My First Lever Fill

[deansellers]

Browsing ebay I came upon a FP that caught my eye. 1 min left on the auction, 0 bids, $9.99; why not? I said! 'Rockne' on the clip, 14k gold nib, lever fill, pretty green and black marbleing. It's a project! Has anyone ever heard of this brand?

 

[SimonJamesLucas]

That's a good looking pen, lever fillers are still my favourite fountain pens.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Nice looking pen. I have nothing at all against them, in I used them before cartridge pens came really in use for grade school, back in the silver dime days.

 

They hold a good amount of ink and are fast to re-fill.

[PAKMAN]

Nice looking pen! A little polish and a sack an you will be all set!

[Uncle Red]

Good catch, definitely a keeper.

[th3]

Your going to have a really good looking pen when your finished. I think you did good!

[deansellers]

Thanks for all the kudos! I have to admit that after I pulled the trigger on the bid I thought, OMG, what have I done?! And it only deepened when I could find absolutely no information on the history of the pen maker. When it arrived I thought, well, this is a mess. A little chewed up, things rattling around inside, nib tines a little mis-aligned. After a little work, though, I think I can get this little guy in shape.

[Ernst Bitterman]

I can't help but wonder if some low-rank pen maker adopted the name in an effort to coat-tail on the sports figure. There were an AWFUL great heap of cheap pen makers when the Depression hit, and this is likely on that didn't hold on to the end of it (but long enough to try to emulate the Sheaffer Balance). "Cheap" and "shoddy" were not necessarily linked, of course; I've got some very similar looking objects from similarly obscure makers that are good fun to write with.