The Arco Photo Thread

[fpupulin]

A nice pen helps, because turning it around in your hands works as a stimulus to write. The Omas Ogiva, in its various reincarnations, is in my opinion a very beautiful pen. Since Omas began to make its Extra with an ogival shape, immediately after the Second World War, followed by the 557-S, and finally by the numerous pens that the Bologna-based company properly called "Ogiva", up to the famous version for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I find that the shape that Omas gave to his pens is very successful. Ogival, but not too pointed at the ends, and at the same time pointed enough not to look like the clone of a Meisterstück ... The Omas Ogiva is a pen with its own unique character.

 

I was lucky enough to buy one of the Ogiva that Omas produced just before closing its doors forever, in its beautiful Arco celluloid. I've always wondered why Omas didn't do it before, a pen so beautiful to look at, with the two Greek on the cap and on the section. That same year Omas unsheathed another pen that I find beautiful, the Ogiva Autumn, which since I have never had it on my hands I have not yet understood if it is made with the same celluloid as the Extra "Saft" or with a green/brown/ocher different and unique to this pen. But Autumn is for another theme, and above all for those owners lucky enough to have it ...

 

I am writing here to say that, however nice, an exquisitely beautiful pen is not enough if the nib does not stand up to it. Omas adopted, for his Ogiva Arco, a nib that they called "Extra Flessibile", a name that honors to the historic nibs of the house, the "Extra" and "Extra Lucens" of the Thirties, Forties and Fifties, and in the meanwhile alludes to the quality of the new nib, its flexibility.

 

You already know how I feel about flexible and elastic. The "Extra Flessibile" is a flexible, but not elastic nib. This places it, for my tastes and habits, among the "soft" nibs, which I do not find suitable for calligraphy.

 

Marco Tagliani, however, found for me, and mounted on my Ogiva Arco, a truly vintage Omas Extra, an amazing extra-fine, a nib at the same time flexible and delightfully elastic. Now  my beautiful pen can boast not only a historic design and a truly special material, but also an equally beautiful nib. Here she is at work:

 

 

The mud-gray paper is what a French artisan paper mill used to wrap the notebooks that a friend gave me. I ironed and smoothed it, and here it is ... with Akkerman's SBRE Brown ink.

[txomsy]

Simply stunning. As usual.

[Ceilidh]

1 hour ago, txomsy said:

Simply stunning. As usual.

What he said!

[Guy Bagnall]

On 8/3/2019 at 5:26 AM, fpupulin said:

Long due thread...

 

In a page devoted to Italian pens, this topic is calling all the expressions of one of the most recognizable Italian materials ever used in fountain pens: the mythical Arco celluloid!

 

Made worldwide famous by the Officine Meccaniche Armando Simoni (OMAS) in Bologna in their Extras and Paragons, Milords and Princesses and Damas, and proposed here and there by other brands and independent manufacturers, the Arco celluloid is the quintessence of "italianity" in pens: warm, refined, flamboyant and unique.

 

Judging by the prices fetched by Arco celluloid pens in these days, is seems that the "Arco fever" is strongest than ever, and I can understand why...

 

Let me begin with a few photos of some of my Arco:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi - I have a fairly similar pen to the one in your photo, including the nib with the larger 'O' for Omas, but the differences are three -

it doesn't say Extra on the barrel, in fact nothing on the barrel, and 'Omas, Italy' on the cap, and the date on the barrel is 2002.

I realise Omas nomenclature was complex, but the only puzzle is why it doesn't say 'Extra'. I like the barrel being without anything,

but I haven't seen another 2002 nor a catalogue of that year. Photo attached, not too good, off an iphone. You can just about make out the Omas on the cap. 

 

[fpupulin]

Sometimes you have to come back to your Arco jewels and gather them to see them all together! What a treat!

 

 

[como]

@fpupulinYour Arco pens are diverse in pattern and model, but always Omas. Time stopped in this photo… Thank you for sharing, Franco! 

[columela]

Thank you all for the beautiful pictures and detailed descriptions of the pens shown here. I own now two arco pens, both from ASC.

[columela]

A few poor pictures of my two Arco pens.

[fpupulin]

7 hours ago, columela said:

A few poor pictures of mi two arco pens.

I know that it has been said and written hundreds of times, but it is true that there is probably no better material in the world to made a fountain pen of. Congratulations for your beautiful Arco!