My Journey Into Vintage...

[Bo Bo Olson]

Depends IMO in what you want in a nib to what era you like.

If you want only 'butter smooth' then a modern semi-nail or nail will do.

 

If one wants a bit of spring or cushion to the ride, like what was once normal issue....'true' regular flex....it might only be good and smooth.....in it's older and sat around getting Miro-corrosion/'Iridium' rust on the nib....a nib with drag.

Good and smooth is easy to reach from there with the brown paper bag or micro-mesh. Butter smooth can be reached if you are willing to put in the time.

Butter smooth is not what everyone wants. Some folks like using slick paper and butter smooth don't like slick paper.

 

Then an era or so before, the late '60's '40-30's there is semi-flex and maxi-semi-flex . I do like those nib sets....having 26 of semi & 16 of maxi. They are in many cases stubbish German pens, some English pens...that are not so stubbish and a few American pens. The Eversharp of the '40's a few Sheaffer '50's nibs. I understand the '30's Eversharp was superflex. Snorkel was not a nail like Parker.

 

I don't know American pens....so can't say when Waterman stopped making superflex, nor when other 'big' American pen companies stopped. Parker was for a very long time pre'30's a company that made nail stubs instead of semi-flex stubs like the Germans.

 

A Waterman 52 is a Large thick 'pre-teens??? or teens, older pen. I have the impression mine is '20's. It is a light well balanced pen for it's size. Mine is a superflex wet noodle. There are '52's that are not wet noodles.

I have a system of telling flex....and enough pens that are superflex at a lesser level than wet noodle. I call them Easy Full Flex.

 

On the whole vintage pens are smaller, lighter and more nimble pens with better balance and nibs than big fat Large clunky modern pens.

The vintage pen was made to write all day...so is Standard or Medium-large (outside the large Snorkel and P-45. Both shocked me that they were 'large' in they are thinner and well balanced because of their thinness.) Light and nimble.

 

For what reason is cartridge pens so big fat and wide????? Well to be seen....in most don't write the whole day any more with a fountain pen.

 

It also strikes me you have The Death Grip.....in you found normal pens....normal if you grew up with them like me.....P-51 or Esterbrook or Pelikan 400's way too skinny****....you are pressing too hard. You more than likely have the deadly Kung Fu Thumb Pinch as part of the Death Grip.

 

I find the classic tripod takes years to get it light....because of the triangle easy to press grip.

I went over to the 'forefinger up' method of grasping a fountain pen....an automatic light grip that takes three minutes to learn....................real good for posted standard and medium-large pens. Not at all good for un-posted modern Large pens....which are too short. Modern large clunky pens have little to no balance....in they are fat short pens.....
Short???? Yep. Short. Can't be posted with out being top heavy.

 

*** Did you post them. Posted they have the balance, that fails in modern Large pens.

[sakshi__reddy]

...I'm glad my situation is not as unique as I thought.

 

You experience certainly isn't unique. The vintage beauties I bought from a shop near my place three days ago are only just starting to write the way I want them to. I can only imaagine how much better they would be once they settle in some more.

 

Also, a +1 for being able to hold and try out the pens. The ergonomics and balance on the vintage pens I tested were wayyyyyy better than anything I have seen in the twenty or so modern pens I own. It is just a matter of finding the combination that floats your boat! I'm just starting out myself so I hope you have as much fun at this as I am

Edited January 15, 2017 by sakshi__reddy

[deepak23]

There will be some hits and misses with vintage pens. Like in my case the absolutely horrid Pel 140 that no amount of tinkering could correct and a sheaffer craftsman that did nothing for me. But that said, the rest of the pens starting from the 1929~32 Duofold Sr right up to the new balance ii have all been great finds (even a couple of vintage chinese pens).

 

What I've found if that these were the pens designed and meant to be used as everyday tools and they are functionally exactly that. The weight, the ink flow are all just right. Of course pens older than 3 or 4 generations will be smaller because people were also smaller then! So discount that, post your pens to get the length right.

 

Couple these with modern inks (except baystates) and you have the best of both worlds...

[Bo Bo Olson]

Deepak....I don't think it has anything at all to do with size of folks 70-80 years ago to size of the pen. Folks carried their pen in a shirt pocket....so it has to be smaller than the overly Large can't fit into a shirt pocket modern pen.

 

George Lawrence Mikan, was 6-10 in 1946.....Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain was 7 foot about 1960. They were coordinated big men when there were few.

One must also remember basketball was not a major sport for a long time. With no shot clock...Mikan's fault, a game was played to a 10-8 game of smaller fast men playing boring keep away...not shooting unless 100% sure.

Oddly way back then basketball was not a major southern sport....in perhaps there were not enough indoor gyms in the poor before AC south....which was not needed for football or baseball.

 

I'm sure a number of the defensive football players of the '50-60's if they lifted weights all year long and during collage and HS could have put on 40 pounds from 255 to 290-300. (They did play a much faster game....a little over 75 minutes, no OX tanks at the sideline, wear the other guy down. Which is impossible in today's dead slow game.....of interrupting commercials with a game break.

Jim Brown's 230 pounds is normal for a power running back today. I'm sure Sam Huff or Dick Butkus could have weighted what Linebackers now weight instead of being fast and hard hitting at 235.

 

There are a lot more folks today to be big...and a lot more plastic induced fatness.

 

Deepak, you grew up with Large clunky pens as normal.

I grew up with standard and medium-large being normal. In fact I'd never seen in real life a PFM....back then in the early-mid '60's.

 

The PFM was a real big deal....lots of advertising in 1959. An empty nitch had been found...that no one ever thought needed....the big clunky pen for Men.

