Richard’s Pen Collection : Other Pens

Writing instruments on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. Click the magnifying-glass symbol () next to any pen to view a zoomed image for more detail.

What pens am I carrying today?

The Pelikan 100, a European pen, is so excellent and enjoyable that I have included it in my permanent collection. Günther Wagner began making Pelikan piston-filling fountain pens in 1929, with a model that was little different from the pen here. Gradually adding refinements to its pen, the company adopted the model number 100 in 1931 to distinguish its then-current model from future models. The 100 is the classic Pelikan, with a sophisticated and very reliable piston filler and Pelikan’s unusual longitudinal-fin feed. My first 100 was made in about 1936. It’s 4¹¹/₁₆" capped, 6⁷/₃₂" posted, and it has a medium 14K semiflex nib.

My second 100 is a little younger, having been built during World War II. Gold was on Germany’s list of critical war resources and pens weren’t war matériel, so gold wasn’t available for nibs. Instead of gold, this pen has a very good extra-fine steel flexie. It shows wartime austerity in another way; there are no cap bands. Instead, Pelikan knurled two bands in the area where bands would be placed — but the operating knob isn’t knurled at all. This 100 is 4⁵/₈" capped and 6⁵/₁₆" posted. The barrel is dark, but the color and clarity are perfect.

I’m a Pelikan dealer, but I never found just the Pelikan that I wanted to carry as a regular thing. Until I chatted with Rick Propas, the PENguin, about the possibility of acquiring one of those delicious Tortoise M800s, that is. Well, the price was way out of reach, and there weren’t any of those pens looking for homes, and I really don’t feel comfortable with a pen that big anyway, so when Rick mentioned that there existed an M400 in Tortoise with M800 trim, I pretty much jumped all over it. And this is it — what a gorgeous pen! Just my size, the bestest color of all, and it’s all mine! it has a fine nib and it’s 4¹⁵/₁₆" capped, 5²⁵/₃₂" posted.

Early “safety” pen designs were based on such features as retractable nibs to keep from leaking in the user’s pocket. In the United States, L. E. Waterman was well known for its safety design, which uses a helical channel to retract or extend the nib when the user turns a knob at the back end of the barrel. To fill the pen, you use an eyedropper to put ink into the opening that is left when the nib is retracted. Several other companies produced pens that worked in the same way.

First among my Waterman-style safeties is a Fendograf from the 1920s. Fendograf, based in Milan, Italy, was a sub-brand of Gebrüder Fend, in Pforzheim, Germany, the capital of the German jewelry industry before World War II. (Slight digression here. Although this pen has no family connection for me, Pforzheim does. My great-aunt Emilie C. Binder married Ernst Gideon Bek, a manufacturing jeweler who lived in Pforzheim. Gideon was instrumental in the formation of Binder Brothers, a jewelry manufacturer and wholesaler in New York City, and my grandfather Lawrence O. Binder, Emilie’s brother, was one of the three partners.)

The Italian company specialized in overlays, initially using U.S.-made Waterman pens and changing later to Italian and German pens made especially for them. (Fendograf overlays and other European pens like them are commonly called “Continentals.”) My Fendograf has a green gold-filled (rolled gold) overlay depicting birds, leaves, and other fanciful designs that at first glance resemble Egyptian hieroglyphics. This pen has a lovely flexible nib, and it is 4²¹/₃₂" capped and 6¹/₁₆" posted.

It is not impossible that Fendograf may have used pens built by Klio-Werk Hennef, the German maker of my Regina Nº 410, but I consider it unlikely. This clipless BCHR Regina is probably a fairly late safety, as implied by its comb feed. It is 5¹/₈" capped and 6⁷/₃₂" posted, and it is fitted with a semiflexible fine stub nib.

