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My recent three and a bit month excursion to Asia, alas, turned up no fountain pens at all (I saw a couple of battered Vacumatics in Yangon, but the seller wanted far too much money for them), though I was able to buy some lovely notebooks and marbled paper in Thailand. So once I'd got my feet back under the desk, after a day of catching up with emails and getting work scheduled for the next week, it was time to go and take a look at ebay in the hope of remedying the lack of calamophile acquisitions,... What was this lovely little Brahmam doing on ebay France? http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t411/amk-fpn/P1110024.jpg I duly bid, and got it at the opening bid amount (which was a nice surprise; I was sure someone would pip me at the post). I'm very pleased - this was one of the gaps in my Indian pen collection, as I started collecting seriously after Brahmam stopped producing pens. It's a really lovely ebonite, not a finicky ripple design but with big, bold diagonal stripes. If tigers wore camouflage they would look like this. Like many Indian pens it appears to combine different influences - the Parkerish arrow clip and tassie (a little too prominent to be pleasing, just a millimeter flatter would look better), but a Sheaffer-like two-tone nib with the little scalloped division between the colours. I love the detail of the section, with its really quite sharp lip; very stylish and well turned. The workmanship on the pen is quite impressive. http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t411/amk-fpn/P1110026.jpg A small mystery to me is the acronym on the nib "SDCV" - does anyone know what that means and who produced the nib? I haven't fired this pen up yet as I have far too many pens inked on my desk already, but I've dip tested it and the nib writes quite nicely with a tiny bit of feedback - a fine to medium as usual with Indian pens. I'm very glad to have it join my little flock, although I will for ever wonder about its mysterious wanderings from India to France.