Something to match the just about unknown in the states MB 149....but heavier. It was not well received. It was not nimble, nor light enough to use all day.....and a Signature pen like most of the Large pens of today was not needed.

 

There were of course signature pens back then, with wide BB nibs ...top of the top of the line...ones with gold caps or rolled gold caps. or even gold pens.

Top of the line fountain pens were always status symbols....and priced so. Sheaffer had three or four pens they made and a couple were with other names. Crest for one.

 

The only reason I can think that pens with out guts got so big...much bigger than cartridges need is Bling.

Fountain pens had become scarce....something for bosses to sign things with. Something to show status....and bigger is better for status. No one drives a 3er BMW for status. The 7er is driven.

 

There was much of a whole generation that never used fountain pens....and they went from big heavy signature ball point or roller ball pens to the matching big heavy fountain pens.

[pajaro]

I tried maany modern pens recommended here. Most dry out too fast, needing some rewetting to get going. After several years of this, I went back to using 1950s to 1960s pens that stay moist and writable longer. Parker 51 and Sheaffer Imperial (Touchdown or c/c filler). Then I rediscovered.the Sheaffer school pens that stay moist and writable for days.

 

So, I tabled the modern pens, tired of the rewetting drills. Pelikan and Montblanc are exceptions, being much more perfect for the greater price. I don't much use my Pelikans, not caring so much for their look. I sometimes use a MB 144 or 146, and happily.

 

Overall, I think the best of pens is the Parker 51 aerometric filler model. Decline to use it if you will. Almost any 51 aerometric you might find cheaply will work as well after a cleanout as any other pen you can buy. I have bought and cleaned up many of them, always with a good result.

 

I have been using fountain pens for about sixty years, and have figured what works for me. I don't need a big pen, though.

[ParkerDuofold]

...I don't need a big pen, though.

Hello Pajaro,

 

I don't like big pens either; I never have.

 

When I see a Mont Blanc 149 or a Jinhao 159, I think: "Why don't you just shove a nib unit into a cucumber and call it a day"?

 

As I said before, my favorite modern pens are the Lamy 2000/Al-Star; the Pilot Custom 74; the Levenger True Writer and the Jinhao X-750... I don't consider these monstrously large or abnormally sized pens. I consider them normal-sized pens... and they're all comfortable to hold.

 

I'm using vintage pens from the later '50s and '60s and I'm beginning to think I should be using vintage pens from the '30s to the late '40s. I think in the mid to late '50s through the '60s, a lot of the pen makers started saying, "see how small and skinny we can make a pen."

 

Just as the cell phone manufacturers did at the turn of the century... to the point that no one could use them... they had gotten too small and people complained about that... then they started making the phones larger again, in easier to hold and handle sizes.

 

It was also the style then; I'm old enough to remember when everyone used pens that had the girth of a Virginia Slims cigarette... think of the Sheaffer Fashion II; the Ronson pens; the Parker 50 Falcon & 180, etc.

 

At any rate, thanks for your input. I think Kestrel (and others) were right; I should be looking at the older Duofolds and Balances; they were properly sized pens.

 

- Anthony

Edited January 17, 2017 by ParkerDuofold

[deepak23]

Deepak, you grew up with Large clunky pens as normal.

I grew up in the 70s where a P45 or a Sheaffer Imperial was the norm and a P75 was a premium pen. The Indian school pens were all Estie sized. Pens started becoming bigger in the 90s

 

Generation to generation people have been growing taller and bigger at least in India.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Happened in Japan too, better food, more protein. Same in America. In the later 1800's 6 foot was good and tall and 170 was a heavyweight. 6'4" was a giant. 200 pounds was John L. Sullivan huge.

 

I was surprised to find out the thin P-45 is actually a Large pen...like the Snorkel which was a great shock to me.

The Imperial is a Large pen 5 5/8ths long, the same size as the Large P-45.

I don't know how thin the Imperial is...in I don't collect US pens, but don't have it in mind as as thin as the Snorkel or P-45.

By '65 I'd gone away from too expensive for workers kids, cartridges to can with luck get 10 ball point sticks pack for 10 cents....more than a year's worth of ink in a ball point. Then the next year or so the super long stick in your spiral of your spiral notebook; Bic. ....That you could shoot out of rifles and still use. ...Well the tip.

 

I went into the BX...Air force PX, in @ '70-71 to buy a then high status thin mat black Cross Ball Point. They cost a whole $8.00!!!!....Jotters were @ $3.50. At the pen stand, I wandered over and stared at the black and gold Snorkel** I'd promised my self as soon as I was grown up and had a job.

Before I could even touch it, I was mugged by the P-75 brothers...FP and BP/MP. That ball point had a mechanical lead cartridge.

I still have both.

The price was @ $22 for the fountain pen and $18 for the ball point/mechanical pencil. That may seem cheap, but that was real silver dollar days. One could go to any US bank and get a silver dollar for a piece of paper.

I am foolish when I walk around with money in my pocket....it always evaporates. In $40 was real money to draft time soldiers. All in one place!!! At one time.

 

Back when I was newer and more OCD/AR, I found the P-75 to be one of my top three best balanced pens. After a while...I just marked in my mind...good balance, with out going through all the rating 'noobies' go through.

We had/have too, or we'd not be able to judge.

 

**I can remember as a grade school kid, promising myself a Snorkel. Some 45 years later I finally got one. Made in Australia, and in England and Australia Parker and Sheaffer had to compete with the more flexible than American nib, Swan pens; they have nibs with more flex than their normal American made ones.

My English Jr. Duofold is semi-flex and my factory BB stub Snorkel is maxi-semi-flex.