so I set out, heart full of hope and a reasonable amount of money…I reached Charminar and it was only around 11.30 in the morning and the famous Lad Bazaar which would be overcrowded in the evenings was so wistfully empty…people were just about opening the shutters of their shops and only a couple of bangle shops were open… I wandered down the street looking at all the shop signs…
While negotiating my way through this crowd of shops, I finally happened to see an old fashioned shop… a man (whom I subsequently discovered was the owner) was sitting on the steps and selling Islamic books…I wondered whether the owners had changed their business…then I looked inside and saw a forward tilted showcase with pens…I felt relieved…but the shop was full of plastic decorative items, toys, books and other items…then the owner saw me standing in front of his shop and asked me what I wanted…I told him ‘ink pens’… he took a few more seconds to negotiate the sale of the book and stood up and said ‘aayiye saab’ and went inside the shop…I followed him…
Once inside, I asked him if he had any ebonite pens…he said he had and opened the glass topped case and pulled out a mottled brown medium size ebonite pen with the name ‘Sultan’ in white on the cap and the barrel…I then told him I was searching for ‘Sultan Pen Stores’ to buy their brand of ebonite pens and I was pleased that I found this brand here…I asked him whether he had any more Sultan Pen models or more specimens of the same model…unfortunately, no, he said, but promised that he’d make or get a thicker FP in a week’s time…so far so good…he took out a red coloured Waterman’s India FP and told me that this was a rare piece and that he’d sell it to me…I inspected the pen and it was an Waterman’s India 65…all plastic body with a pump filler (aerometric filling system- as in Parker 51 and a lot of Hero imitations 616, 330, 329)…I have a Waterman’s India 63 with gold nib that Hari got for me and I felt that WI 65 was worth the effort…I kept it aside…I then spied a similar WI model and asked him to take it out…the pen looked good, but the sac inside the pump filler was missing…he then took out some dusty boxes from a cupboard inside and brought out 3 more WI 65 pens…and there was some problem with each, but he managed to put together 3 pens out of the 5…not bad…I took all three and then there was another WI pen, and this pen had a plastic body and steel cap with hooded nib and aerometric filling system…this model was named WI 71…this one was unexpected actually…as he was piling up the boxes searching for good pens…I started my own searches and happened to locate 3 Sultan pens…2 of them with ebonite body and steel caps and another with full plastic body with hooded nib…all are ED fillers…I managed to put together 8 pens by now…I thought this was a good haul…
All 4 Waterman's India FPs - 63 (I already had this - courtesy Hari), 71, 65 and 65
Sultan Pens - capped
Sultan Pens - posted
Sultan Pens - nibs close up
And then came the surprise, at least for me…he showed me those old handle pens where you inserted nibs and dipped them frequently in inkpots to write…I don’t know who uses them these days, but I feel that Urdu and Arabic scholars still use them, because one of the two that he showed me initially was a calligraphic nib…he then proceeded to demonstrate the smoothness of the nib by writing in Urdu…looked fabulous…I was totally hooked…sensing my enthusiasm, he took out small rectangular boxes and showed me different kinds of nibs…nibs made in India, UK, and USA…names like Resterbrook, Macniven and Cameron-Waverly, Delia Indus (?), Mehra Leonardt, and Kumar Pens-G C Law & Co…he called them ‘patta’ (leaf)…he then showed me a nib with its tip curved slightly upward…According to Richard Binder, “the nib presents to the paper what appears to be a lower angle of elevation. This design, introduced by the Waverley Pen Company (British), results in smoother performance. It also offers more usable surface toward the end of the tip so that the nib works better for users who hold the pen at a high angle of elevation, and it is consequently well adapted to many left-handed writers”…I couldn’t resist and bought two sets of whatever was available with him…I don’t know whether or when I am going to use them…but for a collector, these are antique pieces and moreover these handles are made of ebonite… I think the owner was pleased that someone came asking for fountain pens and that he was able to show the kind of pens that his shop used to manufacture and stock during the heydays of FP use…he sensed that I was a collector and that I was visibly excited on seeing those old Waterman’s India FPs and holders and nibs…I must say he was a gregarious person with a booming laughter and proud of his pen-making heritage and happy that I was pleased with what he could offer me…
He pointed out to the photographs mounted on the wall of his father and grandfather, who started this business and said that they would have told me more about the holder nibs…sometimes I feel that an entire past generation is slowly leaving taking away its collective wisdom and practices with it…we come across some such evidence of past practices now and then and these holders and nibs are good examples…
Regards,
Jayasrinivasa Rao (shrujaya)
Apart from these, he had a few imitation Hero pens (with HERB written in place of Hero), which did not interest us.