How wrong one can be...

On 20 September 1944 there was a normal monthly board meeting at the factory in New John Street West for the directors of C Brandauer & Co Ltd.  During the meeting  the Managing Director - Captain Garth Petit reported on the current trading position as the current MD does to this day.  During that meeting the Board discussed in detail the future development of the Light Pressings side of the Brandauer business.  It is understood that the pressings side of the business was mainly war work.

Captain Petit (Uncle Garth to me, who always arrived in a very large car when he came to stay when I was a child) gave his opinion as follows:

... that the outlook for light press work was such as to make it of definitely secondary importance to pen work and that in both reconstruction and construction lay-out and in production work for the present and probably in immediate post-war time pen work should be given priority.

Hindsight is a useful thing and had they been able to see into the future they probably would have decided upon a different plan as it was to be only another 21 years before pen production stopped completely.  Also, the 'light pressings' side of the business became the foundations of the Brandauer products that today are known globally and those beautiful pen nibs are now museum pieces!  However, even in the 21st century I am sometimes contacted by cartoonists and calligraphers for particular Brandauer pens and I do my best to find a few, though this is becoming more and more difficult.