Sheaffer PFM III, black, 1959-1968

Sheaffer’s PFM (“Pen for Men”) remains instantly recognisable decades after its launch in 1959, and there’s nothing much I can add to the comprehensive writeups by Jim Mamoulides (PenHero.com) and Richard Binder. It’s a pity that Sheaffer hasn’t been able to come up with anything as aesthetically pleasing and bold since.

I find the PFM comfortable to hold, as it’s a fat and deceptively light pen. The PFM’s inlaid nib is stiff, but more responsive and pleasant than that bland nail on the Legacy, the current incarnation of the PFM. The Broad nib on the PFM (featured left) is especially nice, and goes well with Sailor Ultramarine ink.

Montblanc 146, green-striated, 1949-60

Got my grail pen recently — a Montblanc 146 green-striated! (produced 1949-1960).  

Cosmetically the pen isn’t excellent. The green has faded a bit and the celluloid has ambered much.

But it was priced appropriately and, having passed through Tom Westerich’s hands before reaching me, works and writes properly. All the parts are accurate for the pen, and it’s a pleasure to write with

Montblanc 146, circa 1956, repaired

Before -

After -

Thanks to Francis Goossens (aka fountainbel on FPN) for the brilliant repair!

He turned a new complete celluloid ink window insert and drilled the old barrel out to receive the insert. The insert goes deep into the barrel such that the piston travels in one seamless chamber. Francis also cut inner section threads and outer 4 leads cap threads are manually on a lathe.

In addition, he replaced the plastic piston head with a cork one, and calibrated the piston mechanism so that the user no longer needs to torque the piston head against the section for the piston mechanism to engage. (See Francis’s post on FPN explaining the telescoping piston mechanism in these 1950s Montblanc models.) Having to do that over decades, combined with the degradation of the celluloid with use and with time, most likely led to the breakage you see in the “Before” photo.

The 1950s 146 pens are great writers, and Francis’s efforts should lengthen the service life of this one by several years, hopefully decades if I’m careful.

Review: The Emperor of All Maladies

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

By chronicling the efforts of individuals and organisations to defeat and understand cancer, the book to me is a mirror of our biological and psychological natures: compelling and unsettling at the same time.

The author (with very good editors I assume) weave a narrative of social trends, medical orthodoxies and human bias through the decades. It begins with the search for cures and progresses to efforts to discover how cancer actually begins and propagates, touching on other topics and fields in the process such as statistics, palliative care, legal struggles against tobacco companies. The author also scatters excerpts from his own personal experiences with cancer patients where appropriate.

It’s a work that captures human failings and accomplishments in a historical and social context. The author explains that he wanted to call it a “biography” because it felt as if he were writing about a specific person. I’d like to build on that – “The Emperor of All Maladies” is more like a mosaic comprising the efforts, sufferings and triumphs of countless people in an ongoing struggle against an implacable and intimate enemy.

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Platinum ReCelluloid “Cha-ringu”（チャリング）

A discontinued pen from Platinum’s ReCelluloid range of, well, celluloid pens.

From online searches, this pen was seems to date from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. Lambrou’s “Fountain Pens of the World” lists similar pens (going by nib design) from around 1992.

The celluloid used resembles the striated celluloids used for the Parker Vacumatic:

It even has semi-transparent strips alternating with opaque, slightly pearlescent ones:

Platinum makes the ReCelluloid pens by rolling thin celluloid sheets, rather than by turning celluloid rods on lathes. The former saves money and manpower, but the pen ends up with a distinct line where the edges of the sheet meet.

This pen has a different feed (left) from current production pens (right). Could it be ebonite?

Its music nib (left) seems a touch springier and smoother than the one on a more recent Platinum #3776 Balance (right):

Writes very nicely with Sailor’s Waka Uguisu ink. According to the seller, this one was a dry writer. If you’ve a Platinum pen and have similar thoughts, you might want to try a Sailor ink before adjusting the nib.

On a side note: on page 115 of Nakazono’s “Fountain Pens of the World” (not to be confused with Lambrou’s far more comprehensive work), there’s a circa 1931 Dunhill-Namiki plunger-filler with an almost-identical shape and similar-looking celluloid with silver instead of brown rings. An inspiration for Platinum’s pen designers?

TWSBI 530 + Pelikan 140 nib

I’m enjoying writing with the TWSBI 530 a lot more after installing a Pelikan 140 nib on it, though with the clear faceted barrel I can’t shake entirely the feeling that I’m writing with a Ferrero Rocher box.

Anyhow, I’m also pleased because I can use this nib with inks that I wouldn’t risk in a vintage Pelikan – like Noodler’s Sequoia.

Switching nibs was easy. The TWSBI nib and feed are friction-fit and can be pulled out. Here’s a demo on YouTube:

The feed needed to be set to the Pelikan 140 nib, and I was surprised to find that the feed, though plastic, reacted to heat (from water just off the boil).

On a side note – the original EF nib on the TWSBI wrote a very fat line closer to a Fine-Medium, with a little feedback.

Review: The Logic of Life

The Logic of Life by Tim Harford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A grandiose title that tells you this book is a little more ambitious than “The Undercover Economist”. Harford writes with passion and urgency, defending rational choice theory as a useful framework for predicting in the majority of cases how the majority of people behave. Because people change their behaviours in response to incentives (and these include non-financial ones), rational choice theory also lends itself well to policymaking.

Someone needs to write about how those incentives can or should be structured, given findings in new branches of economics such as behavioural economics. Harford throws in a few comments about the applicability of some of Kahneman’s lab research to real world situations, and hints at “neuroeconomics”. Perhaps a follow-up is needed?

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