Any info about Osmia 222

[Marco1976]

Hi, I've bought this pen two days ago on eBay and after a lot of research online I can't find any information about this model. Also very little information about the Osmia's 22x series at all. From the photos I have and also from what the seller (a reputable one) told me, the pen looks to be in excellent condition, almost like unused, so I'm looking forward to receiving it and do a quick review here after that. Any information from more knowledgeable members would be most appreciated.

Thank you all

 

Marco

 

(The photos are from the seller)

Edited June 4, 2021 by Marco1976

[Paul-in-SF]

I have one of these, although in a different material (I love your stacked celluloid, mine is black and ivory marble). It's a very short pen, 112 mm capped, but 137 mm posted so long enough for me to use. It has a very soft, almost flexy nib, that is very pleasant to write with. 

 

I don't know much about the product line, and only remember a little of the company history that I found out about last year. Osmia was absorbed by Faber-Castell in the 30's I believe, and the transition was somewhat gradual -- the Osmia nibs went on for a few years, I think. There are those who think that the current quality of Faber-Castell nibs owes something to the Osmia DNA in the company. This paragraph is all based on my sometimes-unreliable memory, so don't take it to the bank. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Medium short fountain pens were very popular in Germany in the '50-60's. Pelikan 140, Geha 760, a number of Osmia's** and the Kaweco Dia among others.

 

I have black and gold, medium-small, 883 BBL(Obb) and a 773 KM inked right now.

Buy the pen.....It's so rare to get colored Osmia pens, and a number of other German pens.

I really envy you.

The only colored Osmia pen I have is a 540...

 

I do have some BCHR, black chased hard rubber ones.

This full tortoise is a Boehler Gold mdl 54, and I forgot colored.

 

Those are Boehler...the Boehler brothers split the company in 1938, and Herman Boehler continued using the same model numbers..........................I tend to think of Osmia and Boeler's 30's pens as the same. .

 

The nib will be either semi-flex or maxi-semi-flex. Often the small diamond nib (like you have and is a small 2...I have a couple 3's))is semi-flex; though some can be maxi-semi-flex. The nibs with just Supra or a big Diamond and Supra are often maxi-semi-flex. There will be no size or width number on the Supra...well on the ones I have.

Gold is= to the great Steel nibs..............I was once a stupid gold nib snob, and passed up some fine Osmia pens with a steel nib. I now know better. Both those nibs are great.

You don't have to do anything but write to get line variation.

 

I'm into line variation, having 35 semi-flex and 15 maxi-semi-flex.

I welcome you to the club.....you get that old fashioned fountain pen script....automatically....do try to use a light Hand....Where you naturally press down harder, the first letter, the loops of letters or a crossing of a T you get wider line than where your hand is normally lighter lines in the thin parts of letters or the lines connecting the letters.

 

Ignore videos showing real wide spread tines or buy my over stressed nib on Ebay pictures....pre-sprung for your shopping convenience......after ruining it through Nib Abuse....it will be sold.

Semi or maxi-semi-flex are Flair nibs, adding natural flair to your hand with out doing anything at all.

 

Snap back is something wanted in a nib that has even 3 X tine spread.....and a sprung nib don't have much left.

 

Semi-flex Is Not a calligraphy nib. It should be maxed no more than 3 X a light down stroke!!! Or that is Nib Abuse!!!

 

(It took me some 6 weeks to stop maxing my Pelikan 140 semi-flex all the time., my first semi-flex..perhaps another 4 weeks to get a light enough hand I could get Line Variation On Demand.

 

You have to have a light enough Hand, to be able to Demand It.

Maxing you can't demand, in you are maxed.

 

The tipping is an osmium complex bought from a Heidelberg metallurgical professor in 1922......it is one of the better tiping complexes

The reason the company is called Osmia is the osmium tipping. 

 

Osmia didn't have an office supply company supporting their pen division like Soennecken, MB, Pelikan and later Geha, so were often broke................but are a top of the line German pen of it's era.

Buy it, post it and have fun writing.

I don't have one of their button fillers.....sadly. and it is a very pretty pen.

 

If it hasn't been re-sacked, you will have to have that done....a old time rubber sac was only good for 30-40 years.....modern for 10....if you  never use any supersaturated or saturated ink in it....Supersaturated inks can eat a new rubber sac in weeks according to very reputable repair men who refuse warranted work for using that American ink.

