Little has been known about the range of patterns of the Swan metal pens. The American Mabie Todd book by David Moak shows these pens but does not attempt to name the patterns. The Stephen Hull book, being focused on the English Swans, makes little mention of these pens. In June 2023, Mike Crawford bough a catalog that had many pages of pens. He shared with me the pages listing Swan Pens, and I was very interested to see names for four of the patterns. Additional patterns in my collection will follow the named pens. Anyone with more patterns, and certainly anyone with vintage paper showing the pattern names is encouraged to contact me.
Wave: narrow ripple panels and rows of diagonal slashes in alternating directions
Line: groups of lines
Floral: I have seen this called “rosette.” Unclear if that name was notional or an alternative name in other catalogues.
Ripple: groups of rippled lines
Other patterns. Are the names handed down from catalogues, or simply notional?
Link
Checkerboard
Block
Line and Dot
Chevrons
W’s???