News — Vintage Fountain Pen

I saw this for sale recently and remembered an article by Deb Gibson, in her excellent 'Goodwriters Pen' blog.  I thought it was, perhaps a couple of years ago but it was, actually, April 2014! How time flies.  Deb was less than complimentary about the pen, so much so that I decided, at the time, that I had to have one for my 'odd pen collection'.  So, nine years later.... Here it is: I'm so pleased that I managed to snag a fountain pen/ballpoint set, I think that, for sheer awfullness, the ballpoint comes out on top. The pens are machined...

It's hard to ignore artificial intelligence these days, so I thought I'd put it to the test.  I entered 'Poem about vintage fountain pens' into an AI server and it immediately came back with: In days of old, when words were bold, And pens were made with care, The fountain pen was king of all, And none could quite compare.   Its nib was smooth as silk it seemed, As thoughts flowed to the page, Ink spilling forth like liquid dreams, A timeless, handwritten age.   The barrel, oft adorned with gems, Or polished to a sheen, Its curves and...

I've just restored a Wyvern 202 and it occurred to to me that I could use the blog to remind anyone new to these pens that the section is a left hand thread. I've seen a few of these pens with severely gouged sections caused by the unwary attacking the section with jawed tools.  When turned the right way  these pens usually come apart easily with a little gentle heat, I use a hairdrier. It's also worth remembering that the pen also has a breather tube, not a common feature of button fillers.

For some time I have toyed with the idea of fitting a Parker 51 nib to a Parker 21.  The issue is, of course, that the price of a Parker 51 nib is very high so the transplant doesn't make much sense from a commercial point of view. Nevertheless, when a very nice red Parker 21 with a damaged nib came into my possession I couldn't resist giving it a try.  The 51 nib I used, dated for 1954, is quite unusual in that it has a broad point. The pen, a Parker 21 Super, was fully disassembled, cleaned and checked...

The Conway Stewart 560 replaced the 550 in 1963.  As I have both versions, in the same colour, I thought a quick comparison of the two might be useful.  In the photographs the 550 is at the top. The 560 is noticeably longer, about 5mm., than the 550.  The cap is also more streamlined.  It may appear that the difference in length is due to the cap length but, as the next photo shows, this is not the case. The barrel and section are both slightly longer on the 560. As the 560 nib is 'semi hooded' and the 550...