Let's See Your Smallest Pens - 4 Inches Or Smaller Capped

[Marlow]

Most collectors love laarge pens. I do too. However I also love a very small, well-crafted pen.

 

Here are five to get us started:

From left to right -

 

Edacoto solid silver guilloche' button-filler - a very good heft for such a tiny pen and a lovely flexible 18ct nib to boot;

 

Mabie Todd Swan blue moire ringtop lever-filler - fabulous colour celluloid and a predictably lovely flexy #2 nib

 

Kaweco Sport piston-filler - very high quality feel to this older version Sport, with a superbly smooth semi flex 14k Kaweco nib

 

Edacoto Red Woodgrain Hard ribber lever-filler - fabulous patterning to the hard rubber - worthy of being called a 'Ripple' and a flexy Unic 18ct Nib;

 

Paillard eyedropper-fill safety retractable in BHR in great condition (missing nib). (I also have the Great Grandfather to this wee little ankle-chomper!)

 

I bet someone out there has one of those tiny Goldfinks and a sexy Montblanc 00 size gold overlay safety to trump my selection?!

 

[Shannon]

My Montblanc 114 Mozart is a cutie at just about 4.5" unposted

[Marlow]

My Montblanc 114 Mozart is a cutie at just about 4.5" unposted

 

A pic or it didn't happen!?

[PaulS]

just a few then - nothing over 3.75 inches and couple down at 3.5 inches - unfortunately these is some damage and the g.f. pen is missing its clip.

I can't get too steamed up with these shorties - it's bad enough hunting normal sized pens, let alone things I can't really hold properly.

 

Left to right ……………… couple of Mentmore Minor - a Platignum Petit (these three of course from the same back garden shed).

an 18 ct. g.f. Aurora and three earlyish Dinkies.

 

Who were these midgets aimed at - I'm never really sure - perhaps it was midgets.

[Marlow]

just a few then - nothing over 3.75 inches and couple down at 3.5 inches - unfortunately these is some damage and the g.f. pen is missing its clip.

I can't get too steamed up with these shorties - it's bad enough hunting normal sized pens, let alone things I can't really hold properly.

 

Left to right ……………… couple of Mentmore Minor - a Platignum Petit (these three of course from the same back garden shed).

an 18 ct. g.f. Aurora and three earlyish Dinkies.

 

Who were these midgets aimed at - I'm never really sure - perhaps it was midgets.

 

Love the colourway of that Dinkie on the far right!

 

Funnily enough, despite having pretty large hands I actually enjoy holding and writing with these little tiddlers! The Kaweco Sport in particular is an outstanding writer and one I often take out and about in its little leather slipcase.

[BaronWulfraed]

Five Stipula: Passaporto Clear, Passaporto Ebonite LE, Bon Voyage green, Superleggero clear, Superleggero stealth (the latter two are eyedropper only, the older three can fit a standard international short cartridge, though they look silly with one installed -- better to just eyedropper them too).

[PaulS]

that lilac Dinkie was a disaster. Bought at an antiques fair - hair dryer heat prior to disassembly using section pliers - section wouldn't budge - patience ran thin - pen shattered into about sixteen pieces. Look carefully and you'll see all the little cracks where I spent a week sticking the bits back together. It's a 1930s pen I'm sure - the stripes and colour made me think of art deco.

 

I was going to say that Shannon's pen should be excluded because of the subject title '4 inches or smaller capped'. Only joking. - and yes, we need to see a picture, please.

[Marlow]

Five Stipula: Passaporto Clear, Passaporto Ebonite LE, Bon Voyage green, Superleggero clear, Superleggero stealth (the latter two are eyedropper only, the older three can fit a standard international short cartridge, though they look silly with one installed -- better to just eyedropper them too).

 

Photos pretty please?!

[Marlow]

that lilac Dinkie was a disaster. Bought at an antiques fair - hair dryer heat prior to disassembly using section pliers - section wouldn't budge - patience ran thin - pen shattered into about sixteen pieces. Look carefully and you'll see all the little cracks where I spent a week sticking the bits back together. It's a 1930s pen I'm sure - the stripes and colour made me think of art deco.

 

I was going to say that Shannon's pen should be excluded because of the subject title '4 inches or smaller capped'. Only joking. - and yes, we need to see a picture, please.

 

Shame about the cracks in the Dinkie - (edit - i think you did a great job of reattaching the fragments!) I have one extremely particular pen that displays shattering even more than the Dinkie but which, due to its particular construction, is suitable for a very special type of repair that I am currently practising on less valuable cracked pens before I attempt the serious one!....

Edited June 13, 2019 by Marlow

[terim]

Waterman 12 1/2 "Baby" Safety pen ..... 3.5" capped.

 

 

And this Echo is even smaller .... the pen is 2-7/16" capped.