Classic inks like Pelikan, Herbin or R&K will do just fine Non-saturated Diamine. . MB is IMO  is now way too expensive.

[Marco1976]

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Buy it, post it and have fun writing.

I've already bought it, it's a waiting game now, it comes with a new sac and although not a big fan of posting (I'll get used to it), I'm pretty sure I'll have fun writing with it. I love history, especially about old objects that I have. I believe you are one of the more knowledgeable members in the history of the brand and models, do you know anything about the Osmia's 22x series?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Parker bought up Osmia in @ 1928/9 and the market crashed snd sold it back to the Boehler brothers in 1929/30 Lamy was the manager. Osmia got a technology transfer out of it.

So your pen looks similar to a Vac... Very Much like a Vac....could even have been before the Vac hit the States.... the push button  may be the same style...

I have Lambrou's book in German, on pg 193 is some pictures of, 223, 224, 226,but none of the 222.

 

In I still go the wall and take the Horn off the Cradle and crank the telephone handle, saying "Hello** Mable, give me Alice"...I can't help you with cell phone photos. The picture wouldn't be all that great anywahy.

The '89 Lambrou book is said to be better than the later one..

Maybe you can get your library to get it for you?

 

Hello is a new word, coming in after 1876 to tell folks you had a telephone (Some 50,000 in 1881).....and use it all the time...."Hello." The City Directory would put Telephone behind your name, to tell you you could telephone them.....normally for business only. You had to pay for the wire running from the telephone masts and yardarms to the telephone connection shack on top of your roof and from there to your office. So you were someone if you had a telephone on your wall.

Writing a western so have to know such BS.

Men telephone operators were late to work, rude, and gossiped for money or drinks about the business they over heard on the telephone in the Saloons.

 

Women made $0.50 a 12 hour day as a clerk....men two three dollars, seamstresses made 50 cents, also had to take work home with them...so had to live at home. Or fate was bad to them as they starved to death.

 

Causal male labor made a dollar a day; 25 cents for a flop house bed... 35-40 cents  to eat. And a couple nickle beers and the day's money was gone.

Out side being a telegrapher; requiring family connections to get the job....the very first job that could support a woman and put a roof over her head and food on the table was being a Telephone operator...There were some 6-7 in 1881.

They were on time, cheerful..... very much the most important thing......wouldn't be caught dead in a Saloon.

The beginning of Woman's Lib.

[ralfstc]

Hi Marco,

 

I have a 1222, which I suspect is basically identical. Mine is marbled. It's a tiny pen, button filler, and an astonishing writer. Just a wonderful vintage pen. I ended up getting six more Osmias, so be careful!

 

Ralf

[Bo Bo Olson]

I do have some 4-5 thirties pens, and hang around in the '50-60's. I have Osmia's from both era's...counting Boehler's as Osmia's....so have some 8-10. ...I thought that was a lot but there is a guy here with over 60 and another noted poster with his basic 20-30.

 

In 1932 Osmia had to give it's nib factory to the gold and silver producer Degussa for debt.

None of the workers would move 35 miles to Pfortzheim, so Degussa produced it's nibs in the Osmia factory. They continued making the great Osmia nibs with the Osmai and later Osmia-Faber Castell marks; did also produce nibs for sales to other small pen companies.

So if you run into a Degussa nib, it's a very good one.

As a noobie, I didn't know squat, and almost tossed a steel Degussa in it couldn't be any good.....all the folks with lots of posts repeated the Myth.....Only IN House was any good....a lie.

 

In Heidelberg the fountain pen capitol of the world, Rupp (I have only one...; the other two times I spotted one, someone else got them...) from 1922 to 1970, Degussa made nibs into the '90's, and Bock from 1938 to now.....

Info on Bock in my signature.

