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What pens are we carrying today?

JEEP

Practically Family
Messages
704
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Just playing around with my camera:


Omega_MontBlanc_01.jpg


1951 Omega gents dress, Mont Blanc Hommage Á Frédéric Chopin and Molesikne


Omega_Parker_01.jpg


1951 Omega gents dress, vintage Parker Duofold (age?), and a nice leather pencase given to me by a friend


Regards.

Jakob
 
Messages
11,579
Location
Covina, Califonia 91722
Went to the Fountain Pen Shop to get a pen reconditioned yesterday. I had picked up a Waterman Safety pen in Chased Black Hard rubber a few weeks back and decided to get it working.

It is a bizarre pen the nib and feed are retrackable and when you draw them into the body, that creates an opening to the body so you can use an eyedropper to fill the pen. There is no sack or piston. You retrack the nib and put the cap on to carry it, totally sealed. with the nib pointed up you turn the base to bring the nib and feed to the front and seal the body so it won't leak and you can write. Plus it has a pretty darn good Waterman flex nib.

They started making them around 1908 and continued into the 1920's, so my pen is pretty old. Here is a copy of filling instructions for the really big pen of this type: http://www.vintagepens.com/filling_instructions_Waterman_safety.shtml
 

JEEP

Practically Family
Messages
704
Location
Horsens, Denmark
My GF and I went to a small local "car trunk" market. It is hit and miss with these small markets; sometimes there is only junk and sometimes you are lucky finding something really nice for very little money. This time I was lucky:


Red_ParkerDuofold_Set_01-1.jpg


Red_ParkerDuofold_Set_02-1.jpg


Red_ParkerDuofold_Set_03-1.jpg



A 50s og 60s (?) Danish made Parker Duofold set with pen and pencil, in the original case. Everything in pristine condition; the pen had been filled before, but the pencil was completely unused. These Danish produced Duofolds are quite rare :)


Regards.

Jakob
 

JEEP

Practically Family
Messages
704
Location
Horsens, Denmark
It writes nicely. It still needs a little breaking in for the ink to really flow, I guess there i still a bit of dried ink in the tip.

I believe a few days of use would do it.


Regards.

Jakob
 

JEEP

Practically Family
Messages
704
Location
Horsens, Denmark
lairddouglas; beautiful custom pen you have there.


MontBlanc_Chopin_01.jpg



Just playing a little around with my D-SLR :)

So far I have learned two important things about my fountain pens:

1. The vintage Parkers are build like tanks and are by themselves small icons of beauty in functionality - on top of that they will write with whatever ink you care to load them with.

2. The modern Mont Blancs are small works of art, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to use - but if you load them with anything else than original Mont Blanc ink the tip will dry up all the time.


Regards.

Jakob
 
Messages
11,579
Location
Covina, Califonia 91722
For addressing envelopes and big signatures: Platinum pen with 3 tine music nib.

For writing notes: Pilot Vanishing Point with Binder Italic nib.

Both are using a dark blue concoction from a variety of Private Reserve inks.
 

Canadave

One Too Many
Messages
1,290
Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
JEEP said:
2. The modern Mont Blancs are small works of art, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to use - but if you load them with anything else than original Mont Blanc ink the tip will dry up all the time...

Why would this be?

David
 

Djupis

One of the Regulars
Messages
139
Location
London, UK
JEEP said:
2. The modern Mont Blancs are small works of art, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to use - but if you load them with anything else than original Mont Blanc ink the tip will dry up all the time.

Indeed. It feels like my hand is floating!
My weapon of choice for the most important is a Waterman ballpoint. It might be a bit slim, but looks very elegant.
 

JEEP

Practically Family
Messages
704
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Subvet642 said:
I have several, and the feed channels and nib slits are cut very narrow and thus are very tight. The MB ink has a little solvent in it to help it flow. Thicker inks tend to clog, and MB inks in any other pen tend to flow a bit too freely.

Thank you for that explanation. I was actually a little puzzled myself about why my MB is so sensitive when it comes to choice of ink.


Regards.

Jakob
 
Messages
11,579
Location
Covina, Califonia 91722
When it comes to inks and pens there are times when a pen does work best with a specific ink. Dry writing pens that skip are often helped by using Private Reserve Tananite which is a deep purple color. It seems to flow better.

The feed and channels do have a lot to do with wether a pen and ink combo works ok. A good nibmeister can often work on some pens where they adjust the height of the nib in relation to the feed and also the spread of the tines to create a wetter line or drier.

I have a Visconti Van Gogh that writes dry and a Stipula that has a miserly flow. Both have been worked on but it's the feed that is at fault with these.
Tanzanite works well in the Visconti buut the stipula needs surgery.

I have seen the pen guy carefully open up (with a tiny tiny drill) the feed tube and clear and open the slits on some pens to improve the writing.

90% of the pens that come out seem to be not very finicky ink wise, but oh those troublesome few!
John
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,081
Location
London, UK
Today, as most days, I have four fountain pens in my pocket, and one orf two (office-supplied) biros on my desk. The fountain pens are:

Parker 51 (I believe a 1950-51 example), with a deep turquoise ink

Waterman Phileas, green with brown ink

Waterman Phileas, blue, just run out of Waterman South Seas Blue ink

Hero 100, burgundy, brown ink

Hopefully next week, while I am in Beijing, I will be able to track down a few further examples of the Hero 100. I am especially keen to find one of the all-aluminium bodied Flighter models.
 

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