Singwitz Fortschritt And The History Of Singwitz/markant

[txomsy]

The pen I am reviewing is a Singwitz fountain pen. There must have been several models more or less related to each other, with similar design and aspect but differences in details or colors judging by the images of pens for sale I have seen on the Internet.

 

As a summary, the pen is a marbled grey Singwitz Fortschritt piston filler from the 50's, with a flexible, wet and soft nib.

 

There is was not much that I could find about this company. Mainly because there is another company making agricultural machinery that is active today and calls all the search hits.

 

According to a listing of companies from DDR (https://www.wikiwand.com/de/Liste_von_Markennamen_und_Produkten_in_der_DDR#/S),

 

Markant: writing instruments from the VEB writing instrument factory "Markant" Singwitz / Bautzen since 1957. This factory was the largest manufacturer of writing instruments in the DDR. The products with the motto MARKANT were advertised - in every hand. All manufacturers of writing implements were organized in the Kombinat VEB Musical Instruments Klingenthal.

 

So it seems like Singwitz pens may have been made by Markant in the DDR since 1957.

 

I just found another page with the history of the company, in German:

http://m.historischerstammtisch.webnode.com/geschichte/schreibgerate-aus-singwitz/

 

The end is confirmed in a different web page https://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/352097.alles-andere-wird-wegradiert-und-ausgeloescht.html, containing digitized documents and where the company is described as "Sold until only the name remains".

 

I'll try to summarize these pages (since they are copyrighted you should read them directly, possibly with the aid of Google Translate) specially to enjoy the images:

 

In 1912, G. J. Quaas founded a company making metal goods (like lighters) in Berlin, moved to Dresden in 1919 and in 1922 moved into the premises of a powder factory in Später, later renaming its company „Gerhard Joh. Quaas Füllhalter-Fabrik“, i.e. fountain pen factory of G. J. Quaas. So it seems that at some point after 1912 he decided that FPs were their most profitable line and specialized on them.

 

The company suffered some strains in 1945 and was expropriated in 1946 being nationalized in 1948 as „VEB Sächsisches Füllhalterwerk Singwitz“ It wasn't the only FP factory expropriated, in 1956-7, it was merged with another expropriated company, Makeba (Max Kern Bautzen) and the resulting company was renamed "VEB Schreibgerätewerk Markant Singwitz", which would correspond to the listing above. That is interesting, I think I posted a review of a Markant pen long ago, and I think I have another one pending.

 

During the 60's, the company specialized in producing school writing instruments, introducing injection molding in the 70s, which allowed them to increase production and export their pens.

 

An interesting side note here: in 1972 the last companies producing writing instruments were nationalized, including Garant (of which I've reviewed the Garant Nilor with Jrid nib and the Garant Alkor with 14ct nib here on FPN), Zella-Mehlis and Malbedarf Dresden. All of them would be merged to form VEB Schreibgeräte. VEB Malbedarf Dresden (formerly E. Roland, makers of crayons and drawnig boxes) was attached to Singwitz in 1978 and the R+D department moved to Dresden.

 

One year later, in 1979, the company, which by now was the leading pen making company in the DDR was renamed „VEB Schreibgeräte Stammbetrieb Markant“. By 1980 they were also mass producing ballpoint pens using Swiss technology. Moving with the times, in 1985 they were producing with „VEB Robotron“ products for computer printers and laser engraving,

 

After unification, Markant had gone the reverse way and undergone a round of privatizations: the „rou bill Fabrik für Schreibgeräte und Kunststoff-Artikel GmbH“ was founded with a previous reseller from North Germany in 1990.

 

Seemingly, in the later years after reunification fierce competition shredded hopes for many West Germany companies: despite promises, they had little chance in the free market, where they had little support. It seems that Markant/Signwitz had sold up to 80% of its production abroad, and old-style VEB management (Markant managing director Horst Stremlow had been in charge for almost three decades) ciphered survival on maintaining export, neglecting the local market.

 

After several cuts, in 1992 the Markant factory was closed and after long negotiations Edding (yes the famous marker makers) took 60 workers and part of the machinery to found a subsidiary in the East of Germany.

