A small pen with a MONSTER nib (Mabie Todd Swan)

[bluemoon]

This is my first review, so please bear with me.....

 

The pen is a Mabie todd Swan. from The late '10 or early '20... cant tell exactly, the body has inscriptions "MAY 21.18 PAT PDG". I am not going to mark each part individually, as i think it is a unfair to judge a 80 yrs old pen in present context... I am just going to share my experience with it.

 

The pen:- The pen itself is exactly 11cm long, a ringtop lever filler(English made). The colour is blue marbled, exactly like blue on blue lapis lazuli Parker Duofolds. The look(not apparent in my extraordinarily bad photography) is simply gorgeous. The ringtop, lever,

and three rings in the cap, all is gold filled. The good thing is it is completely free of any brassing that often plagues vintage swans(even the lever). Posted it becomes 14cms, not bad for my medium size hands. All the repair I performed on it is only a good flush and installing a new sac. It is good to go again.

 

NIB:- The model no is 172/52, stamped on the back. So it has a #2 swan nib with heart shaped breather hole. The nib is a broad stub superflex.

 

Performance:- This is the best part of the pen. I am a completely F/XF buff.... all my M/B/BB 51 or vacs stay on shelf when I carry a XF 51 aero. But this pen has changed it... No Superflex nib I have ever seen(quite a few...) have such smoothness,

such beautiful springy feel and controlled ink flow... the ink flow specially is excellent. not less enough to find the

pen skipping, not so much to soak in the paper.

 

Overall this pen demonstrates why we all love vintage pens so much. Only if there had had been a modern pen to match this..... sigh....

Edited December 2, 2008 by MYU

[vermiculus]

Nice nib! Where did you find it?

 

- Tris

[bluemoon]

Nice nib! Where did you find it?

 

- Tris

 

All of my collection is from local vintage pen dealers or flea market..... I give them a little TLC, and most of them they are as good as new.

[vermiculus]

All of my collection is from local vintage pen dealers or flea market..... I give them a little TLC, and most of them they are as good as new.

 

I have been lusting after something like that for a while - I've never tried a proper flex. Great find! I haven't found any flea markets in my area where pens surface very often, so I usually use eBay.

[hari317]

Wow! Nice pen.

[Lloyd]

You're gonna need to buy a lot of ink to feed that monster.

[Ghost Plane]

Oh man, that is pen porn for the B nib lover!

[girlieg33k]

Congrats on your lovely pen! The vintage Mabie Todds (Swans, Blackbirds, and Swallows) are great finds! Love all of mine.

[Martius]

Very nice! Swans are pretty underrated, I think. Not only do some of them have honest-to-goodness superflex, but they have some very interesting nib shapes as well. I have one (an English Swan) that has a semi-flex nib not unlike a Binder "Condor" nib, which alternates between fine right-side-up and paintbrush width upside down.

[bluemoon]

You're gonna need to buy a lot of ink to feed that monster.

 

Very true......

 

[bluemoon]

Oh man, that is pen porn for the B nib lover!

 

True... using the full flex the down stroke is 2.5 mm.

[bossy]

Nice and bold, but a refill every other page¿

[JRodriguez]

Gadzooks! What a fantastic nib! Martius is spot on about the underratedness of Swans. There's some fantastic specimens out and about.

[EventHorizon]

SWEEEEEET.

[ethernautrix]

Very nice!

 

Me, I'm no good with stubs, broads, obliques, italics, even fine or extra italics -- just can't... do it. Tried.

 

But that looks really cool! Tempts me to try again....

[freewheelingvagabond]

<!--quoteo(post=615070:date=May 18 2008, 11:59 PM:name=vermiculus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vermiculus @ May 18 2008, 11:59 PM) 615070[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nice nib! Where did you find it?

 

- Tris<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

 

All of my collection is from local vintage pen dealers or flea market..... <img src="https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="thumbup.gif" /> I give them a little TLC, and most of them they are as good as new.

What is this 'little TLC'? some magic potion?