Vintage Pens

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

This is tricky business.

 

as these things go, rather than exploring newly released pens, over time I wanted to have some sense of what went on previously - when pen Co.s were competitive and innovative.

 

Other than filing systems, I reckon ebonite feed+collector units and development of tipping materials/shaping plus nib production are key elements.

 

Also we have steady reduction of human hands-on involvement in getting a pen to market - handcrafting. However, pens like the wonderful P51 were designed to be mass produced, so from the get-go reduction of human touch was factored in.

 

My very personal favourite olde pen is a Waterman's 12 eyedropper - exquisite writer and more fun than a basket of puppies.

 

Bye,

S1

[Runnin_Ute]

I have several Esterbrook J series pens (J/LJ/SJ), Parker 51 Special, a Pelikan 140 from the 50's. In the semi vintage realm several Parker1 45's.

I haven't had it long, but the best writing experience of these might just be the Pelikan 140.

[pajaro]

The trouble with the vintage stuff is that you usually end up resacking it. Unless it is a Parker 51 aerometric. I am tired of sacs. I resack them, put them up, and by the next time I think to use them, they need another resacking.

[sidthecat]

Hard to go wrong with a Waterman 52.

 

Not impossible, but hard.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Parjaro, even the new sacks should be good for 7-10 years.....unless you use Noodlers or other supersaturated inks. Then repair men like Ron Zorn talk of a week to a month worth of use do to those kind of inks.

 

Back in the day before supersaturated inks....Penmann, and later.......it was not unusual for a rubber sack to last 30-40 years.....out side of India. India was hell on rubber sack's, the reason why ED's lasted so long there.

 

I had one last 60 or so years....pen was a '48-52 Esterbrook DJ (the lever shape gave away when it was made.). The last year was real slow dieing. But I got some 2 years out of it before it slowly stopped sucking ink. (The pen had sat in two drawers for 15 years apiece...or 30 years. And Germans were not into re-sacking pens then.)

[siamackz]

The trouble with the vintage stuff is that you usually end up resacking it. Unless it is a Parker 51 aerometric. I am tired of sacs. I resack them, put them up, and by the next time I think to use them, they need another resacking.

Interesting! I was expecting save to last for the next few decades. What exactly happens to the sac?

[Sandy1]

Interesting! I was expecting save to last for the next few decades. What exactly happens to the sac?

 

Hi,

 

There are many factors.

 

To a great extent, it seems to me that inks don't damage pens, rather people who don't take proper care damage pens.

 

Personal tips: don't let link linger in an unused pen; and either keep your pen full of fresh ink or clean and dry.

 

We also have overly agressive clean-up. That might include prolonged soaking and high concentration DIY cleaning solutions, which are used in an attempt to deal with inks that are reluctant to leave the pen.

 

To flush a sac pen, the lever / plunger needs to be operated, which stresses the sac. So I pair inks that are fast to flush with sac pens. e.g. Aurora Blue as opposed to the lovely Private Reserve DC SS Blue. So ask yourself what a vintage pen adds to a given ink and visa versa.

See also : https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/229245-limit-to-soaking/?p=2453755

 

Bye,

S1

Edited September 5, 2017 by Sandy1

[ENewton]

In a pen with a sac, I use the same ink consistently, write with the pen every day, and use only distilled water to flush.

 

Also, when the pen first runs dry, I fill it with water and write with the diluted ink until the pen runs out again--there always turns out to be enough residual ink for legibility--which I have convinced myself has some of the benefits of soaking, insofar as there is water in contact with any remaining ink for several days.

 

As for the use of less saturated inks, I find most of my vintage pens wet enough that even a less saturated ink produces a strong line. As a fan of shading, I would choose a less saturated ink for a vintage pen, even if I weren't trying to be careful about the sac.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

My nicest vintage pen overall is a Mabie Todd Swann 3150 from about 1948. It doesn't look like much, but it's a wonderful writer, and has no quirks that make it impractical to carry around. But perhaps this is cheating slightly, because it only became such a nice writer after a modern nibmeister reground the nib for me.

 

For unmodified vintage pens, my two favorites are a Parker Vacumatic (not a 51 Vacumatic, but the type with a regular nib) and a Sheaffer Flat Top from the 1930s. This is based on how they write and their reliability. Prettiness in a pen is noticed but secondary. And add in a Sheaffer Imperial IV TD filler, but that's from the early 1970s and pushing the envelope of what most people here count as vintage.

 

Indeed, if you include pens from as recently as the late 1970s to early 1980s, I could add my Pilot Elite with soft 18k nib, Pilot Murex, and Montblanc Noblesse.

[Sasha Royale]

Parker fountain pens are abundant and very collectible. My favorite is the Parker 45, which I used in high school and college, before they become "vintage". 45 years later, I still carry a P45 in my pocket.

 

I collected Parkers for many years. When I joined FPN, some of the Parker fans wrote such stellar reviews of Esterbrook J-series pens that I had to try one. That was a dozen Esterbrook ago. They are , indeed, very good writers, with a fun range of nibs.