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by terim

[Bo Bo Olson]

Rusewe Sirius cracked ice, an Austrian company, pen mid-50's in one can tell by the problems the ball point pen has. Is a semi-flex nib. Also was NOS, unused cork....that puts it well into the '50's also.

 

Sigh 4 3/16ths...I thought it shorter.

I have '50's problems with the green stripped standard sized one's ball point too.

 

Ball points were just sinking down to Elementary school kids in the mid-late '50's...unfortunately I can't take my pocket knife and fix them like I once did....back before there were ball point pen collectors.

Clicker is crooked, ball point don't quite retract....such things were normal....like the ring of ink that surrounded the point and smeared on everything....shirts and so one. And wouldn't come out in the wash!!!!

I don't know if these BP's will get the ring around the ball, but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

I do have a real tiny no name that I don't have a picture off; that would be more the jeans watch pocket pen.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson

[Marlow]

Waterman 12 1/2 "Baby" Safety pen ..... 3.5" capped.

 

 

I love these baby Waterman's! Fantastic imprint on this one!

[Marlow]

Rusewe Sirius cracked ice, an Austrian company, pen mid-50's in one can tell by the problems the ball point pen has. Is a semi-flex nib. Also was NOS, unused cork....that puts it well into the '50's also.

 

Sigh 4 3/16ths...I thought it shorter.

I have '50's problems with the green stripped standard sized one's ball point too.

 

Ball points were just sinking down to Elementary school kids in the mid-late '50's...unfortunately I can't take my pocket knife and fix them like I once did....back before there were ball point pen collectors.

Clicker is crooked, ball point don't quite retract....such things were normal....like the ring of ink that surrounded the point and smeared on everything....shirts and so one. And wouldn't come out in the wash!!!!

I don't know if these BP's will get the ring around the ball, but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

I do have a real tiny no name that I don't have a picture off; that would be more the jeans watch pocket pen.

 

 

 

This is stunning!

[Bo Bo Olson]

This is standard sized, but as pretty as the other. I only have two, and both were NOS....I'm not sure if I had another.....

Advice if you get a NOS corked pen, do soak the cork in water first, then it won't turn saturated dark quite so fast.

 

 

[Marlow]

This is standard sized, but as pretty as the other. I only have two, and both were NOS....I'm not sure if I had another.....

Advice if you get a NOS corked pen, do soak the cork in water first, then it won't turn saturated dark quite so fast.

 

 

 

Daang! That's a beauty as well!!

[Bo Bo Olson]

I was real happy a poster who is no longer here, told me about them. Both are semi-flex but not stubs. Bock nibs.

 

I'm sure the small pens were aimed at the Ladies.......tiny faced watches***, tiny pens, tiny shoes etc.

 

****Back in the day, women smoked so could look at the tiny face of their jewelry watch and see it with every puff.

Now they wear men's watches and call them unisex or women's watches..........and men wear alarm clocks.

What I really think is stupid is to have a wrist watch so fat and big, one has to have it on the outside of the long sleeve.....instead of inside of it....then again I don't wear high waters either...........old, grumpy and out of date.

To think skilled craftsmen spent their whole life making a mechanical wrist watch one skinny millimeter skinnier than the generation before. Thin was expensive and in. Then some fashion addict wears a big 1850's pocket watch on his wrist.

Edited June 13, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson

[Marlow]

 

"old, grumpy and out of date."

I'll go with a positive re-frame of that to "mature, understandably disillusioned and with a preference for gentler times".

Edited June 13, 2019 by Marlow

[OMASsimo]

Quite a provocative post I suppose. At least it provoked me to snap a quick picture of one of my newer tiny pens. It's 88 mm, a little short of 3.5". "New" only in terms of acquisition. It's an early 1930s "The King" safety pen from Torino, Italy, with a lovely 18 K gold overlay. It's in almost perfect shape and the only thing I'm working on is a little tuning of the nib to make it an everyday writer. I even could track down the jeweler who sold it, the shop still exists!

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by OMASsimo

[Honeybadgers]

nearly flawless Jade celluloid, semiflex golf pen and pencil set in a green, real alligator leather pouch

 

under 3.5 inches capped.

 

Got it for like $25

 

 

 

 

[Marlow]

Quite a provocative post I suppose. At least it provoked me to snap a quick picture of one of my newer tiny pens. It's 88 mm, a little short of 3.5". "New" only in terms of acquisition. It's an early 1930s "The King" safety pen from Torino, Italy, with a lovely 18 K gold overlay. It's in almost perfect shape and the only thing I'm working on is a little tuning of the nib to make it an everyday writer. I even could track down the jeweler who sold it, the shop still exists!

 

 

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

 

Edit: Continental safety overlays are just so luxurious when they are in this kind of condition!

Edited June 13, 2019 by Marlow