Oh, Lots Of Questions! Please Help About Watermans 351 And 502

August 4, 2017

1) I have a lovely 351 (Ideal) but I can't find anything about them online. It the red-streaked brown one below. It's Canadian, and it has an Ideal No 2A nib. It says 351 on the end... anyone any idea when it's from? I think late 30s, early 40s: would that be right? And does anyone know where the numbering fits in to the Watermans numbering system if at all?

2) I have another 351-esque malarkey: the olive green one in the pic. As you can see, it's very similar, and it is also made in Canada. But! No 351 marking, no clip, no box round the lever, no curve to the end of the cap or the blind end. The barrel and cap imprints are identical to the 351. Anyone any idea what that may be? (I put a 'new' nib in so I can't tell you anything about the original). Did they produce identical but lower quality models without numbers in general?

3) I have an English 502 coming, and I have the same questions really... What year (late 40s, early 50s AFAIK)? Where do the numbers fit in? What kind of quality? And also, does anyone know the sac size?

4) More general question about Watermans bars... There's no lever bar in the olive green 351-y one: can I just by a generic j bar to in or is it easier to fit some kind of straight bar and if so what would that be called?

Thanks a lot!

August 5, 2017

After a bit more looking around, for those who are interested, here are a couple of possible solutions.

1) The red lined one is the spitting image of this Thorobred in colour, but has gold plated furniture and two cap bands:

http://dirck.delint.ca/beta/?page_id=3565

but would appear to be a commonweath Stalwart which here is labelled 352, and has one band and the new style clip

http://dirck.delint.ca/beta/?page_id=3418

So, as I suspected and asked about in the original post, it seems numbering and naming were getting quite confused at this stage, unless the Thorobred was the 351, and came with a commonwealth two-band variation like the Stalwart 352.

2) The olive coloured one appears to be one of these:

http://dirck.delint.ca/beta/?page_id=3418

a Stalwart 352, which has lost its clip (I was thinking it would have been the old style clip that the 351 has, so it wouldn't have actually had one originally, as there are no marks of where it would have been - but if it was the new type clip it would've been fixed on the top of the cap, and there is a hole there that may be where it went. Anyway, I thought it odd a pen of the late 40s-early 50s to be clipless.)

3) The 502... seems pretty much the same as this Champion 501, except the 501 has one thick band, and the 502 has one thin:

http://dirck.delint.ca/beta/?page_id=3367

Whereas the 503 has two thin bands...?

(Warning: 1 hr long Stephen Brown vid - and I can't believe he didn't mention the sac size in all that!!)

Could those band variations be the sole criteria for the different numbering?

4) Another thing not mentioned in that vid was whether it was a j-bar or a Watermans' own channeled pressure bar thing... so I'm still in the dark... Anyone?