I picked up an inexpensive Swan on Ebay. The hard rubber was fairly dull and matt as you can see in the original pic. But with some gentle polishing with a silver-polish cloth (no fluids of any kind), it's come up to almost MB glossiness. If you have a smooth (non-chased) HR pen, don't mind the smell of burning rubber , and an hour or two to spare, it's well worth the effort!

Wow, that came out nice!

I guess some materials tend to oxidize over time... A silver polishing cloth is a great secret weapon.

HR Oxidation actually can be polished off. The problem is that the process will also polish off chasing and imprints. However, if you have a smooth hard-rubber pen. . .

Great pen, BTW. Some day I will add a nice, HR Swan to my collection. . .

John

That is a nice looking Swan. Is that a lever-filled model in the pic?

Very nicely polished--it looks brand-new. Is the nib flexible? It looks like it could be!

-Hana

P.S. This was my 1000th post!

I have simplistic black bakelite Leverless Swan 312/60 with the same No. 3 nib. It is a rather stiff semiflex.

EDIT: Argh, sorry, his is a No. 5 nib ...

Yes, it's a standard lever-filler, with a similar mechanism to those found on Sheaffers. Unusually though, the section is a screw-in type rather than a push-fit.


Hana, the nib is slightly flexible, but less so than any of the Swan no. 1s and 2s I've got. It's a medium nib, with plenty of spring in it and I find it writes very well, though a bit more drily than most Swans.


The model number of this pen is 3361; I believe it's a variant on the more common 3360 which lacked the brass barrel threads but which is otherwise identical.

I recently bought a jewellers rouge cloth, rouge on one cloth, the other is a soft buffing cloth, brings pens up like magic