News — Vintage Fountain Pen

I saw this Stephens Royal at a pen show and, as I'd never seen on before, felt obliged to buy it.  I find it hard to resist very large vintage pens anyway and this is so 'different' that it was a 'no-brainer' as I believe the expression goes. At first sight I thought 'Waterman's', my eyes are rubbish and I fixed on the clip.  The clip is clearly stamped 'Stephens' but there is a French connection, the imprint is worn but it does say 'Stephens Royal. Made in France', along with a patent number.   When posted the Royal is an...

The Waterman 555 was made, in Canada, for a short time in the late 1940s.  It featured in the 1947 catalogue but was absent in 1948. The Waterman 515 is a personal favourite but the 555 is really something special.  It's the same size as the 515, the 1947 catalogue describes it as a 'man sized pen', but it is elevated by a number of extra features and the stunning colour scheme. These include the 'stepped' ends of the barrel and cap, the section coloured in the same pattern as the barrel, and the triple cap bands, and an Ideal...

I recently wrote about a MacNiven & Cameron 'The Cameron Pen', dating from around 1912.  The pen is, essentially, a bulb filler but it originally had two metal bars that were used to compress the sac, much like a modern 'aerometric' affair.  I have now finished work on the pen but am still unable to source the filler bars, but I live in hope. It's a hard rubber pen, in outstanding condition, with no signs of oxidation, it must have been kept in the dark for most of its life.  It uses a full length ink sac so all of the...

Wyvern were one of the few English pen makers to produce a combination pen, the combination being a fountain pen and a mechanical pencil in one body.  the americans were quite keen on theae but they never really caught on in the U.K. This is a quite robust and good sized affair made around 1920. Not the prettiest writing device I've ever seen but it is was really quite practical at a time when handwritin gand sketching played a more important part in peoples' lives than it does today.  I can imagine a busy 1920s technocrat using one of these,...

The Parker 75 Diamante is a gloriously opulent 75.  The Cisele crosshatch squares are topped with a pyramid to give the diamond effect and the whole thing is coated in 23Ct. Gold: The facets on the squares give the pen a light reflecting quality which justifies the name of the pen, a diamond.  This is evident when the Diamante is compared to the much less scarce Parker 75 Cisele Insignia, in this case the 'deep cut' later version: