I Find Myself Conflicted

[balson]

today i had a bunch of great vintage finds i found an old conklin 40, a small BCHR Wear-Ever, and a waterman 13 with perfect color and imprints but no nib. all day i have been ogling the waterman 13. the imprints on it predated the globe logo and the feed predated the spoon feed. the 13 had some old white out or stickers on it that i had to spend the better part of a day peeling off but i was so excited at having found one in the wild for $15. once i got the stickers off and it was all cleaned off the only scratches on the pen were from me gently peeling off the white out with my fingernails.

 

 

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with great excitement i inserted a 14k warranted nib of the right size and filled it up with ink. i couldn't wait to see how the pen wrote. from past experience with other pens of this age i expected the pen to have bouts of gushing ink and going dry and i told my friend that as well who had been watching me fix up the pen all day. but as i wrote page after page i did not have a single instance of the ink running dry or gushing out. there was a little nib creep but that was it, no drips. sadly the nib had no flex while in the pen. it had a bit of flex when it was loose but once properly fitted to the feed it was fairly stiff. eventually it struck me, from the flow of ink to the feel of the nib on the paper, the pen wrote and felt exactly like a lamy safari.

 

 

 

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this is where i became conflicted, i expect the old waterman to be better and worse than a lamy safari. i would expect the lamy to have better flow control than a pen of this age. even though the flow was way more consistent than any other pen i have from that time the way the pen writes lacks any of the character you would expect from an old pen. other than any historical value of the pen there is really no advantage to this vintage pen. they are both no frills workhorses. the only difference is that the modern pen does it as well for cheaper. at the same time though there is perhaps something to be said for a pen writing so well after over 100 years and its clearly a quality product relative to the other pens of the day. i have a hard time imagining that my lamy will be as easy to flush and get started again after laying barren for so long.

 

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tCYNWjJ7a3Y/UhG6Lh6tLuI/AAAAAAAAAnM/E5slrSLwSh4/s1600/wl3a.jpg

 

 

[rochester21]

So if i understand correctly, you bought an old waterman with no nib, inserted a cheap, third party warranted nib(the vintage equivalent of a modern generic "iridium point made in germany" nib), and you are unhappy because it doesn`t have any character??

 

It should be mentioned that not every vintage pen is great. They use to make cheap pens for the masses back in the day too, not only flex pens with hand made engravings and such.

Ink flow can be tweaked.

Edited August 19, 2013 by rochester21

[Edwaroth]

Beautiful pen. Hope you will search for the proper nib. It looks almost new.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Edwaroth

[balson]

So if i understand correctly, you bought an old waterman with no nib, inserted a cheap, third party warranted nib(the vintage equivalent of a modern generic "iridium point made in germany" nib), and you are unhappy because it doesn`t have any character??

 

It should be mentioned that not every vintage pen is great. They use to make cheap pens for the masses back in the day too, not only flex pens with hand made engravings and such.

Ink flow can be tweaked.

 

 

i am not unhappy, i think more than anything it was just a disappointment. to clarify i think safari's are great writers. i was also surprised that there was another pen that wrote the same way even if it was somewhat of a frankenpen. although the difference is small enough that i can't put what makes one pen different than the others into words my other modern pens don't feel like my lamys. so to run into a pen that's 100 years older that feels almost identical was a real surprise to me.

 

Beautiful pen. Hope you will search for the proper nib. It looks almost new.

 

thanks, i will keep looking.

Edited August 19, 2013 by balson

[Opooh]

The way the pen is today is neither vintage, neither modern, it is a hybrid pen. I think it is normal it doesn't give the feeling to write with an old pen, especially because it is a Waterman, most old Watermans have much flex which this modern nib hasn't.

[balson]

The way the pen is today is neither vintage, neither modern, it is a hybrid pen. I think it is normal it doesn't give the feeling to write with an old pen, especially because it is a Waterman, most old Watermans have much flex which this modern nib hasn't.

 

the nib is vintage as well, probably from the 30s or 40's though

[Scribblesoften]

It sounds like the 13 was a bit of a let down. The good thing is that as soon as you change the nib to another Waterman, Aikin Lambert, or something else cool you will completely change the way the pen interacts with the paper. You cannot do that with your Lamy. Now you have something else to hunt for in the shops. Good luck.

[Paddler]

You just got this pen today? I don't think you can evaluate the character of a pen in a day. Many pens are more subtle than that. Write with it for a month; you will know something about the pen, then.