Wearever flattop – 1930s

The pen featured in my last post, but cleaned up and with new sac and J-bar installed.

I couldn’t find a replacement nib so I left the original in.
It’s a very wet writer. I did bend the nib down closer to the feed, and reset nib and feed with hot water but the base [...]

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New project – Wearever flattop

My latest project pen is a Wearever flattop pen that clearly takes design cues from the classic Parker Duofold “Big Red”
Wearever was a third-tier pen maker turning out masses of low-priced but serviceable pens. It’s interesting to see how they cut costs. Here, the threads on the barrel are few and [...]

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Vintage Pilot pen (circa 1940) and a glimpse at a dark past

As you can see from the pictures this vintage Pilot eyedropper isn’t in good condition. The once-translucent barrel has ambered so badly that I can’t tell what colour it used to be. There’s also a line that spirals around the barrel, like a toilet roll tube. Perhaps the celluloid was originally a strip that had [...]

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Esterbrooks return!

Ever since the Other Half looked over my shoulder one evening and said she liked that pen on the computer screen, I’ve been looking for a Green Esterbrook J.
The irony is that I once had 8 Esties and sold them all :p A101s and a few Deluxe models. I only had one [...]

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How Not to Send a Pen

Normally I’d be pleased to receive a pen I’d won on eBay, but when I drew this wrinkled envelope – resembling a small lumpy pillow – out of the mailbox and saw the postage label I became annoyed. The seller had charged USD15 for shipping and only sent the pen First Class International from the [...]

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Want vintage letterheads?

A sampler pack of vintage letterhead repros is up for grabs in this contest by “Everyday Correspondence” — a blog that extols the epistolary arts and paraphernalia.

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Another look at the pen junk box

The most recent Singapore fountain pen meetup on 4 July has given me new impetus to work on a few clunkers in my pen junk box. Often these were ill-considered, impulse buys.
I was a little disturbed to see that a Waterman Crusader had begun to develop fungus around the nib. But unsurprising considering how long [...]

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Sheaffer 444

We found this Sheaffer 444 in a second-hand goods shop. The barrel was stuck, but the finish was near mint. Not a scratch and stickered too (although the lettering had faded). The section had some scuffing from the inside of the cap but nothing bad.
After a long soak and some work with section pliers, [...]

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Pen disassembled

The next one I’m trying to repair / restore:

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