, a friend of a friend of John Brindle is hosting the list at no charge. This person hosts websites commercially and is able to tack John's list on. As I understand it, when I am ready to go live the domain will be transferred to me. I'll probably use a free WordPress document for the work itself. I have some learning to do.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Wow, what a resource. Thank you for keeping it alive, Deb.

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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you. It would be a shame to lose it after all the work John put in.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you, Deb. Recently the resource link I was using for Autopoint pencils vanished which made me realize not to take anything for granted. I am delighted that you will assume responsibility for this resource.

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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Thank you, Deb. Recently the resource link I was using for Autopoint pencils vanished which made me realize not to take anything for granted. I am delighted that you will assume responsibility for this resource.
    That's very sad. There are few enough pencil sites.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you for doing this Deb.

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Thank you, Deb. Recently the resource link I was using for Autopoint pencils vanished which made me realize not to take anything for granted. I am delighted that you will assume responsibility for this resource.
    Contact Jon Veley (this is his FB page: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.veley.5). He wrote a book about Autopoint pencils and was awarded for his achievement.
    - Will
    Unique and restored vintage pens: Redeem Pens

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Well done.

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Quote Originally Posted by penwash View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Thank you, Deb. Recently the resource link I was using for Autopoint pencils vanished which made me realize not to take anything for granted. I am delighted that you will assume responsibility for this resource.
    Contact Jon Veley (this is his FB page: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.veley.5). He wrote a book about Autopoint pencils and was awarded for his achievement.
    Thank you. I lifted a quote, “the most rare Autopoint is the one that doesn’t work “.

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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you all for your kind words. I'm reading up on tables in WordPress. I'm awaiting the data but that may take some time.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Deb, if you would hear my perspective from having worked with Wordpress sites for a number of years:

    Wordpress has now become a universe of plugins. Which means weeding out the bad ones and ending up with one that suits your purpose may become a job in itself. Plus maintaining a wordpress site is also non-trivial because they keep updating the versions and sometimes a plugin that works today stopped working with the next update. Not updating may work for a while, but then you'd be playing catch up once a 'must-update' version is released in the future.

    If I were you, given the constraint of time (which you mentioned), for this purpose, I would first try to get the data into an online spreadsheet like Google Sheets.
    This will make organizing the data (including images) easier and more intuitive. As well as adding, editing, and deleting data.

    Then, since the sole purpose of the new website is to publish Mr. Brindle's list, I would investigate creating a Google Site which is free for non-commercial purposes, in which you can literally embed the Google Sheet, and thus creating a publicly readable website hopefully with less building and maintaining efforts.

    There are many ways to accomplish this of course, this is just a suggestion based on what I know and quickly thinking through it.
    Last edited by penwash; June 20th, 2020 at 11:59 AM.
    - Will
    Unique and restored vintage pens: Redeem Pens

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you very much, Will. I've used WordPress for my blog for many years and that has been okay. Reading up on it I'm becoming aware of the complexity I will have to deal with for this very different exercise. Google sheets sounds like a very good idea. I'll look into it.
    Regards,
    Deb
    My Blog

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    It has been accepted that I will take over responsibility for the Mabie Todd list.
    Thank you very much Deb for keeping Mabie Todd memory alive,
    I recently acquired a MT&Bard over/under feed and realized that the Pen List had no picture of that model.
    I'd like to contribute some (non professional !) pictures, once the new site is running

    And by the way, this is my first post on fpg !

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Thank you very much, AllPensOut! I'm Deb's husband and I'm taking responsibility for John's site - she has more than enough on her plate already. John had amassed a lot of information but it needed structure. Knowing John as well as I did I am sure he would have done that work but he was untimely taken from us and the site needs a lot of editing before it can go live again. It will actually have less items when it reappears because many of the entries cannot be identified as a particular model of pen.

    Without going into too much detail much of the difficulty lies with the Mabie Todd numbering system - or rather its absence in many cases. I plan to include un-numbered models only where a photo is available. That applies to many of the overlay models but also early models like the one you refer to.

    Once the site is up I will be grateful for all information. Photos should be in the capped view.

    Thank you for bringing this up and I hope you enjoy your Mabie Todd and Bard eyedropper filler.

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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    Quote Originally Posted by eachan View Post
    ...I'm Deb's husband and I'm taking responsibility for John's site....
    Goodness! You've been infected with the fountain pen virus, too? Deb should have been wearing a mask.

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    Senior Member eachan's Avatar
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    Default Re: John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pens Lists

    I have suffered from FountainPen-19 since around 1978. So far there is no vaccine.

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