[Mr.Rene]

What beautiful pens were made by OSMIA...I miss those old style pens designs...Regards

[OMASsimo]

Congratulations! You bought a rare, excellent, and beautiful pen in an even rarer celluloid version. I bet you will be very happy with this pen if you like to write with rather flexible vintage gold nibs. I have a couple of those and the bigger sibling, a 223, in my collection and all three are in my top favourite pens. Here is a picture:

 

 

 

As you already noticed, there is very little serious information about Osmias in general and the 22x series in particular. There must have been two larger pens in this family, the 224 and 226, but it seems almost impossible to find one. I’ve also seen a 221, which seemed clipless. All these pens are button fillers with 14k gold nibs of outstanding quality. The caps and barrels were produced in various celluloid designs like solid black, marbled as the above ones, and stacked like yours. Cap tops and blind caps were black hard rubber. I think that these pens were produced in the first half of the 1930s. Maybe, production ran longer and was continued for export. But button fillers soon fell out of favour on the German market as were coloured pens. From the second half of the 1930s onward, the product palette was dominated by the classic black and gold piston fillers like the Supra (7x series). Coloured celluloid pens had a short renaissance after WWII.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Those three Osmia pens are cubed.

 

[Kaweco]

Hello Marco

Nice pen, I have the same as display dummy. The pattern originally was patented by Parker. The series numbers after 1930 are a little bit weird, not easy to get an overview. Even the same number had been imprinted in different models.

Kind Regards

Thomas

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thomas twisted Heidelberg City Hall's arm to get a small but fine fountain pen museum space in an old Art Nouveau fire station across from the ruin of a 13-14th century castle in Handschuhsheim..Glove Home.

That housed  perhaps 1/3 of his collection including pen making machines.

He is a scholar of Heidelberg and surrounding area fountain pens. His uncle use to work in Kaweco, when it was in Heidelberg. I often drive by the old Osmia factory building...often, 3-5 times a year.

 

Heidelberg was once The Fountain Pen Capitol of the World. 

 

Thomas even has a nib making machine, that took a pallet and a fork lift to transport.

What exactly what some of these do, I don't remember.

 

 

[Marco1976]

On 6/4/2021 at 10:59 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

Parker bought up Osmia in @ 1928/9 and the market crashed snd sold it back to the Boehler brothers in 1929/30 Lamy was the manager. Osmia got a technology transfer out of it.

So your pen looks similar to a Vac... Very Much like a Vac....could even have been before the Vac hit the States.... the push button  may be the same style...

I have Lambrou's book in German, on pg 193 is some pictures of, 223, 224, 226,but none of the 222.

This is a very dangerous hobby, now I'm looking for a Vacumatic to keep company to the Osmia...

Thank you all for the information shared

Marco

[Nethermark]

These are my Osmia 22x pens. The lower row shows three 222 pens and two 223 pens from the 1930s, while the upper row shows (left to right) three 222, one 223 and three 224 pens. My assumption is that the upper row 22x pens are from the 1950s. Interestingly, they are all marked RWA, implying import to the Netherlands by a company named Rikkers. I have never seen an Osmia 22x pen from the 1950s without the RWA inscription, so my guess is this series was made specifically for the Dutch market. If anyone has more information on when these pens were made exactly, and whether my assumption about the latter series being made for the Dutch market is correct, I would be very interested to hear it.

 

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Lovely pens.

Black and Gold Osmia back then, was my limit in collecting after my noobie, Pen of the Week in the Mail Club era, in they were a tad more expensive than Pelikan. Outside of Pelikan any German pen that had color was automatically 20% more expensive.

Envy cubed.

[Marco1976]

3 hours ago, Nethermark said:

These are my Osmia 22x pens. The lower row shows three 222 pens and two 223 pens from the 1930s, while the upper row shows (left to right) three 222, one 223 and three 224 pens. My assumption is that the upper row 22x pens are from the 1950s. Interestingly, they are all marked RWA, implying import to the Netherlands by a company named Rikkers. I have never seen an Osmia 22x pen from the 1950s without the RWA inscription, so my guess is this series was made specifically for the Dutch market. If anyone has more information on when these pens were made exactly, and whether my assumption about the latter series being made for the Dutch market is correct, I would be very interested to hear it.

Very nice collection, the one I bought is also marked RWA. I thought this pen was from mid 30's but you think they're from the 50's, why do you think so?

