Arnold Pen Fountain Pens

[kestrel]

Three of them spent most of the afternoon and evening soaking. Each one got two 3 minute blasts of the section joint in the ultrasonic cleaner and I just spent an hour heating the section joint with a heat gun at gradually increasing temperatures and nothing budged. They are soaking, again. I will be out and around tomorrow and will stop by the local military surplus to see if they have flame throwers or thermite.

 

Must be patient. Must be patient.

[bluefish65]

In case no one has checked it out before, munsonspens has an interesting article on Arnold pens:

 

https://munsonpens.wordpress.com/category/arnold-pen-company/

 

 

There are also several articles dealing with obscure/third-tier pens.

[welch]

In case no one has checked it out before, munsonspens has an interesting article on Arnold pens:

 

https://munsonpens.wordpress.com/category/arnold-pen-company/

 

 

There are also several articles dealing with obscure/third-tier pens.

 

Thank you, Bluefish! I think I read the Munsonpens article a few years ago, during a "third-tier" pen binge. I bought batches of old pens -- the type of Ebay sale that lumps an Estie, several Arnolds, a couple of Wearevers, a Morrison Tourist, some Stratfords, and a broken Parker 45 (and a partridge in a pear tree). Fun to revive an 80 year old pen, to see late-30s marbled colors surface from the dirt.

 

Arnold began using types of plastic after WW2. I re-sacced a crudely-machined lever-filler that looks like a pen made between 1950 - 55. I failed on another Arnold because its plastic stretched at a lower temperature than whatever shellac or glue held the section. Those pens were one-color, non-marbled.

 

With some searching, there is an article from a local Richmand or Petersburg newspaper, roughly 2010, about an attempt to preserve the Arnold Pen Company sign. Checking a Petersburg business website, I found that Arnold was still making pens -- probably advertising ballpoints -- until about 2011 or 2012. Had six or seven employees, small revenue, but still belonged the Arnoild family. Remmie Arnold II was the CEO.

 

Another article, maybe from Wikipedia, says that Remmie Arnold once ran for governor of Virginia as an integrationist...a brave stand in a state that was dominated by the Byrd Machine. (My family is from Virginia: grew up watching how things went around "the old home-place")

 

FPN member JAR once mentioned that there had been several third-tier pen companies in and near Petersburg.

[DanDeM]

Go back far enough and you'll find that Arnold came out of the Edison Fountain

Pen Co. in Petersburg PA. Edison offered pens like these.

 

Goes to show what a World War, Prohibition and a Depression can do.

[kestrel]

I am having doubts about this batch of pens. After multiple sessions (six per pen) of soaking, ultrasonic bath, heating, more soaking, more ultrasonic, more heating, and so forth I haven't been able to get a section to budge. One of the sections is now the shape of my section pliers and looks more like a Lamy section than an Arnold. I have an American brand pen from the same time period that I have played with regularly for several years and still can't open for the same reason, a glued section. This isn't shellac, it's glue. Stubborn glue. Time for a break. Maybe an Estie to break the monotony.

[lreiley]

• I, too, ordered an Arnold from the Petersburg Ebay dealer. It was supposedly restored, but I can't get the thing to write without pressing the nib into the paper so hard that it tears. I really wanted to like this pen since my aunt, who lives in Petersburg had some great stories about Remmie Arnold!

[Sailor Kenshin]

I use mine as a dipper.