The French have always been known for making beautiful things, and this Gold Starry safety in RMHR is certainly an attractive pen. The delicate knurlings at the cap crown and the joint between the pen body and its back end add a subtle elegance. The cast or stamped brass accommodation clip, on the other hand, is typically, extravagantly French; where else but in France would you see overwrought design like this? The pen itself, in addition to its outstanding good looks (despite some distinct fading of the rubber on the side that’s out of sight here), also has spendid manners: with its sweet fine 18K semiflex nib, it’s a great writer and remarkably pleasant in the hand. I wish I knew more about the manufacturer. (I guess that’s a research project.) At 4¹/₂" capped and 5²⁹/₃₂" posted, this pen is pretty average in size.

Another RMHR safety came my way in the form of this D&D Météore. Its actuator tube was broken, and its owner sent it as a nib donor for another of his pens. A couple of years later, I’ve finally repaired the actuator. I installed a 14K WARRANTED nib, terribly incorrect for a French pen but a splendidly smooth writer nevertheless, and this nice safety is 5¹/₃₂" capped and 6¹⁷/₆₄" posted. The white ring above the clip’s washer was originally hard rubber, but I’ve machined a polystyrene replacement for appearance. (I kept the original, of course!)

You thought retractable safeties went out in the Thirties, right? Wrong. I don’t know exctly when this German-made Ultraflex was produced, but the instruction sheet packaged with it bears a ZIP code, giving 1963 as the earliest possible date. Obsolete? Hardly! This pen, imported to the U.S.A. by the Ropex Company, was actually sold as being suitable for India ink, but the instructions do say that you have to clean the pen relatively frequently to keep it from clogging. It has a surprisingly nice 14K Bock nib, and it’s only a little bigger than the average safety in capped size, at 4¹⁵/₁₆" — but posted it’s long: 6¹¹/₁₆" posted.

When the Communist Chinese nationalized foreign holdings in 1948, the Shanghai Hero Pen Company was born in the Parker factory in Shanghai. Today Hero makes a broad assortment of pens; I particularly like the Hero 100 (in its many variants), which still employs the basic design of Parker’s great Aero-metric “51”. These pens also borrow from Sheaffer an excellent spring-loaded clip design. The Hero 100 comes in versions much like the “51”, with a stainless steel cap and a resin or stainless steel barrel; but it also comes in an “upscale” version with a distinctly Italian flair to it, called the 100 Chrome — and this is the one I’m keeping. This pen, with its thicker metal cap and barrel, has noticeably more heft than the plainer 100s, but it’s still very well balanced. It’s also a slightly different size, at 5⁹/₁₆" capped and 5¹³/₁₆" posted.

The Parker “51” really does seem to have been too good a pen to die. Today, several craftsmen are creating modern “51”s, some with old guts and some with complete new fabrication — in metals like titanium, no less. My favorites come from an amazing craftsman (and a generally nice guy) named Brad Torelli.

My 2009 “51” is a vintage/modern Vacumatic-filling pen, authentically original in all respects except the color, which is an eye-popping canary yellow, and the cap pattern, a lined sterling cap that’s been saved from death by being smoothed. Brad grooved the cap and filled the grooves with yellow to match the pen body; this is an attractive feature that also serves to ensure that no one will try to pass the cap off as a smooth sterling model (more in demand, and hence pricier, than the lined version). This baby turns out to be 5¹⁵/₃₂" capped and 5³¹/₃₂" posted, and at present it has a smooth XF nib.

This 2010 Torelli “51” is the first wildly patterened fantasy “51” I’ve ever found that I love enough to carry. (The yellow baby above is only semi-fantasy…) The cast material of which this pen is made looks startlingly different when seen from different angles, as you can see by comparing the shell and the barrel. It’s an Aero-metric pen, but Brad made it as a DJ version because DJ ”51”s are cooled than their SJ siblings. Right? This one is 5¹⁹/₃₂" capped and 6³/₁₅" posted. It came with a nice XF nib, but I’ve swapped a smooth wet medium in.