 

 

 

'Nuff said. On with the pen.

 

As mentioned, this is a 50's pen by Singwitz. I don't now which exact model it is, it is engraved "Fortschritt" in nice Copperplate script in the body, followed by a triangle with two round vertices and a cut vertex, and an F which must refer to the nib size. From pictures I have seen on the Net, it looks like this was a very standard model of the time, although I have seen it in different colors and with variations in finish.

 

The pen is rather attractive, with conic ends in both caps. Both caps and the body are grey marbled,and must have been done or decorated by "wrapping" around the pattern for you can tell by a straight line of marbled pattern discontinuity where it wraps over. The pen is rather austere: it has a combed cylindrical shape with black conic ends on both caps, and black rings: a thick one at the top of the body, where the rear cap (that covers the piston knob) joins it when screwed, two think black rings at the base of the nib cap, and another thin black ring at the top of the cap, over which is the golden ring that extends as the clip, which, when looked sideways, is plane and folds over itself at the end. From the top, the ring has a longitudinally striped, slightly hourglass shape. The cap is inscribed with an underlined "Signwitz" in elegant cursive script on one side.

 

The piston knob has threads for the rear cap and an striated surface for ease of operation, It works smoothly despite all the years. The ink window is clear and measures about 1.1-1.2 cm.

 

In some models seen on the Net, the rear cap is totally black, and the clip has a combed, bow-like shape when seen sideways. Some are marbled brown or red, though most seem to be gray.

 

As for dimensions: the pen measures 12.7 cm capped and 11.7 cm uncapped, with a diameter of 0,7 cm at the section and approximately 1cm in the body. It fits comfortably in the hand.

 

The pen weights 16.4 g capped and filled, and 10,3 uncapped (and filled), it is well therefore lightweight. It is also well balanced and can be used posted or unposted.

 

The nib, in this one, is, I suppose, stainless steel, and shows already signs of age: it is already somewhat difficult to see the engraving and now writes closer to a medium than a fine. It has two grooves engraved on each side of the nib slit that converge over the logo, which is composed of an S, a larger I and a V (all in capitals and hollow) encircled by a hollow, open lace, which leaves open space at the bottom for "IRIDIUM" (in monoline separated capital letters) to be inscribed closing the circle below.

 

And how does it perform? It writes smothly as gliding on ice, is wet enough to cope with any line variation, lays out a line that is closer to M than to F. although that could be a consequence of the ink/paper used (Noodler's Lexington Gray and laid paper), and has nice flexibility with relatively easy effort. A nice "feature" is that once you achieve maximal width with ease, incrementing pressure does not noticeably improve line width, so it does not to encourage over-flexing.

 

OK, time for some pictures:

 

Let us start with a writing sample

 

 

Now let us see the pen itself: First, capped

 

 

Now, uncapped

 

 

And now without the rear cap to see the turning knob for the piston

 

 

Let us look know at some details: first the nib

 

 

The ink window (sorry, it was still filled with Noodler's Lexington Gray and it looks dirty)

 

 

The inscription on the barrel body

 

 

And the inscription on the cap:

 

 

As usual, I apologize for the low quallity of the pictures. My cell phone does not produce good images, specially when I use a magnifying glass to get a close up. By the way, the photos are all in color, but since the pen is gray and the nib steel, they look like black and white. I know light, grain and detail are terrible, and if one day I find the time to take better pictures with my reflex camera and macro objectives, I promise to make and upload new photos.

 

All in all, it is a very nice pen, that cost me about 10-20 EUR on eBay if I remember well, and that although doesn't write as thin as I like, is still nice enough to warrant inking every once in a while.

Edited January 10, 2020 by txomsy

[Krushna]

Beautiful!

I love older pens like this.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you for the info..

I do have a Markant, but never chased them.

Your pen is much prettier than mine.

My nib is regular flex/Japanese 'soft', but an EEF.

[txomsy]

That one is a beauty. Love the color.

.

[Penguincollector]

Great review , @txomsy! I wanted to find out more after I saw Bo Bo’s blue pen. I love this kind of stuff!