A Tribute To My Old, Late-'50S, Battle-Scarred Pfm-Iii: A Happy Accident

[TheDutchGuy]

 

Last year I picked up this old, late-'50s PFM-III at a pen show. It was an impulse buy. There was just something about it that caught my eye. The seller had supposedly serviced the pen. Since there was no way for me to check that without dismantling it, I took the gamble.

 

 

Careful inspection at home revealed a pen that's had a hard life. At some point it must have fallen on its nib and have endured a repair. The nib looks flawless from above, but the tines look wavy from below and the pen has a peculiar kind of feedback indicative of a less-than-stellar repair effort. It sweats ink around the inlaid nib, probably a sign of earlier nib removal and improper reinstallment. Thankfully, it only sweats when touched there, i.e. ink does not seep out spontaneously but is drawn out by capillary force when a finger slides across the seams. The cap doesn't seal properly, causing ink to dry on the nib when the pen is not in use for a day or two. Last but not least, the seller didn't shellac the pen properly and sometimes the two halves unscrew just a bit when I take the cap off.

 

 

A nib size indicator is nowhere to be found on the pen, but judged by its line width it is almost certainly a Medium.

 

Ink volume is relatively small for a pen of this size, but that seems to be inherent to the design of the PFM's filling mechanism. When the sac is allowed to expand for 10 seconds after depressing the plunger, an acceptable volume of ink is withdrawn. I use J. Herbin Bleu Nuit in this pen, which is almost identical in colour to the pen itself and looks great on paper.

 

 

Finally, the one thing that it's all about: writing. There, as well, this pen shows its battle scars. Ink flow is uneven: the top half of letters is very pale, the bottom half consists of pooled ink. Whereas this type of "binary on/off shading" is not uncommon to fountain pens, I've never seen it as drastic as with this PFM-III. It's not a hard start. There's no baby's bottom at all. My best guess is, that the tip of the nib pushes a blob of ink in front of it across the page. To use a naval analogy: there's a bow wave, not a wake. When the nib is removed from the paper, the ink blob flows back across the letter, stopping somewhere halfway. Personally, I adore the effect. To my eye, a full page written with this pen looks amazing.

 

The feedback of this nib is unique and presumably a result of the earlier nib repair. It feels like a nib that's had a hard, long life with some accidents along the way.

 

Having read this far, you might think that I own a mediocre, run of the mill PFM-III and that I probably shouldn't have bought it. You might very well be correct. However, this pen's hard life turns out to be a very lucky accident for me. It is the only pen in the world that makes my writing actually look pleasant. It removed the jaggedness and angularity from my writing and stimulates an even, balanced approach. For that quality alone, I totally adore it.

 

In case of the proverbial fire, this is probably the one I'd save. It's been through so much in its life and it adds so much to my writing... we're a pair, this pen and I.

[ralfstc]

Thank you for the reflection; your pen sounds lovely. Please never have it "restored"!

 

Ralf

Edited May 11, 2019 by ralfstc

[silverlifter]

I have a Targa I bought in 1983 that has written without fail (no leaks, burps or otherwise aberrant behavior) over all those years, despite being borderline abused at time: tossed in a bag at uinversity with football boots, etc.

 

A couple of years ago, the converter finally stopped pulling a full fill, the sac had started to perish, so I bought a twist converter and now the pen is back in tip top writing shape, if aesthetically a little worse for wear. I like to think of it as character, like scars or wrinkles, and evidence of the decades of faithful service and hard work.

[jmccarty3]

Sounds like you have a marvelous PFM!

[TheDutchGuy]

Thanks! It's a very special pen to me though many FP friend probably wouldn't give it the time of day. I found it at a pen show and it was inconspicuously tucked away in the corner of a very small stand. It just happened to catch my eye.