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Have you ever heard of a pen manufacturer by the name Greif? Probably not. Or you may be a specialist on German vintage pens and can tell me more about this one, which I'd love to hear. The Greif-Werke A.G. in Goslar (about 60 mi. south-east of Hanover) had been a well-known producer of office supplies between the 1920-1950s. Their big and dominating competitor was Pelikan in Hanover. They also produced ink and fountain pens which had a very good reputation. I've seen pictures and read about them now and then and this was sufficient to spark my interest. But apparently they are very rare and elusive. But recently I was successful and managed to catch one of these mythical creatures (Greif = gryphon/griffin). Here it is, a Greif Gold button filler which I assume is from the mid 1930s. It is a good size pen for that time measuring 128 mm closed. At first glance it is the typical boring black German pen. But then there is this distinctive jade green celluloid ring on the cap with the inlaid gold ring. I think that's very pretty, indeed. Here is a close-up of the cap with the "Greif Gold" imprint: As you can see as well, there is some brassing on the clip. The cap screw holding the clip is obviously made of hard rubber. I haven't restored the pen cosmetically, yet. I only restored it to perfect working order by cleaning and replacing the petrified ink sac. On the barrel there is a crisp imprint of the manufacturer: Unscrewing the cap discloses an impressive 14k gold nib which is marked #6. This isn't the size but the specific type of nib and means an OBB nib in the Greif numbering system. And yes, just by chance it is as big as a #6 nib that you might think of. I only finished restoring it today and didn't have much chance to write with it beyond the typical testing. But I can tell already that this is an outstanding nib. It doesn't have much flex (which makes sense for an OBB) but still has a very soft feel and perfect ink flow. Like usual for pens from that era, it wants to be handled with a light hand. It has surprisingly little line variation for an OBB nib of that period and the average line width is probably close to a modern western M nib. Finally, to give you an impression of how big this nib is, I photographed it side by side with a Montblanc 234 1/2 of roughly the same time (I think). I'd be very happy to learn more about this company and their pens. So, if you have any info, please share. If not, I hope that I could at least spark a little interest for those gems or entertain you for a while.