So, I Got This Old 1930S 100.......

[Claud]

It seems like a new pen. I want to ink it up and use it. I suspect it has a cork piston seal. Before I do anything, Should I remove the nib and run the piston seal all the way down towards the nib and soak that end in water overnight to lub up the cork ? After that, would you lube the piston with silicon grease?

[MarcinEck]

Yes, moving gently the piston try to fill it with clear water. Than wait even several hours, even a night or a whole day...

Afterwords try the seal ...

And write us the results

Edited April 4, 2018 by MarcinEck

[Claud]

Put water in a cup. Submerged nib end(without nib) into water and turned piston drawing water up into piston and let set in water cup all night. Evacuated water from pen and cup this morning and drying in cup. Will grease piston later today and hopefully ink.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Zombieing a cork takes a week, not a day. I learned the hard way.

Fill the pen, let sit nib up....for a week. Then it will do until the day you let it dry....then crumble.

 

 

Paraffin is a thicker mineral oil....the new sized cork...eventually, will need to be boiled in paraffin and beeswax before fitted and then slathered with silicon grease.

Properly treated cork is the smoothest 'gasket' one can have....according to 'Pen Repair' by Marshall and Oldfield.

 

Make sure whom ever you eventually send your pen to, will do that. I use Fountainble in Belgium...with With Congress's mandated worlds highest cost postal service.(Their mail is sent for free. Odd that UPS and Fed Ex won't do that....They did get the laws passed that ruined the US Mail. )...There must be someone in the States that will do the whole trick.

Fountainble charges E30 for the re-corking....so look in the States for someone who will charge about the same...$40.

[Claud]

Bo Bo, So I should soak the cork for a week in clear water? Just turn it to nib end up and fill piston with clean water? I will do so . I have already sent two old birds to Rick Propas and am awaiting them to decide if I need to use anyone else.

And so, after a week of soaking , shouldn't I grease the piston with silicone grease before using?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Yes, and as I said, as soon as the cork dries out again, it dies....so you will have to keep it inked or watered until you decide to get it a new cork.

Yours is pre-war...cap rings &...amber ink window...Plastic Gasket 1.0 came in just before the war.

Yours could be Plastic Gasket 1.0....@ 1955 Plastic Gasket 2.0 came in....the same gasket that is now and still used.

 

War pens mostly have a pressed slanted cap marking where the cap bands normally go. (some are just pressed deeper than normal with out any lines on the pressing), trying to make the cap more sturdy, in that metal was taken and made into war material. All German fountain pens were halted in May of '43. (I have 4-5 war pens of different makes...no Pelikan.)

 

Don't know if you have a pre-war gold nib, or a after the war replacement.

My 100n is after the war, green ink window....does have a gold nib with that fancy old script.

 

Perhaps someone can link you to whom ever it is that has a slew of pictures of old Pelikan nibs.

Being from the last ice age, tend to use memory rather than a link file.

[Claud]

Thanks for your assistance, Bo Bo. I guess I can clean/flush between inkings. The seller said it was a 1930s 100. I was going by the knurled piston knob that it was an oldy I do have a pre war 100 with a CN nib coming from a seller on our classifieds.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Keep it wet...keep water in it if you are not inked......sigh....cork dies for good if once Zombied, and dries into a crumbly mummy that won't Zombie again.

 

Do put re-corking up on your top priority repair list............much better to have new cork, that will last some 70 or more years, before the next time it needs a cork.....if used often enough.

[OMASsimo]

I wouldn't dramatise the piston seal issue too much. First of all, find out if it's cork or not by looking at it. Pelikan was pioneering plastic seals (I think in 1942). Your filling knob looks earlier though. Second, did the piston pull up water right away when you filled it without the nib in the barrel? If so, you're probably fine. Did it feel firm with some resistance when turning the nob or not? Shrinkage and expansion of cork is a natural process depending on the moisture content of the material. Even many vintage cork seals survive numerous cycles of drying out and rehydration without any problems. It's better though to keep them wet. The issue Bo Bo Olsen describes happens with corks which are severely deteriorated. I experienced what he describes only with corks which were shrunk so much that they wouldn't pull up water at all at first. Such seals may be revived for a short while but they are ticking bombs and should be replaced anyway. In many cases it's quite simple to make and replace the cork ring of a piston filler. But there is always a risk of cracking the barrel or damaging the piston mechanism - even if you know what you're doing. If the mechanism comes out easily, there is little risk but often that's not the case. As far as I know, the 100's piston mechanism is screwed in but with a left-handed thread. Due to its design it's not so easy to unscrew and it might be good advise to send it to a repair and restoration expert rather than ruining it yourself. But there is a good chance that this might not be necessary.

