Seeking info and advice on rare vintage Italian brand: MaGus

October 8, 2007

This happened this summer to me:

I am used to spend few days of summer vacation back to my parent’s house, by the sea. When we are there I and my family stay to former grandpas place, a few blocks away. The house is not inhabited since my grandparents passed away during the eighties. This year, because this was the first time since my interest for FP revamped, I started a big quest for pens all around the closets and drawers of the house.

What I found was a couple of old “medical” FP (when people from the pharma industry come to market their products to the medicine doctors, they usually leave tons of cheap ballpoints with the pharma brand stamped over) and the subject of this post. Here’s a picture.

The full pen:

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2529/dsc6178kb0.th.jpg

It was hidden on the bottom of a drawer in the living room. It is a female, gold, eye-dropper, safety (again! Check my

Columbus post! Looks like I am becoming one of the most renewed collector of this kind of FP!) Fountain Pen. Initially I was thinking it was an Aurora, due to the nib, but to a closer look and some research it turned out to be a Magus (or Ma Gus).

There are little info on this brand over the internet. What I was able to find out is that Magus is a company founded on the first years of ‘900 by Gustavo Mayer (from here the Ma Gus brand) in Milano.

The Brand Name:

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/7831/dsc6181uv7.th.jpg

The pen is 8 side faceted, 18k gold with a geometrical motif. On the knob there is the brand name: Ma Gus (with a small rounded triangle in between the two words). The nib is a gold Aurora “3”. Unfortunately it is in bad conditions: the nib is bended, the safety does not work and the bottom of the pen is missing.

The Nib:

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/9785/dsc6180tk1.th.jpg

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2194/dsc6182ms4.th.jpg

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/2955/dsc6177sl0.th.jpg

So, please: can anyone help on this? Have you never heard of Magus before? What period the pen should be? And first of all: the Aurora nib is original or a replacement? I can easily imagine that for small brand was normal to use nib from established companies.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ciao

February 27, 2008

Sorry for bring up this "zombie".

I just wanted to add some information I learned on it in the meantime.

The triangle that stands between the letters "Ma" and "Gus", triangle with inscribed an "M" and a "G" (I repost a picture below), is not the brand logo, as I initially supposed.

Conversely is the brand logo Montegrappa used on the 20s and 30s!

I learned that Montegrappa was used to provide such gold overlay for minor italian brands, and they marked those third parties works with that "triangle".

That makes the pen even more precious to my eyes, I'll need to find someone to restore it to its original beauty!

Oh, and I learned also that originally Magus pens were sold with stamped Magus nibs, therefore the Aurora "3" nib on it is an afermarket/replace.

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/7831/dsc6181uv7.jpg

Ciao,