Your Favourite Vintage Pen Models

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

What are your favourite vintage pens? Please list out your reasons for liking them. Is it a quirky filling system, a great nib, or just plain ol' reliability and cheapness?

[PolishSoldier]

Only vintage FP I have is Sheaffer Imperial & I love many things about it: inlaid nib, design, writing experience 

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

Which model of Imperial is it?

 

[PolishSoldier]

Not 100% sure warranty card is from 1987.

[sirgilbert357]

I LOVE the PFM III. Saw one at a pen show and wanted it badly. It was in top condition and fully restored. Didn't have the cash...it was also surprisingly light. I may still get one eventually. Its the only vintage pen I actually want, for some reason.

[bunnspecial]

My go-to, I could use this every day pen is a Parker Vacumatic Maxima Slim...or at least I think I have that combination of names right.

 

It's maybe a bit thinner than I'd like, but it's worthwhile for the nib and the length makes it a bit more tolerable than a standard size Vac. It's just, to me, a great all-around worhorse pen.

 

I LOVE my oversized Balance, but I'm a little gun-shy even using it after the section cracked for no apparent reason last year.

[silverlifter]

Sheaffer OS Balance. Vac-filler restored by Gery Berg: holds a ton of ink, is (as the name implies) perfectly balanced and sits softly in the hand, so comfortable for extended periods of writing. Typically firm, smooth Sheaffer nib. Built in 1937 and still the champ.

 

Honourable mentions:

• Parker Vacumatic Maxima - similar size to the Balance, but fiddlier filling system
• Sheaffer PFM II - what can I say? Snorkel!
• Montblanc 14 - the non-"Look at Me, I'm a Montblanc!!" MB.

[Bo Bo Olson]

'50-70 German semi-flex factory stubbed nibbed pens. Pelikan, Osmia, MB, Geha and so many cheap ones.

 

I have  some pretty (fair balanced)  and sort of cheap pens, or some standard black and gold, that feel better in the hand....and a few that are both pretty and well balanced.

 

Bought  back when pens were cheaper in many cased 12-5 years ago.....some what more expensive...due to  new folks who don't know or are unwilling to have Fun Hunting ....having an Instant Gratification Moment (daily).... paying too much for a pen, driving up the prices.

[tmurfet]

4 hours ago, IlikeInksandIcannotlie said:

What are your favourite vintage pens? Please list out your reasons for liking them. Is it a quirky filling system, a great nib, or just plain ol' reliability and cheapness?

You want opinions? Right!

Recently acquired NOS Pelikan Celebry mid-nine ties is my one standout favourite ...

The F nib on this pen is the finest I own, it's an absolute joy to write with, appropriately wet with its current load of vintage Sheaffer Skrip Peacock Blue. This pen is made from solid brass, and when I hold the pen I appreciate feeling the weight. When writing sans cap, it is perfectly balanced in my hand. Form-follows-function precisely and with a sense of reliability and permanence in the Bauhaus tradition. Attention has been given to every detail. Even the act of capping the pen feels exactly right, first resistance, then a solid click. The only fault I found was that my pen came with a non-pelikan converter which is slightly short in the barrel. I put a tiny spring on the end so that the converter won't work loose -- a bit obsessive some might say, well, ordering a 100 tiny springs was definitely obsessive 😆

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

10 hours ago, sirgilbert357 said:

I LOVE the PFM III. Saw one at a pen show and wanted it badly. It was in top condition and fully restored. Didn't have the cash...it was also surprisingly light. I may still get one eventually. Its the only vintage pen I actually want, for some reason.

Then you have expensive tastes my friend

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have two Celebries and a 381, all balance in my hand well posted, ok not posted............the steel nib or the gold nib of the Celebry's and gold nib of the 381 are =. Great regular flex nibs.

Great nibs like the 200's, or the pre-98 400 and small 600.

 

I also really the semi-flex 140, and 400/400nn of the '50-65 era. My 400nn has a maxi-semi-flex nib, which seems with only 35 'semi--flex' of that era 1 time in 5 is a maxi.

Have 35 semi's and 15 maxi's.

 

One needs a regular flex nib for shading ink, in a semi-flex is a natural wet writer and it takes a very good nib, paper and ink match to shade well with a semi-flex. Semi-flex is a flair nib....Not a Caligraphy nib....those who push a semi-flex more than 3 X a light down stroke are guilty of Nib Abuse!!

One sees on Youtube or over stressed nibs shown on Ebay, that are pre-sprung; for your convenience.

Because if the nib is over stressed often enough it will be sprung, sooner than alter; then it will be sold to you.....geee...semi-flex is so, so over rated.....which it is if the nib is sprung.

 

A semi-flex is robust enough that even the ex nail users who are still a bit heavy handed will develop a lighter Hand in 6-8 weeks; with normal writing....and not spreading the tines more then 3X a light down stroke.

