Pretty Green Wahl Pen

[jbb]

I found this at an antique store. It's quite a wet writer and on the broad side. What's the name of the style? When was it made?

 

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8082/8420658238_2621c1be96_o.jpg

[Wahlnut]

Well, now, your question has a quick answer and a long answer. The quick one is the pen is an early (meaning very early 1927 production) #620ASC. (The black band around the cap is the way to tell that.

 

The long answer opens up Pandora's box of numbering and naming pens - tough to do with a lot of manufacturers, but even more so with Wahls. With the then recent advent of Wahl's Pyralin Plastic pens, by 1928, Wahl had expanded the colors and materials from which their pens were made to more than 9. Their inventory numbering system was a rudimentary one and as many who have been Forum regulars over the years will know, their model numbering system was a code. Your Model 620ASC means 6(#6 size pen), 2(#2 size nib, 0 (Green was what it was called at first and Jade Green about a year later) A (Gold filled trim) and SC (means soldier clip). Now many also might know that the Tulip Clip pen in Jade Green was numbered 620GASC. That number when applied caused some added confusion with dealers and trouble for the sales department. There were 2 pens in the line up, both green and with only the letter G tossed in to separate the pens one from the other. Also the pen you show was junior in price point to the (what we call today) Tulip Clip models. So with the 2 number 620ASC, 620GASC being just one example, the entire numbering system was revamped in 1928 to assign distinct numbers to each color, and thus Jade Green which up to then was 0 became 12.

 

Anyway yours is a 620ASC. But because most folks seem not want to refer to a stock number when describing Wahls for some reason (and I always wondered why, when every Waterman fan knows what a 52 1/2 is!) yours is a "Green (Jade) Pyralin Plastic gold filled trim soldier clip pen, sold mostly as a student grade pen at $3.00. For comparison to show where your pen fir in the price line up, The #2 nib Tulip Clip sold for $3.50 and the #4 Tulip Clip sold for $7 So it was the bottom of the price line and thus "student" pen.

 

Way more than you were looking for I bet. but I did it both for for clarity and to set it down in"print" for others to search and find, on the forum shoud this come up again, as I know it will.

Syd

[jbb]

Thank you Wahlnut.