The Allure Of Vintage...

[Lovely_Pen]

I'm just wondering how other people got into vintage fountain pens. Do you primarily collect, or use them? What attracted you to your first vintage beauty?

 

I just recently bought a vintage pen via Richard Binder's Pen Show Tray and I'm eagerly awaiting its arrival (and Da Book)! In the mean time, I've already been scouring Ebay and the likes for other models...The funny thing is I never thought that I'd even be interested in older pens, and it wasn't until I happened upon the Pen Show Tray that I pulled the trigger.

 

So what's your story?

[sombrueil]

I like the way they look, I like the way they write, I like how they smell, I like their size . . . why do people buy new pens?

 

Seriously, when I started looking for a fountain pen originally, I looked at the ones recommended and the ones that appealed to me "looked vintage" -- like the Phileas, and Pelikan M200 -- except they didn't have the patina, or the materials, that give vintage pens such indescribable allure.

 

I don't think resin has the depth or feel of celluloid, and affordable celluloid is pretty much only vintage now. And the nibs -- if you like responsive flexible nibs, you pretty much will be shopping vintage too.

Edited March 7, 2015 by sombrueil

[sombrueil]

By the way, what're you getting?

[linearM]

For me originally it was for the nibs, the 14K flex. Most contemporary pens art large, actually huge, and don't fit in the pocket...MB 149, Edison Collier for example. Aesthetically I find vintage pens more pleasing than modern pens. The majority of my pens range from 1898-1949 in year of manufacture. I've gotten many of them right here on FPN classifieds. I both collect them and use them 70+, with 10 inked and ready to go at any given time. There are still a lot of people out there who enjoy writing letters myself among them.

Edited March 7, 2015 by linearM

[ScienceChick]

For lack of a better word, it's the romance of vintage/old anything that appeals to me, For pens I wonder if it was the only FP the person had, what they wrote with it - love letters? a Dear John letter? Family news? Work? Did they have an attachment to it or was it strictly utilitarian? Why did it end up for sale? If the pen could talk, what would it tell me it had seen? Silly maybe but that's how I see them.

 

I only have a few vintage FPs and no heirloom pens ("Oh no, we threw all those old things away!"). I use all my pens - vintage or new. Well, not the button filler, it's a huge pain to clean. I should pass that on to someone who'll appreciate it and not mind the sore thumb.

[Pickwick]

Well Linear has me dated! I bought my first lever fill fountain pen in 1949, brand new. I was 11 years old then, and frequently passed the Stationery store looking at it on display in the window. I was acquainted with fountain pens used by Aunts and Uncles who were born in the era when the fountain pen was struggling to become a reliable writing instrument!

 

Interestingly, my relatives never allowed me to use their fountain pens, because they believed the nibs, being gold had worn to their own personal writing style, so I was given the money to buy my own.

 

Hard to believe the pens I once knew are now classified as vintage.

[cattar]

 

I use all my pens - vintage or new. Well, not the button filler, it's a huge pain to clean. I should pass that on to someone who'll appreciate it and not mind the sore thumb.

Made me laugh. I have a parker button filler. Sweet writing little pen, could leak a bit if not stored tip up, and a PITA to clean. So it sits in the tray.

All my other pens, vintage and modern, are reliable enough for edc in the bag, tho generally the get used st home.

 

It's the nibs on the vintage pens. That's why.

[sidthecat]

I have a small collection of pens, modern and vintage, and what floats my boat is the character of the vintage nibs - combined with the unfaithful-mistress quality of elderly plastic. Mont Blanc pens are sturdy and somewhat characterless, unless you want to buy a pen that might be old enough to have belonged to a war criminal. I think I hear my celluloid mistress calling: "I'll let you start taking notes of that lecture, but then I'll simply dissolve into pieces 'cause that's what happens. You'll have to simply remember how pretty your words were when you had me...you pathetic polymer-fetishist."

[AnnieB123]

I have a small collection of pens, modern and vintage, and what floats my boat is the character of the vintage nibs - combined with the unfaithful-mistress quality of elderly plastic. Mont Blanc pens are sturdy and somewhat characterless, unless you want to buy a pen that might be old enough to have belonged to a war criminal. I think I hear my celluloid mistress calling: "I'll let you start taking notes of that lecture, but then I'll simply dissolve into pieces 'cause that's what happens. You'll have to simply remember how pretty your words were when you had me...you pathetic polymer-fetishist."

 

Haha ain't it the truth?!

 

My (beloved) Parker 21 just literally fell apart in my hands in the middle of a lecture. (One of the kind folks on FPN is sending me a replacement body for the 'guts and glory' transplant *It's ALIIIIIIVE* (or will be soon)).

 

I also collect antique needlework implements, tatting shuttles, looms, chatelaines etc, and have started with antique medical things, microscopes, books (some real hysterics inducing howlers in old medical textbooks), dissecting kits and slides etc. I love the history. Without getting TOO arty-farty, I think about the lives the people who used (and loved) these things led. I have a small field kit dated to the Crimea, what stories it could tell (probably horrifying and sad ones for the most part).

Edited March 7, 2015 by AnnieB123

[Nanor]

Vintage, for the nib and flex.

 

They also resonate a depth of character which is hard to ignore.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I was a One Pen, One Man....P-75....for decades....but was really a Ball Point Barbarian....in the P-75 was much too valuable to take out the house.

Then I inherited a hand full of old pens....on an gray Esterbrook, the other a '50's Osmia-Faber-Castell 540 marbled gray, pearl and black....very pretty.

Started buying cheap pens....German 'vintage'. Got to love semi-flex after my first Pelikan 140....30 now, 15 'flexi'/maxi-semi-flex and a few Superflex...mostly the first stage of super flex, the Easy Full Flex....a step under Wet Noodle.

 

The 30's has the prettier pens.....there are much better nibs to be had in vintage.

Size?

Back when folks wrote 8-5-all year....Standard sized pens like an Esterbrook DJ, Geha 790 & Pelikan 400 were light, nimble and very well balanced. MB 234 1/2 falls into that size...but is brass piston part a tad more 'stable.'

If a pen was not well balanced, it didn't sell.

Same went for the medium large P-51, Geha 725 or the modern 600. Light and nimble, well balanced.

In Germany there was even a big market for the medium small but long posting pens like the Pelikan 140, Geha 760, & Kaweco Dia.

 

Really, the fact that the Snorkel is a large pen I never noticed...it being thin, very well balanced. Could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out by accident that the Snorkel was a 'Large' pen.

 

Modern Large pens like a 146 (did luck into a old vintage medium-large 146...great nib) Persona, Safari...takes me some time to get use too, when I switch pens.....seldom post them....do on occasion from pure muleheadedness.

Oddly my Waterman 52....has always felt 'medium-large' in spite of being a large pen.

 

I of course grew up with Standard pens being standard...so am use to that size.

Those that grew up with big, wide girthed clunky Large pens...like a Safari, find Standard pens too narrow....got nothing against that view. The giant pens 1000 & 149.....are for weight lifters.

Those Large pen users who absolutely refuse to post a standard pen....giving it it's balance...then have the gall to complain half a pen is too small for them. :wallbash:

 

Do post your Standard & Medium-large sized pens, they balance wonderfully.

 

Better nibs and better balance, and some real pretty pens is a good reason to go vintage and pre-war vintage.

[Manalto]

In a word, to savor. Writing with a fountain pen causes us to slow down, uncap and experience the feeling of ink flowing onto paper. A vintage pen just provides a broader range of materials and styles to appreciate.

 

My first vintage pen was already in the house when I became interested. It had belonged to my father's boss (an engineer on the Panama Canal) and after his death, wound up in dad's possession. It's a sedate black Waterman lever fill with a gold cap and nib. (I'm finally planning to replace the sac so I can use it.) I have some of his books, too. He occasionally made notes in the margins, apparently with the same pen. It's a nice connection to someone my father was fond of.

 

Congratulations on your new acquisition!

Edited March 7, 2015 by Manalto

[ISW_Kaputnik]

I don't have any vintage pens inked at the moment, unless you count a late 1970s Montblanc as "vintage", which I don't. I do have a 1930s Parker Vacumatic standing by to be filled as soon as I empty one of my current pens. There are others that will get rotated back in as the opportunity arises.

 

Although I'd tell you that I'm a "user not a collector", I have enough pens total right now that any of them, ancient or modern, might have to take long breaks in between being used. Some of my vintage pens are delicate and finicky enough that I'd hesitate just to carry them around in a pocket or my laptop case; when I use them it's only at home. Others are just as reliable for daily users as any of my modern pens, and get used fairly often. The nibs aren't necessarily that special, but they include the only ones I have with significant flex. A few of these old pens, frankly, just aren't that good, but I keep them because they are interesting.

 

The difference between one of my modern pens and one of the vintage ones, is that the vintage one still seems interesting even when it's not being used. It's a little piece of history, often with interesting material, such as old celluloid or BCHR. I look at them myself, regret that more of my friends and family don't appreciate them. The modern pens, if not used, are just unused pens. I think about selling pens like my Edison Hudson, TWSBI 540, or Lamy AL Star just to get them off my hands. I have no intention of getting rid of my large selection of Esterbrooks, or the classic Sheaffers, the Conklin Crescents, the Moores , Watermans, or my one 1950s Conway Stewart.

[Glenn Atkins]

Stop now while you still have a chance. When the box arrives do not open it - for any reason whatsoever - immediately mark it "return to sender, address unknown." Then immediately move out of your house, the place that you have now irreversibly infected with vintage obsession and move to a new, secret locale. Do not leave a forwarding address - enter the witness protection program. Quit your job so you have no more money (because you won't in a little while anyway, might as well be on your terms, not vintageitis).

 

Sell all your worldly possessions (better all at once than over time, it hurts less if you just rip that bandaid off) and become a Monk in Tibet, but tell no one. If you tell a single, solitary sole where you are vintage will find you!

 

Oh and by the way, enjoy your pen as much as you can on the very first day, because on day two and many subsequent days, this first vintage pen will be forever relegated to the dustbin of rotation as your addiction grows uncontrollably.

 

That is all. Oh, and congratulations and welcome to the asylum. Last one in, please lock the door. By the way, I use all my collection and even sell some of them.

 

Glenn

Edited March 7, 2015 by GAtkins

[Manalto]

By all means refrain from speaking to the bottoms of people's shoes. It's certain to raise an eyebrow.

[Glenn Atkins]

By all means refrain from speaking to the bottoms of people's shoes. It's certain to raise an eyebrow.

 

I don't understand...

 

Glenn

[Manalto]

"Raise an eyebrow" means to look askance.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Manalto

[ScienceChick]

I think the confusion is in the speaking to the bottom of a shoe part. Get Smart, right?

[mitto]

Stop now while you still have a chance. When the box arrives do not open it - for any reason whatsoever - immediately mark it "return to sender, address unknown." Then immediately move out of your house, the place that you have now irreversibly infected with vintage obsession and move to a new, secret locale. Do not leave a forwarding address - enter the witness protection program. Quit your job so you have no more money (because you won't in a little while anyway, might as well be on your terms, not vintageitis).

 

Sell all your worldly possessions (better all at once than over time, it hurts less if you just rip that bandaid off) and become a Monk in Tibet, but tell no one. If you tell a single, solitary sole where you are vintage will find you!

 

Oh and by the way, enjoy your pen as much as you can on the very first day, because on day two and many subsequent days, this first vintage pen will be forever relegated to the dustbin of rotation as your addiction grows uncontrollably.

 

That is all. Oh, and congratulations and welcome to the asylum. Last one in, please lock the door. By the way, I use all my collection and even sell some of them.

 

Glenn

Nay ! I dont sell my pens. Never ever sold any. Rest is ok. Yet , I am afraid the recipe you suggest is not going to work stopping vintage reaching you.

[ANM]

My dad had an gray marble Aikin Lambert pen and pencil set. I don't know what happened to them but one day I saw an identical pen in an antique shop and bought it. It needed a new sac and pressure bar. To my knowlege, no one was making replacement sacs then. Sheaffer squeeze converters were still readily available at the time so i took one apart, used the sac on the pen and fashioned a new pressure bar out of the remainder of the converter with the help of a jewelers saw and file. It worked just fine after that. It has a medium to broad flexy nib. That is how I got started with vintage pens. I already was using a Pelikan 120 in my everyday job. Those weren't vintage pens at that time.

Edited March 7, 2015 by ANM