Any info about Osmia 222

[Bo Bo Olson]

Beautiful.

Envy is my middle name.

 

I just got a pretty '30's Osmia button filler....the wild colored one in the middle. It has to go off for repair.and outside some plane black plastice I have a few BCHR pens and only have a gray, pearl and black Osmia. That was the one which started my madness. A '51 Osmia 540.

 

Osmia was always then, my limit for pens....some 20% more expensive than Pelikan. (then 15 years ago at e-50-60...a fortune to a noobie who had to dither at E 25.)...and that was for simple black and gold....In Germany colorful vintage pens cost @ 30% more than the common black and gold. 

 

1950  Faber Castell finished it's take over of Osmai. That year Faber Castell was put on the back of the barrel. 1951 Faber-Castell was put just under Osmia on the same side.

Shortly there after they started erasing the Osmia brand one step at a time.

 

Faber Castell as rich as they were from pencils,  only made second class fountain pens.....and as poor as Osmia was, with no office supply division to keep the pen company working, like MB, Soennecken, Pelikan and Geha produced first class pens....and was always broke. Faber Castell started buying in in 1936. In 1938 the Boehler brothers split the company.

 

The nibs of your pens were made by Degussa. The steel is as great as the gold.

 

On the whole not always....two guys with fifty or sixty told me....I was only sometimes right when I said the small diamond, often with a nib size in the small diamond is semi-flex. Those with a Large diamond (not my picture but useful for showing the large diamond.) None of my large diamond nibs have a number in it.

And or Supra is a maxi-semi-flex.......my 7-8 run that way. with semi&maxi.

 

1922 Osmia bought a patent of an Osmium compound from some Heidelberg metallurgy professor. It was and remained one of the finest tippings. The reason they named the company Osmia.

1928/9 Osmia being broke got bought up by Parker and Lamy was the manager.

Osmia got a technology transfer, but Parker couldn't sell it's vastly over priced Duofolds in Germany....Germany was then at the end of it's time as the Japan/China...clone master of the world....so The cheap clones drove Parker out...along with the '29 Crash. 1929/30 Osmia bought itself back from Parker.

1932 Degussa the gold and silver manufacture of German, took Osmi'a nib factory for debt.

None of the workers would go half way around the world...45Km/30 miles, to Pfortsheim the jewelry center of Germany, home of Degussa, so the Degussa/Osmia nib factory stayed in the Osmia factory in Heidelberg, making  nibs for Osmia, and anyone else. Osmia had also made nibs for many companies. In the '20-30's there were well over 100 (200?) pen mom&pop 'factories'; many were buying parts from the big boys and making pens for local sale.

 

Rupp was making nibs in Heidelberg since 1922. Bock started just outside Heidelberg in 1938.

Degussa stopped making nibs @ 2000 according to Thomas/Kaweco on the com, a scholar on Heidelberg area fountain pens. (Bock modernized and expanded....I don't think Degussa did in their main business was making gold and silver bars.) So stopped making nibs with a big 3rd tier pen company Mutschler went bankrupt in 2000.

 

Heidelberg was once the fountain pen Capitol of the World. with some 6-7 pen factories.

 

Bill

[Nethermark]

20 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

I just got a pretty '30's Osmia button filler....the wild colored one in the middle.

That's a nice one Bo Bo. Is it a 222? I have several 222's from the 1930's, but the pearl and black have eluded me so far.

 

And thanks for the history of Osmia. So much is unknown about this company!

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

There is no marking on it. But according to Lambrou's book, it is a 223, gray/black marbled.....missing the thin red stripes of the picture in the book.

A #2 small diamond, semi-flex nib. It had been gold plated but I had to polish it away because it was a tad rusty. Now it just looks steel, the 'rust' is gone.