Request Help Identifying Aluminum Button-Filling Pen.

[kestrel]

This pen was in a lot of mostly English stuff I purchased a few weeks ago. The pen measures 4.8 inches (124 mm) long. It has no written markings on barrel or cap and a decoration on the clip I do not recognize. It is a button-filler like Parker Duofolds with a screw-in section. The nib is marked Rotring but I am almost positive it is a replacement. I have never seen a Rotring pen that looked remotely like this. Extensive online searches found something similar, an English pen called "The Durable Pen," but none of the Durables I saw photos of had chasing on the barrel and all were marked in prominent letters "The Durable Pen" on the barrel. I am starting here because I am not entirely sure this is an English pen. I'm stumped and looking for leads, educated guesses, or (dare I hope) an actual identification?

 

[txomsy]

What is the inscription on the nib?

[kestrel]

What is the inscription on the nib?

F

Rotring

W. Germany

[txomsy]

So, there, it likely is a Rotring pen, German in origin, not British. A German pen forum (www.penboard.de) may have more details.

[txomsy]

I do not know much about Rotring pen models, but it may be an ancient pen that had been modified to add a silver overlay.

 

I originally thought it might have been a Swan (or some other English brand) with a silver overlay assuming it was British, and it may still be (with a swapped in Rotring nib) but it strikes me why an Englishperson would swap the nib of an English pen by a nib from a German pen, specially knowing as how many excellent FP nibs have been made in the UK.

 

The clip looks like a Rotring clip. The pen somehow has an air of German design (remotely evokes the Rotring 600, which is hexagonal and much more recent, by the way) to my (mostly untrained -and at this hour strained) eyes.

 

Sorry for not being able to be of much more help. Oh, BTW, eBay may be another resource to look for vintage Rotring pens that may look alike,

Edited October 29, 2020 by txomsy

[kestrel]

There is no plating or overlay. This baby is solid aluminum except for the section, feed, and nib. It looks like it was machined on a lathe from a solid aluminum rod.

 

You have given me a couple of ideas for further searching, though.

[Parker51]

Is the pen made of Duraluminum?

Duraluminum is harder and heavier than the earliest aluminum alloys.

 

I am not suggesting you put any extra pressure on the pen as if it is made of an early aluminum alloy, it may deform, but in holding the pen, does it feel light, but hard, or extremely light and soft?

 

Figuring out what the nature of the material is can help identify when the pen was made. When Aluminum refining first became affordable it was used for jewelry, eye glasses and even high end furniture and automobiles. Over time it became significantly cheaper and harder and stronger alloys were developed. While it is not definitive that the pen was made in the late 1920s or 1930s if the aluminum is rather soft, it is suggestive. I doubt that it dates past the late 1950s because as Aluminum became cheap enough to be used for ladders, cookware, tent poles, etc. it largely disappeared from use for jewelry and other high value items for quite a while, and the style of the pen does not suggest later design and production which seemed to resume with the Lamy Al-Star Aluminum bodied pens in 1997.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Parker51

[kestrel]

Soft and fairly light. The blind cap is feather light and there are a lot of microscratches on barrel and cap. I took a closer look at the clip and it appears to be nickel or chrome plated brass.