BIC pen holders are made by Orzels

Nice little pen cups
Never been sure if they are Crown Lynn or not
Would like to know

Welcome to the site gloworm
Will try to check this out when I get a chance, as I know I've seen records for these somewhere in my files. It's all work and no time to play atm .......

Had a look couldn't find any reference to BIC.
I did find 2 records though that may help -

Pen Holder SB d079 made in the late 1970's

Ball Point Pen Container d308 which would have been made around 1970 as the Expo 70 ware is on the same page.

Forgot to ask about the glaze. Could you describe the colour please?
I ask because from here it reminds me of the Ngakura Ware colour.

Pen holders are about 72mm high. I have sold them before as attributed to Crown Lynn and nobody has objected to that. Most often I have had them in bluish colours similar to that on the base of this lot. these 2 are darker than usual. Have also seen them in yellowish and orangy colours. Glaze is kind of rough and frequently has big dribbles. Pottery is also a bit rough looking - one I have here is kind off irregular as in not perfectly round.
regarding brownstone will try and take some photos of both plates tomorrow when light is good.

Here is the base of the pen holder I have to use as a comparison.

Bumps this topic .... there is another pen pot thread somewhere, but can't find it atm

I found this page via google images for "Orzel".
That's totally random.

Here's another one

When Val was here she did not recognise this as being a Crown Lynn item.

As I now have one of these, personally I don't think they are Crown Lynn.
Why? Well mainly because the glazes don't match any other ware they made and are patchy and have dribbles and are just not professional enough to be Crown Lynn.
So who made them then?

Could the glaze on the left two be a colour match?


Different shaped bodies create different effects from the same glaze.
The darker orange is the colour where the glaze pools on both pieces.

The main difference I can see is the Bic pot has been glazed in a dusty environment

As I said in my previous post, the Bic pot turned up in a google search for Orzel,
and I have suggested elsewhere that the inkpot (or whatever) looks a bit like Orzel Manhattan.

I have yet to see the dark blue/green of the right-hand piece on Orzel, although the colour on the base does remind me of the Orzel blue/green.

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15/8/14 new colour

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26/10/14
I couldn't resist a couple more (to a total of five) from TM, different glazes again.
My photo's a bit low-light so I'll try again tomorrow.

So who needs all these when they already have a fine pair of CL ones already in use?
Actually I thought they might double as wine sips. And, like the Orzel mustard pots, they don't take up much room so new glazes are fun to find.

Curiously they are not standard Orzel glazes. I'm going to google to see if similar were also made overseas. Nup: all the pics are ours.

Don't forget to look at John's one at
https://www.newzealandpottery.net/t168-john-s-bic-vase#561

Here are mine and even though the orangey one doesn't have Bic on the base I feel that it is from the same stable ... I mean pottery.
That orangey glaze hasn't even melted properly and the green Bic is a bad example of craftsmanship.  Definitely not Crown Lynn!!



The bases are a little different, but the same....

How marvellous to have these Bic Pen Pots identified by Cameron and Bev Brown yesterday as made in the 100's of thousands by Orzel

Chatting with Val over a cuppa this afternoon a thought (re-)occurred to me which I think should be recorded. Unlike the Orzel mustard pots, which were also produced in vast quantities, the Bic pen holders are not standard Orzel glazes.

I have seven or so mustard pots in different colours and they are recognisable as Orzel by both shape and glaze. I have five differently glazed Bic pen pots and none of them reproduces an Orzel glaze I am familiar with.

One possible conclusion is that like Ti-Toki bottles (Val's example), and Air NZ miniature buildings, they may have been produced by more than one pottery. Another is that they simply had their own range of glazes.

I think there is more to this story yet.

(I may add a picture of all five to show this.)