Pen Wipe with a Silver Chick

This novelty pen wipe was designed by the silversmith firm Sampson Mordan & Co Ltd.

• Design: The top features a realistically detailed sterling silver miniature chick emerging from a cracked eggshell.
• Base: The silver chick is mounted onto a circular leather top piece that sits over stacked, layered red and burgundy felt cleaning discs with pinked edges. These layers were traditionally used to wipe excess ink from a dip pen to prevent clogging and drips.
• Hallmarks: The chick is stamped with clear English sterling hallmarks including the maker’s mark for Sampson Mordan & Co Ltd (S.M & Co Ld), the Chester assay office mark (three wheat sheaves and a dagger), the date letter “G” for 1907, and the registered design number 514904.

The Bottom Emblem

1. Who is the man pictured?

The silver emblem set into the center of the leather base is a late 19th-century coin from the South African Republic (known in Dutch as the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, or ZAR). The profile portrait on the coin is of Paul Kruger (Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger), who served as the President of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1900.

2. Why is this part of the pen wipe?

The incorporation of this coin serves two main purposes:

• Functional Weight: Pen wipes required a solid, heavy base so they wouldn’t slide across a desk when a writer pressed a dip pen against the felt to clean it. Setting a heavy metal coin into the bottom leather provided perfect low-center-of-gravity stabilization.
• Historical Memento (Boer War Connection): The pen wipe was manufactured in 1907, just five years after the conclusion of the Second Boer War (1899–1902) between the British Empire and the Boer republics (including Kruger’s ZAR). During and immediately following the war, it became incredibly popular in Britain to mount captured or imported South African coins into luxury novelties, desk sets, and silver items as historical souvenirs or patriotic mementos of the conflict.