Casein Materials Found in Dinkie Pens

 

Rather than presenting 100+ colour swatches of the various casein materials found in the Dinkie range in random order, the various patterns have been separated into 6 groups, identified by the predominant style of the pattern.

 

These loosely defined groups are:

 

Plain    (PL)    

(A single colour)

 

Stripes    (ST)        

(The predominant pattern is longitudinal stripes, formed by extrusion of the raw material. Additional coloured spots or swirls may also be present)

 

Confetti    (CO)        

(Closely packed small blocks of many colours)

 

Swirls    (SW)        

(Swirling patterns of one or more colours)

 

Spots    (SP)        

(A plain material with contrasting spots)

 

Marble    (MA)        

(Larger blocks of one or more colours, sometimes incorporating a web of black or another contrasting colour)

 

Clicking on a group name above will take you to a table of colour swatches for all the known materials of that type.

 

For each material, the years of introduction and withdrawal have been estimated, then the swatches are arranged with the introduction dates in chronological order within each group. The dates are deduced from the advertising and the styling differences noted on actual pens found in the various materials so they should not be considered exact, just an indication of the approximate age of a pen. Each swatch then has a unique code assigned, allowing collectors to use these codes to describe the material of their pens more precisely when trading or selling.

 

Thus ST-25-27-01 would indicate a striped material introduced c1925 and withdrawn c1927, this being the first example in that date range. Examples of other striped materials in production over the same period would then be numbered -02, -03, etc.

Where patterns were assigned suffix letters or were specifically named by Conway Stewart, these are included in the notes given beneath each swatch and indicated by bold italic text.

 

The swatches shown here only represent materials known to be found in the Dinkie range (or own-brand versions of the Dinkie). A few additional casein materials are seen in other pens in the Conway Stewart range (such as the International and the Scribe of the 1930s), and there are some different materials that were used by other British manufacturers, but not apparently by Conway Stewart. However, the swatches depicted here probably account for 80% or more of the various casein materials sold to pen manufacturers by British Xylonite between 1924 and 1960. There may be further examples of casein from the Dinkie range still to be discovered – if so, please let me know so they can be added to the print version of these swatch tables to be found in

'50 Years of the Dinkie - 1922 to 1972'.
 

To report other examples, or for any other information, contact andy@englishpenbooks.co.uk

 

Footnote: Thanks are due to fellow collector Simon for unearthing a rare colour not previously recorded - this has now been added to the swatches as SW-29-32-08

 

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