Newbie question / Accidental ebay purchase!

**Karen** · November 27th, 2020, 08:20 AM

Well! I made an accidental ebay purchase last week. I bought a Dinkie for £25. It has arrived, to be honest I wasn't expecting much for that. I don't know what made me bid! It has arrived. The lever seems (irritatingly) wobbly, moving from side to side and there looks like a tiny crack under the end of the lever but I had to get a magnafing glass out to see it. Other that that It looks fab. I have not put ink in it yet as hubby is home and I'm trying to hide it till after xmas. (Its complicated)! The nib seems ok to. Do you think the wobbly lever and tiny weeny crack are correctable? Any recommendations for a restorer in the UK ? Any info thoughts welcome.

**jar** · November 27th, 2020, 08:26 AM

IIRC the good folk at Battersea Pen Home (now in Epping I think) should be able to help.

**Karen** · November 27th, 2020, 08:33 AM

Have you used them yourself? I'll make a decision on monday when hubby out and I get to put ink in it. I have a couple of vintage pens and one coming for xmas (hubby thinks hes bought me my first for xmas) so I have hidden the others. I really excited about writing with it. LOL. The lever is going to drive me NUTS! Its not perfect but its pretty dam good.

**RobJohnson** · November 27th, 2020, 08:40 AM

Check with Battersea PH by all means but when I asked them to work on my CS Dinkie some years ago they refused on the basis that Dinkies are difficult to work on. I sent mine to

http://www.old-pens.co.uk/

**jar** · November 27th, 2020, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Karen

Have you used them yourself? I'll make a decision on monday when hubby out and I get to put ink in it. I have a couple of vintage pens and one coming for xmas (hubby thinks hes bought me my first for xmas) so I have hidden the others. I really excited about writing with it. LOL. The lever is going to drive me NUTS! Its not perfect but its pretty dam good.

Not vintage Dinkies but lots of older Conway Stewarts.

**eckiethump** · November 28th, 2020, 02:51 AM

I am the registered vintage Conway Stewart recommended repair person for the UK.
Dinkies are one of the main vintage pen where you are more likely to find a barrel at threads crack than on the cap edge. Being so small, creates the difficulty in servicing them and chance of failure in materials in doing so.
At £25, that is a very good price, servicing and return postage costs, brings the cost up to around the cost of a user quality Dinkie pen, they are very desirable pens.
I am UK based (Edinburgh), my contact e-mail is ericthepen@gmail.com on the Conway Stewart website, the email is eckiefump@googlemail.com. I use both emails, but the former is used more predominantly for pen repair works these days.
Eric

I can also thoroughly recommend the previously quoted UK repair site run by David Wells