One gets that old fashioned fountain pen script by doing nothing but writing normal....

[inkstainedruth]

Parker 51s.  They fit my hand well and (especially the Aerometrics) just work (the 51 Vacs are more likely to need repairs -- but if I have do research and to take a lot of notes?  I have a Cedar Blur 51 Vac with a nicely tweaked EF nib, and that pen just writes and writes without needing constant refills.

Sheaffer Snorkels.  Crazy fill system (the most convoluted one out there, and way beyond my skillset to repair myself.  But at the same time, just sort of cool.

Parker 61s.  The plastic they used is prone to cracking, but the capillary filler models are the simplest on the planet (complete opposite of Snorkels in that aspect).  And also hold a lot of ink (although you don't want some of the more problematic ones; but basic, well-behaved inks like J Herbin Eclat de Saphir?  

Parker Vacumatics.  There's a size and color for every taste and some of the patterns are really pretty.  I'll add in the Laidtones as well -- some are Vac fillers and some are button fillers and they're just pretty as well.

Not sure if there's a specific model name, but I have some Morrison ringtops with the filigree overlay -- two in the gold filled and one in sterling silver.  Just pretty.  My first one was working when I bought it, and it has a lovely semi-flex stub nib on it.  Just a joy to write with (although it has a bad habit of unscrewing itself from the cap when on the lanyard, so that doesn't leave the house any more....).

Esterbrook J series pens.  Good size and weight for me, and they were one of the first companies to to interchangeable nib units in a huge range of sizes and several different grades (and even my first one, a 1555 Gregg nib with one of the fold-over nibs, instead of tipping, is actually not a half bad little writer).

Morrison and Esterbrook are both second tier companies, BTW, but that doesn't mean that they are bad pens -- quite the contrary.  They don't necessarily have the cachet of the big brands (Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman) but they are well-made, good-working pens without the premium prices the top tier companies were charging in the heyday of fountain pens, before ballpoints took over.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

 

[Paul-in-SF]

Some vintage pens that you don't see mentioned as often are Moore pens, and I think the Fingertip model is my favorite of these to write with. It has a unique inlaid nib, it writes beautifully and rests neatly in my hand. 

 

Second-place I will give to my Pelikan 400NN. One of the sweetest nibs around. 

 

Close for sweetest nibs are a couple of the Wahl-Eversharp Decobands (vintage, not the modern ones).

 

 

[Mr.Rene]

Parker Vacumatic..a classic art deco style pen...

[lionelc]

my vote for the mabie todd swan 

[TheRedBeard]

My inarguable favourite: Parker 51 Aero. 

All reasons were discussed here:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/357955-parker-51-—-what-is-the-appeal/

 

My second choice: Parker 75. 

 

Both are my daily pens. 

 

[sansenri]

My favourite vintage, Pelikan 400NN, has many of the Pelikan desirable characteristics, light weight, balanced and comfortable, piston filler, good amount of ink, see through body, a very nice design, and it is a tad longer than other vintage Pelikans which makes it comfortable even unposted (I don't post).

The nibs are really nice, I like the unrestrained flow, typical of Pelikan piston fillers, and the pen itself is extremely reliable despite its age.

 

I own one in tortoise and a few more in green striped.

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

My 400nn maxi-semi-flex OF is green stripped, but do have two light tortoise of the early 400 era...to 54. One is a 500 (a fancy 400), rolled gold cap and piston knob cap....but the nib is 30 degree grind, maxi-semi-flex OBBB, in I have nothing to do with signatures any more, worthless. Needing 2/3rds-3/4ths a page for a legal signature...

.Ah Ha.....Going to buy a car with in the next year or so (looking now), so will finally have a use for that signature nib....

 

I've a '54 transition 400 (marked nib, no knob marking of nib width, in the same color, with a real nice semi-flex B on it.  Which I'm going to put on that 500 in order to use it.

Picture from Applebloom

 

[sirgilbert357]

15 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

Then you have expensive tastes my friend

 

Minty PFM's with trim you can see your own reflection in seem to go for top dollar, LOL.

 

I don't even recall how much it cost, it was 2 - 3 years ago. My "acceptable price" for a pen has slid northward recently...perhaps if I saw the same pen today, I'd consider it reasonable and buy it immediately...I dare not even search for them on eBay these days. I want to KNOW it is fully restored.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

39 minutes ago, sirgilbert357 said:

 

Minty PFM's with trim you can see your own reflection in seem to go for top dollar, LOL.

 

I don't even recall how much it cost, it was 2 - 3 years ago. My "acceptable price" for a pen has slid northward recently...perhaps if I saw the same pen today, I'd consider it reasonable and buy it immediately...I dare not even search for them on eBay these days. I want to KNOW it is fully restored.

You could always learn to restore it yourself