 

In general, I enjoy the budget, everyday, lever-fill fountain pens of the 1940's & 1950's . It is a good filling system, that appears in so many brands of pens. So many of the brand names are uncommon and vague. They are challenging and fun to use. At present, I am using a CONGRESS fountain pen. It's horrible, but I also love "ugly puppies".

[CharlieAndrews]

I want to apologize for the confusion. I selected the British Flag originally (because I love England and was raised off of the culture there), and meant to switch it to the US flag, but forgot. I am in Arizona, and have now changed it. Thank you for your help and willingness to suggest locations for me though!

 

And thank you to everyone for your answers to my questions.

[pajaro]

Interesting! I was expecting save to last for the next few decades. What exactly happens to the sac?

 

A fair number deteriorate after about ten years. Some last longer, some have only made it about three years for me. A lot of the vintage pens I don't use often. Possibly they last better if you use them. Maybe the ink killed them.

[mitto]

The dried ink kill them. Keep it in use and they lost longer. Interesringly the unused latex sacs get hard and detriorate after sometime even before one use them in pens.

Edited September 8, 2017 by mitto

[Bo Bo Olson]

One should always ask oneself, what do I want the nib to do?

Vintage pens offer the whole gamete of nibs, from nail, regular flex, semi-flex, or levels of superflex. There are factory stubs, stubbish semi-flex German pens, and great balance, in vintage pens had to have great balance to sell.

 

One should remember, that was back in the days of One Man, One Pen, and a pen was expected to write 8 hours a day, 255 days a year....for 7-10 years before the 'iridium' wore down. It had to have great balance to compete with other top of the line pens.

There were also 'new' filling systems so one had to keep up with the Jones's also. Top of the line fountain pens then, like now were status items.

The lever still worked as good as it ever did....and sure as hell was ten times faster than that unscrew the pen and press ten times of that last Vac and first P-51. But it wasn't 'new' and up to date.

The Touchdown and Snorkel were up to date.......................then come the ruin of fountain pens, the Cartridge. .....well....actually the ruin was the ball point.....the Government helped by giving all it's workers free Skillcraft ball points.

True, Truman got free Esterbrooks, even Ike, but the rest got free Skillcraft ball points.

[AAAndrew]

Bo Bo's point about the variety of nibs is true, and a factor of vintage nibs I don't think is appreciated as much today. Sure we have fine, medium, broad and stubs, with a few outliers like XF, XXF, BB, etc., but nothing like the variety of especially the early days. Part of this was that the early fountain pens were competing with dip pens whose manufacturers produced literally hundreds of different styles, each with a different kind of writing experience. Early pen advertising stressed different nibs for different writing styles or different hands. It was about finding the right nib for you. You see this lasting longest with the Esterbrook renew-point swappable nib units. No surprise since Esterbrook was mainly a nib company coming out of the dip pen era.

 

My theory is that as handwriting became more standardized on plain "business" hands like Palmer, and with the increasing usage of carbon paper, variation in nibs became less of a selling point, and the era of The Nail had finally become dominant.

 

In 1910 there were still dozens of different competing penmanship systems being taught, from Spencerian to Palmer in the US, and the different roundhand variations still common overseas. After the two world wars, standardization in education became more valued, and with a few odd holdouts, like some private or religious schools, most went to a monoline business hand.

 

Flex is starting to make inroads in the limited world of fountain pen users, but not enough for true flex nibs to be worth the effort to make. I have noticed an increased interest in nib variation with more interest in BB and stub nibs in the last ten years. We'll see where it goes from here.

 

And back off my ramblings to the topic at hand, vintage pens. One advantage of vintage pens, especially earlier ones is the variety in nib designs and writing experiences. Even pens made in the 1940's still exhibit that great caring about the nib that came out of the early years. It seems to me that by the 50's it became more about the style and the filling system and the nib was just attached to the pen. Sure, you could style up the nib, but it is basically an iridium ball on the end of a stylish stick with a fancy filling system.

 

There's my old man ramblings for the day. Now you kids get off my lawn.

Edited September 8, 2017 by AAAndrew

[pajaro]

There was more variety of nibs available before it became more about the money AAAndrew is right there. Manufacturers disappeared and the market shook out. My grandmother had a drawer full of Esterbrook nibs, my mother had one pen, a Sheaffer desk pen. I never used anything more than fine or medium until joining here and trying a spectrum of nibs. Today you mostly find choices of fine medium or broad. I have ground a few into stubs and italics. For something not commonly offered, and discovering odd grinds that I would never have known how to ask for. So, vintage is an answer. Esterbrook gives you a glimpse of what might be out there. Flex you will have to search out. I was recently given an old black eyedropper with a rusty flexible steel nib. They are out there. Look at estate sales.

[chromantic]

I have a mid-50s Sheaffer Cadet that I use on occasion which I like a lot - F nib (almost EF), pretty smooth, interesting Touchdown filling mechanism. Some people prefer the fancier Snorkle but that seems overly complicated to me.