[OMASsimo]

4 hours ago, Nethermark said:

These are my Osmia 22x pens. The lower row shows three 222 pens and two 223 pens from the 1930s, while the upper row shows (left to right) three 222, one 223 and three 224 pens. My assumption is that the upper row 22x pens are from the 1950s. Interestingly, they are all marked RWA, implying import to the Netherlands by a company named Rikkers. I have never seen an Osmia 22x pen from the 1950s without the RWA inscription, so my guess is this series was made specifically for the Dutch market. If anyone has more information on when these pens were made exactly, and whether my assumption about the latter series being made for the Dutch market is correct, I would be very interested to hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

That's a great collection of 22x pens! And you might be right about the dating, though it's not easy to be sure. I wasn't aware that there even were post-war 22x models but it's possible that they were made for export exclusively.  The clip an cap finials of the OP's pen slipped my attention and it looks like typical post-war Osmia design, indeed. However, I have one Osmia 74 from the mid 30s which already features such a clip. Another indicator might be the filling mechanism. Are they all button fillers or are the RWA ones piston fillers?

I know that there was very active post-war pen production for export into the Netherlands by a number of German makers. E.g. Merlin pens apparently were produced for Akkerman department stores (iirc) and were not available or common on the German market. Their design even resembles the above RWA Osmias very closely. Also, many pen parts made of coloured celluloid were sitting on the shelves of several companies because the pens couldn't be completed due to war time material shortage. Many of those much earlier models were finished after the war and exported (original info from Kaweco GmbH). The German taste at the time was very conservative - black and gold piston fillers - so, such pens wouldn't have sold well on that market. By the way, is there any imprint with reference to A.W. Faber-Castell? This could help to date the pen as well.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Before the war, Osmia was known for supplying Akkerman, with their pens, but marked Akkerman.

xxxxxxxxxx

Faber Castel completed it's buy up of Osmia in 1950...some say a tad before.

It was in the first year '50's, ..Osmia was on one side of the barrel and Faber Castel on the other.....(Could have gone into '51....but I don't think so, but don't know for sure.)

The next change '51 or '52 at very latest, Osmia and Faber Castel was on the same side of the barrel.

Somewhere I read that Osmia was already moving to 3 numbers and Faber Castel had little to say. Like the mdl 54 becoming 540.

How ever Faber Castel started buying into Osmia in 1936, perhaps the reason the brothers split the company in 1938. the Camels Nose was under the tent.  So even before Faber Castel completed it's buy out, it had lots to say.

 

 

The pencil empire Faber Castel a second tier fountain pen maker needed to buy a top of the line pen,.  Then ruined what they bought. 

 

Then over the next few years, erased the Osmia famous brand's Diamond mark on the finial, then Osmia on the clip, finally Osmia from the pen, and lastly the nib. In the end only a Diamond was on Faber Castell's pens. Reminding folks it was once a name brand nib.

 

Graf Von Faber-Castell, bought their Earldom in the 1890's and as a hopped up new nobility....were so egotistical to remove Osmia from their pens, in hopes that they bootstrappd themselves out of second tier.

Then ball points killed them.

 

Graf von Faber-Castel has nothing really to to do with the old dead pen company. other than both were owned by the now ex-pencil empire.

[Nethermark]

18 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

That's a great collection of 22x pens! And you might be right about the dating, though it's not easy to be sure. I wasn't aware that there even were post-war 22x models but it's possible that they were made for export exclusively.  The clip an cap finials of the OP's pen slipped my attention and it looks like typical post-war Osmia design, indeed. However, I have one Osmia 74 from the mid 30s which already features such a clip. Another indicator might be the filling mechanism. Are they all button fillers or are the RWA ones piston fillers?

I know that there was very active post-war pen production for export into the Netherlands by a number of German makers. E.g. Merlin pens apparently were produced for Akkerman department stores (iirc) and were not available or common on the German market. Their design even resembles the above RWA Osmias very closely.

 

I'm not 100% certain about the dating. Tom Westerich at Penboard also dates the upper row pens to the 1950's (or more precisely to 1950) and those in the lower row to mid 1930. My assumption about the dating stems from the similarity to the 88x-line, which are from 1950s (se here). All my post-war 22x pens are button-fillers, which are cheaper to produce than piston fillers. It seems that the Dutch in the 1950s were more interested in these cheaper versions, which also shows in the other German made brands on the Dutch market, like Merlin, etc. 

 

There is no Faber-Castell insciption on the barrel. That could either point to a date of late 1940s to 1950, or maybe pens for export were never marked Faber-Castell.

[Nethermark]

I just aquired a red Osmia 222 from the 1950's. As far as I know, these are all the colors of this model:

 

Another view: