Wyvern The Perfect Pen No. 50

[fireskink]

A quadruple first - my first review, my first Wyvern, my first level fill pen, and indeed my first "properly" vintage pen full stop! (My previous oldest ones are 70s/80s ones from my school days.)

 

I'm not sure why, but I fell in love with Wyverns as soon as I saw them. I know they're far from top of the range, though there are some nice ones out there, but something about them just grabbed me. So when I saw this No. 50 at a price I could afford I snatched it up, to see if I enjoyed writing with one as much as I do looking at them. I'm an absolute amateur - though I've been writing with fountain pens since I was six, I'm only just learning anything significant about them now - so please bear with me as I fumble my way through a review....

 

http://i.imgur.com/C7PiaNp.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/pbn753Cb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ddBudvQb.jpg

 

Appearance & Design - 7/10

The Perfect Pen, having as I understand it been pretty low-end in its day, isn't the most prepossessing pen out there. It's a fairly utilitarian look, in a medium brown (a little faded/stained in this case), made from that hard rubber substance, with a simple gold clip and ring. "Unpretentious" is probably the best description. For all that, it's not ugly, and I find its simplicity somehow appealing. It's slightly wider in th middle of the barrel than at the end, to allow the cap to be posted, and the section is pleasant to hold, though I find I'm holding it closer to the nib than I do with some of my other pens.

http://i.imgur.com/92affvnl.jpg

Construction & Quality - 8/10

Mostly this feels like a decently robust pen. It's certainly come in for a bit of wear over the years - I'm not sure of the age, but I'm guessing pre- or just post-war (anyone know?), and it's got some staining/marking etc, and the band of the clip doesn't fit very well any more. Other than that, it's holding up remarkably well! - the rubbery substance seems to be pretty tough. It looks like the sac has been replaced. The threads where the cap screws on are still in very good order. Judging by the marking where the cap's been posted it's been used a fair deal, so if this is all the damage the outer parts have taken, that's pretty good going.

http://i.imgur.com/wIHeLm8m.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tN4uXohm.jpg

Weight & Dimensions - 10/10

At 5 inches capped, and 6 inches posted, this pen is a great size for me: not so massive it's cumbersome, and not so short it's awkward to write with. I usually prefer a heavier pen, but I'm suffering from a lot of pain at the moment and the lightness of this makes it perfect. I can imagine when it was released it was a great pen for carrying around in a shirt pocket or similar. It's neither overly slender nor excessively chunky.

http://i.imgur.com/BRvwEnUl.jpg

Nib & Performance ?/10

According to the box the fine nib - the original as far as I can tell, since it's engraved with "Wyvern Perfect Pen" - is 14 ct solid gold. (It also says "osmiridium" on it; not sure what that means.) I'd read that Wyvern nibs tend to be nails, but this one has a little bit of flex.

http://i.imgur.com/MgVxcdYl.jpg

I'm honestly not sure how to rate it, because I can feel that it *wants* to be buttery-smooth, but it scratches a bit because, as a close examination shows, the tines are a bit misaligned, and there's something a bit weird going on with the tipping - it almost looks like someone, either accidentally in manufacture or some time after in restoration, has added an extra bit of tipping material? It looks like perhaps someone has widened the gap between the tines? It's also got a larger gap from the feed on one side than on the other. Fixing this is well beyond me, but I'd love to get it to a specialist some time when I can afford to (and I'm going to ask on the nibs forum with some additional pictures). Gutted I'm unlikely to be able to go the London Pen Show (as I'm having surgery on my spine two weeks before!), because like I say, I can feel so much potential in this nib! It still does write very nicely; that slight scritch niggles at me, but compared to the super-cheap pens I've been fiddling with lately it's in a whole different class.

The nib is supposedly fine, but I find the line it lays down closer to medium - though that may be because I've been using some extra-fines recently! I've only tried one ink so far, but it works well on a variety of papers. (Apologies for my scrawly handwriting - with the pain I'm in I'm having trouble holding a pen, and writing in bed isn't ideal.)

http://i.imgur.com/NJcF1cZl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hC55wsum.jpg

Filling System & Maintenance - ?/10

The lever is a little fiddly, but I have no experience with them, so I don't know how it compares! It seems to fill nicely, though in my inexperience I did manage to splurt ink all over my table. The lever seems to be in good order, and as I said above the sac looks to have been replaced. I'll have to leave this one unrated too because I just don't have enough experience of levers to compare; it's certainly more annoying than a cartridge converter, but it's a feature of the period the pen was made in, and there's something pleasantly archaic about using the lever. I haven't tried removing the sac and don't plan to! But the section unscrews easily from the barrel and re-screws nice and securely.

Conclusion/Final score, 8.5/10

I really, really like this pen. It just fits so beautifully in my hand and even with the hint of scritch writes nicely. I just keep wanting to reach for it. It's certainly not the prettiest object, but it's a good solid little tool. As a working writer, I could write with this all day easily - if only I could get the nib sorted. I'm glad I followed my gut in its mysterious desire for a Wyvern, and would happily try others out now, even knowing that they vary a lot!

[subbucal]

Beautiful pen...congrats

[birchtine]

Lovely pen and thank you for the review!

[Seele]

Wyvern was George VI's favoured pen, even if it's meant to be "lower end" than some others. It's also made in Leicester, my old stomping ground before I moved to Australia. The nib does look a little funky; I wonder if an expert repairer can attend to it; that should make it as good as can be.

[flummoxed]

Unpretentious, but it is the pen that some of us like! Thanks for the review. I've dev a few Wyverns pop up now and then in the classifieds and wasn't sure.

 

If the feed is ebonite like the rest of the body and the nib-feed are friction fit, you could try a combination of heat setting and gently turning the nib to help with some of the flow and alignment issues.

[fireskink]

Thanks all, I'm very happy with this!

 

Seele - that's interesting to know! I can see why he liked them. There's definitely something up with the nib, though it does write quite nicely; since I'm local to Andy's Pens, I'm going to take it in for Andy to have a look at when I'm mobile again. Definitely something not quite right!

[peterg]

"osmiridium" is the tipping material, an alloy of iridium. It was also used by Mentmore & Unique which may suggest the same manufacturer for the nibs

[fireskink]

Thank you, peterg - I hadn't run across it before.