Please help identify the old Waterman lever-filler pen (made in England)

[ZhenyaR]

From the local fountain pen enthusiast I've bought an old Waterman fountain pen. The seller said that it's model 503, but the search in the Internet showed different results: the 503s I found are bigger than my pen.

The pen is relatively small and thin. I don't have any other Watermans to compare with, so I just measured it:

1. length capped/posted/uncapped (in millimeters rounded) 127/148/116

2. barrell thickness: 10,8 mm

3. Nib says: "Watermans Ideal England 2B"

The imprint on the barrel is very laconic: "Waterman's Made in England". No model number.

After the additional search I got several other options: Stalwart or Starlet. But again - no more information, so maybe someone helps to identify and to date this old pen?

By the way, the pen is a lovely writer. I bought it because I had a chance to try it with ink so I literally was amazed with the smoothness of this Waterman, although as a result of my amaziness I slightly overpaid I suppose.

Sorry for the photos, I don't have a lightbox. The color of the pen is brown or maroon.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by ZhenyaR

[shalitha33]

If you can find good copies of late 1940s or around that period waterman catalogues that might be useful to find what this model is.

 

https://archive.org/details/WatermanFountainPenCatalogs/Waterman Pen Catalog 1947/mode/2up (not readable sadly)

 

Unfortunately I don't have any info on that pen. Although I too seem to have one similar but with a different nib. to compare I have a waterman W2 (grey) 515 (blue) and this one (black).

 

It is slightly smaller than the W2 and have a much longer lever. It doesn't have any outer box like in 515.

 

Nib on mine is a NW2 which should be a replacement. nib is about the same size as the W-2B on the W2.

[ZhenyaR]

Seems your black pen is the same as mine. And comparing it to the grey W2 model I can say that they are almost identical, except the form of the lever, the quantity of cap bands and the design of the clip.

I don't think Waterman made pens of the same size in the same period of time, so I guess the black pen is the ancestor or the descendant of the W2 model (but maybe I'm wrong). Anyway the mystery is still here.

I searched the Waterman catalogues of that period (1940es), but all I could find is the same bad scanned copy of the 1947 catalogue from the link you've sent to me.

[joss]

I learned from other FPN threads that finding the exact name or model numbers of 1940s Waterman pens can be complicated, especially because design features of English & Canadian Waterman pens can differ significantly from US made Waterman pens of the same era.

 

For what it is worth: the levers without lever box are typical for English and Canadian Waterman pens and they were mounted on lower line pens.

 

Apart from catalogs, period advertisements can provide great info on certain pen details. For instance the Waterman clip with vertical lines on top appears late 1948 (as per USA Waterman advertisements). So a clip without these lines is, in theory, 1948 or earlier. But that applies only for US made Waterman pens. The problem is that there are very few English Waterman advertisements so I do not know whether similar changes occurred at a similar moment on English Waterman pens.

 

[ZhenyaR]

Yes, I learned the same. And this is very sad not to have the complete list of the Waterman-made pens as we have for the Parker ones.

I tried to google the UK magazines of the 1940s era, but it seems noone cared to scan and upload them somewhere like archive.org.