Vintage Pens

As Charlie Brown points out, even the ugly tree in the lot needs love. Same goes for pens. Our streamlined senior Parker Duofold in the black-and-pearl motif has a lot of issues. Fully restored with a new ink sac, you can see how heavily discolored it is and how much brassing it has. Worse still, the barrel threads are cracked. However, the section still seems snug in the barrel. Its 14k gold nib is a little scratchy but it is ready to write and give you a senior Duofold thrill or two. 13.1cm capped.

Here it is! One of the Granddaddies of Grail Pens: the Waterman Patrician. We've restored this vintage pen with a new ink sac. What makes this pen really stand out to us is its black hard rubber (ebonite) cap and barrel. It has a little oxidation and moderate wear, but it isn't a mess of chocolate hazing, either. No cracks. Click the headline for close-ups. You'll write a nice, firm medium line with a little feedback with its original 14k gold Patrician nib. There's a little brassing on the cap band, and there's a slight bulge under the left-side of the clip (as you face it) where it attaches to the pen. The big golden Waterman's seal on the flat tail of the pen looks like a baseball with "Waterman's" written inside it. This is the big 'un. 13.9cm capped.

Parker advanced the efficiency and ease of using fountain pens when it created the Lucky Curve inkfeed. This is an early Parker Lucky Curve button filler from the very early 20th century. Click the headline for close-ups of the pen and nib. Notice the pen still has a slip cap and significant chocolate hazing of the black hard rubber (ebonite). We have not attempted to restore this pen. Notice how the threads of the blind cap by the button are missing. We feel that this rare older pen is likely too fragile to properly disassemble and put back together. Its 14k gold nib is a beautiful number 2 size that writes a very smooth medium line with a little flex. It also appears to have an early inkfeed. The pocket clip is an aftermarket clip made by the Rexall pharmacies. Slender and 14.1cm capped.

Didn't Shel Silverstein have a poem called, "Almost Perfect, but Not Quite"? That sums up our Conklin 40P. Nice, shiny black hard rubber. Deep, crisp chasing. Clear but a little uneven factory imprint. Fully restored with a new ink sac. You will even find that this vintage pen has a semi-flex nib that writes an extra-fine to 1mm line. Yet, if you look closely at the gold-plated crown on the cap, to the right of center is a big ol' dent where someone once dropped this magnificent old fountain pen. No cracks or other problems. 11.4cm capped.

You can't get much closer to perfection on the hard rubber cap and barrel on a rare Sheaffer 41 Autograph model pen than this. Its chasing and imprint are as crisp as the day it was made. Zero chocolate hazing. Its 41 imprint in the flat tail has orange paint or chalk in it, which apparently isn't original. Not a trace of brassing on its extra-wide gold-plated cap band, clip and lever. The ONLY flaw is the teeniest, tiniest little dimple a 25% turn to the left of the clip in the center of the cap band. That's it, and you'll miss it if you don't specifically look for it. Our vintage pen is fully restored with a new ink sac. It has a replacement 14k gold Lifetime nib without the serial number AND an original spear-point inkfeed. You will write a fine line with a little feedback, but we don't think most people will be making such a beautiful specimen a frequent writer. It is an impressive vintage pen, especially in this condition. Click the headline for close-ups. 13.5cm capped.

Classy, elegant, sophisticated. Dip pen fans will love this sterling silver repousse antique pen. We suspect it comes from around the turn of the 20th century. It could be older. The holder is marked "Sterling," but there is no formal branding. Ergo, we don't know who made it. There are a couple little marks on the pen, and one of the silver edges where the nib goes in has split just a teeny-tiny amount. We included a "new" Esterbrook Bronze Falcon 048 nib, which is NOS. You will write a firm, smooth line from extra-fine to about 1mm. This is semi-flex and far from a wet noodle. Click the headline for close-ups. Yes, our cat is holding the pen down for a nib close-up, and, no, he is not for sale with the pen. 18.5cm.

Grail pens such as this Waterman 0322 "Chased" pen from the early 1900s are intoxicatingly rare. What has become known as "repousse" in many pens Waterman called "chased" in its early turn-of-the-century catalogs. This taper cap with gold-filled overlay is a once-in-a-lifetime pen for us. Its 14k gold nib writes an extra-fine to 1mm flexi line, but the slender hard-rubber pen is so delicate, we don't really recommend writing with it much. Filling this eyedropper pen will be difficult as the section seems firmly screwed together and not wanting to separate. Engraved on the barrel cartouche are the initials E.H.L. You can see a couple bite marks on the end of the barrel and tip of the taper. Its biggest flaw is an upside-down "L" crack from the lip of the cap. Clear imprint on the taper cap. Overall, a very good vintage pen for its age. Click the headline for close-ups. 14.7cm capped.

Almost perfect but not quite. Check out the beautiful pearl-and-black celluloid on this Canadian Parker Duofold Jr. set. You can see some traces of the brown discoloration that got started in this vintage pen, but it isn't nearly as bad as most of these pens that I've seen. The inside of this cap is so clean, we're not sure the pen was ever used. It has been restored with a new ink sac. No cracks, major blemishes or brassing. Light wear if any. Click the headline to see a close-up of the original 14k gold nib. You can barely see it in the photo but there is a hairline crack just to the right or top of the "B" in the photo and it works its way up to the top bar of the "E" in "Pen." You will write a smooth medium line. Its matching pencil has perfect color but much more wear, and it doesn't work.