Estie Or Safari

[estie1948]

This is a no brainer - the Esterbrook, of course!

 

Esterbrook: SJ, LJ, or full J. Restored, they are about the same price as a Safari. The Lamy has a strange grip...unless you love it, it feels like torment. Esterbrooks had a typical round grip.

 

Esterbrook offered about 16 types of nib in three different classes...roughly economy (1xxx series with folded-under tip), moderate (2xxx better with folded-under tip), and good steel (9xxx: tip welded to the nib). Each Esterbrook nib-unit (called a Renew-Point) can unscrew and be swapped for any other Esterbrook nib-unit. "Buy one Esterbrook pen-body and three Renew-Points...it's like owning three pens!" (approximate advertising slogan).

 

Further, an Esterbrook cap and barrel -- the colorful ones -- are beautiful. Clean even the dirtiest with sunshine cloth and it gleams.

 

Finally, an Esterbrook was one of the toughest fountain pens ever made. In design terms, they were "over-built".

I could not say it better. Let me just echo welch and applaud loudly.

 

-David (Estie).

[FarmBoy]

An Esterbrook Safari is an excellent choice.

[Arkanabar]

Estie, without a doubt. I have never much cared for the Safari's section (or those of the very very similar Vista, Al-Star, or Joy).

You can get a variety of nibs for the Estie, as with the Safari, and often for about the same price or less (Anderson Pen's selections go from $4 to $100; those in stock at this moment go from $6 to $40), unless you get into something rather exotic, like flex, stub, or XXF. There were also aftermarket vendors, like Linton Venus. If I recall correctly, you can also swap in Osmiroid nibs.

[BobR]

I have to say that I love my Esterbrooks, and you would probably want to get just a few different type of nibs to fully enjoy them (many types of nibs are fairly inexpensive). I will say one thing though--the J-series is a lever-filler with a sac and sooner or later the sac will need replacing--and it could be quite soon. So unless you learn how to do it and buy all the supplies, it means sending it off to a repairer--cost perhaps $15 to $20 I think. The danger is that the pen will just get put in a drawer and forgotten at that point--I suspect that's happened a lot over the decades. So the Lamy Safari is more practical in that respect.

 

Another choice is an Esterbrook M2, a squeeze-filler which has a built-in sac which seems quite durable, and it can take all the nibs. It's nowhere near as attractive as the J-series, but perhaps more practical for a new user.

[zwack]

All of the supplies for resacking an esterbrook can be purchased fairly cheaply.

 

$5.00 Shellac

$1.50 Talc

$2.00 Size 16 Sac

 

Total $8.50 (plus shipping) for the first pen. The Shellac and Talc are plenty to do multiple pens, so you are looking at only $2 per pen afterwards for a while. This is assumung the J bar doesn't also need replacing (I have only had to do that once and they are also available).

 

You pull the section out and carefully remove all of the old bits of sac with a long thin tool. Dental picks are perfect, and depending on the state of the sac it might all come out with the section or just fall out, any long thin tool used with care will work though (screwdriver, knitting needle, chopstick,...) then you scrape the mm remains of the old sac off of the seection. Now cut your sac to length... You can estimate this by sliding it into the barrel as far as it goes and marking where the end of the barrel comes to. Take it back out, and then use the section to mark how much shorter it should be. Then make it a little shorter than that (not much, maybe 1/16" to 1/8"). Now comes the hard part. Apply some shellac to the shoulder of the section, not much... then put the sac on the section. You will have to stretch it on there. Finally dust the outside of the sac with talc and put the section back into the pen. Done.

[Ian the Jock]

Please be wary that the Esterbrook sj is a very small, flimsy feeling, plasticky, wee thing, which was a big disappointment to me and has lived unused in my case since a couple of days after I got it, therefore isn't everyones cup of tea.

 

Ian

[cadfael_tex]

Picked the SJ to mention because I found one restored from a vendor I know but I do believe it is to small. Thanks for all the interesting replies.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I prefer the DJ's...had some, SJ&LJ's too. DJ's are standard sized pens and like all standard sized pens are not small posted.

I'm down to a copper and an early blue flat bottomed DJ. My first Estie was a solid '60's with a metal cap.....it wasn't anything to be proud of....I some how missed the more expensive pretty 50's Esties.

I inherited some pens here in Germany one was a gray Estie...it took me a while to see how subtlety beautifully it was. Eventually I had 5 of the 8 grays....a couple greens, three blues and a Copper.

 

I have a Safari....and a Joy 1.5. The Safari is a Large pen. I have the Joy inked with Apache Sunset.

The Safari and a CPM type....I forget exactly which it is...but it is rarer than the CPM will be moved some day, as I get rid of my Lamy's except for my Persona CI.

 

but I'm not into Large pens.

An Estie fits a shirt pocket....and is as sturdy as a Safari if you don't sit on it....don't sit on your Safari either.

Both can have other nibs....the Estie a tad easier to change...and a hell of a lot of different width and flex of nibs can be had.

Lever filling is as fast as you can fill a pen....open ink bottle squeeze three times and you are full.

A piston has to be twisted and is slower....slowest is a cartridge to fill in the pen has to be taken apart....if one don't have an ink bottle....well then they are faster....but can only use Lamy cartridges.

 

All Cartridges are very expensive$$$$$...unless you needle fill.

IMO it was the very expensive cartridges that almost killed off the fountain pen....as a working man's school kid I could not afford cartridges and have a live of one dime Coke or nickle Snickers or pack of baseball cards a week. Much less #1 Spidie..... I folded it up and put it in my back pocket and swapped it later for more than likely the Fantastic 4.

I really can remember that day.....as would any that threw away $1.5 million....walked out the candy store and comic book shop, shoved it in my jeans pocket in front of the A&P store and moseyed home....having folded a million dollars up and ruined it.

 

Sometimes if one was lucky one could get 10 ball point cartridges for a dime....so who could afford a rich kid's toy; a cartridge fountain pen.

Besides which there were pen collectors back then too....thieves. And me too poor to engrave my name on my pen.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[Rach31]

An Esterbrook Safari is an excellent choice.

My Esterbrook Safari is one of my favorite pens. It's the best of both worlds, a cartridge so you can check your ink level and the wonderful nibs. Although the cartridges can be pricey.