This is probably the last of the identifiable models (of what I have seen at least) of the Deccan Pens brigade that members would see on FPN… and possibly heave a sigh of relief at the ending of the Deccan ebonite onslaught on FPN. Readers would have read and seen photo reviews of the other models (Advocate, Diplomat, Pel-kan, 2-in-1 Ruler pen, Advocate jr., Deccan brushed cartridge filler) manufactured by Deccan Pen Stores, Hyderabad in this forum as well as other forums of FPN…
This ebonite FP is called the Diplomat Onyx, sort of a junior companion to the Diplomat (reviewed by Hari in this forum)…but it is not an exact shorter and thinner version of Diplomat compared to Advocate Jr. which is actually a thinner and shorter version of Advocate…the cap clip of Onyx though looks similar to Diplomat, and of course, the mottled green colour…I guess it is called the ‘Onyx’ because the mottled green looks like green Onyx…anyway…this is an unusual pen to come out of the Deccan workshop…except in the case of the brushed ebonite model, which is a cartridge filler, all other Deccan models are ED fillers…and the Onyx is made as if to fill a ‘filler’ gap…the Onyx has a pump-sac filler…in fact the fillers of the two samples of Onyx that I have are actually Hero pump-sac fillers and you can see the 2 Chinese letters engraved there like the one you find in Hero FPs (616, 330, 329)… and also unlike other Deccan pens which have screw caps (again, except the brushed ebonite, which has a snap cap), the Onyx has a slip cap like the Hero-s…a steel ring separates the section from the barrel…the other Deccan EDs don’t have this…the nib shines brilliantly and says ‘iridium point Germany’ and has a kind of flowery engraving…looks good…just above steel band on the cap lip in line with the clip is the scripted ‘D’ engraved onto the ebonite…but this ‘D’ is not seen in the other Onyx that I bought, though the Pelkan that I bought along with the Onyxes has the ‘D’… and funnily enough, I noticed the ‘D’ (and the lack of it) after I reached home…maybe, I wasn’t expecting it to be there in the first place… apart from this, which can be attributed to general forgetfulness, the only other minor issue is the difference in the colour of the cap and the barrel… an extra dose of brown seems to have merged with the green in the caps of both Onyxes and gives an odd mismatched look to the pen…
I bought the Onyxes on the same day that I bought the 2-in-1 Ruler Pen and the Pelkan at the Secunderabad branch of Deccan Pen Stores…but the salespeople had shown me this pen the first time I visited their branch, which is almost 9 months ago…at that time, I was after ED fillers and generally kept this model aside… in fact, I bought this model after I had bought (or seen, as in the case of Diplomat) all the other models…the last one… I haven’t yet filled it with ink, but dip tested it with crimson violet ink and wrote the opening lines of the first social novel in Kannada (my mother tongue) called Indirabai…just to show readers a new script (in case they haven’t seen this before) in a different colour… and finally, the Onyx is a good writer…a differently made pen…
As usual, here are the photos…
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-capped
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-uncapped
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-posted
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-nib close up
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-section
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-nib side view
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-logo on cap
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-filling mechanism
Deccan Diplomat Onyx-writing sample
I have tried to do something different with the photos - angles, background, lighting, etc... I hope they are not too bad...and thanks for taking time off to read about ebonite FPs from this part of the world...
Jai (Jayasrinivasa Rao)
Hyderabad, India