 

Good luck and enjoy this beautiful vintage Pelikan.

[Claud]

Thanks guys. Yes there is some resistance when I move the seal up and down in the piston. I'm going to soak it a while then ink it in a day or two. Worst come to worse I can send it to Rick Propas. Rick knows cork seals.

[OMASsimo]

Sounds good. If it sucks in water without problems you're probably good to go.

 

By the way, I'm curious about the nib. Could you post a picture of it? How does it behave and feel?

[Claud]

Just got it yesterday. Have not inked yet. Trying to get it set up, greased etc. Will try to post nib pics this weekend.

[Bo Bo Olson]

OMASsimo, gives good advice....always a pleasure to read.

It I think is a bit earlier for Plastic Gasket 1.0 than '42...before the shooting, when Germany was trying to limit imports, or right after, when the war interfered, with shipping, in rail would have been too expensive, and so on, so I think cork would have been ended in '39... early '40 at the very latest.

May of '43 was the end of fountain pens made in Germany....they had been warned of that in March.

 

If one buys enough old cheap pens.....Zombie is the best one can hope for, if the wallet is a shut fossil.

[OMASsimo]

Thank you, Bo Bo, I'm, flattered. I assume your command of German is good enough for the following excellent web page specialized on Pelikan:

 

https://www.pelikan-collectibles.de/de/Pelikan/Modelle/Historische-Fuellhalter/100/index.html

 

There it's claimed that the rubber gasket was introduced end of October 1942. I only can attest that my war model, the kind without cap bands, already has the rubber gasket. Unfortunately, I don't have an earlier model yet, so I can't tell from own experience.

[Claud]

Sounds good. If it sucks in water without problems you're probably good to go.

 

By the way, I'm curious about the nib. Could you post a picture of it? How does it behave and feel?

 

My first try at nib photography. Click on pic for best picture

Edited April 6, 2018 by Claud

[Claud]

And here is the final product cleaned greased and inked.

[OMASsimo]

Thanks for the picture. You are a lucky guy to find such an early model. I think the nib is pre-1934 and it fits the rest of the pen. That's not always the case because top tier pens like this were often used for decades and repaired with parts that were available but not necessarily correct in a historic sense. I hope it will write well. Enjoy!

[Bo Bo Olson]

Glanced at the link, but it's late...I'll look closer in the morning.

Mine was a WAG based of ship freight................defiantly by Oct. 42, enough trains had been bombed that cork would have had trouble getting across France on time from Portugal.

 

'Sumner of '38 Hitler confiscated all the industrial gold in Germany....no more gold nibs.....and pen shops were required to turn the gold nibs in.....so if one held back one or two....one had to be very, very sure to whom one sold it too.

[OMASsimo]

It's always difficult to judge information we can't verify. Anyway, some of Germany's supply chains were remarkably stable throughout the war. Basically, all other German pen manufacturers stuck to cork seals well into the 1950s. So, the shortage could not have been that severe.

 

Also, I haven't found any indication that the gold stocks of pen makers were confiscated. It's verified that they were not allotted new gold after 1938 but as far as I know they still produced gold nibs till their stocks were depleted. I think Pelikan listed gold nibs in their top models till 1941. The top tier companies used Palliag, a palladium silver alloy, as replacement till those stocks were depleted as well. It seems that all gold and Palliag was gone by 1942 or so and gold nibs didn't return to the German market before the currency reform in 1948.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Again new info..... Was under the impression one had to turn it in.

Ah ja, many can be as wrong as one.

 

There was laws in the very early '30's during the Depression, where one had to turn in one's gold coins in the US. .......saw that on German TV in the last couple months. Which was one of the reasons for the length of the Depression, one didn't need as many socks as before, with out gold coins to put in them....less socks sold....leads to much else not getting sold.

 

The massive unemployment that helped feed it, was from folks not changing jobs like socks, as they had before the Depression, but hunkering down with any job they had. Musical chairs.