[Id] Merlins? "merlin Fountain Pens, 14K, Old"

[Relgappo]

Hi all!

These are a couple of pens someone is selling on my country's version of craigslist. He describes them as "Merlin 14k gold fountainpens. Old. Warrented iridium on one and osmi-irid on the other." (I assume he means on the nibs.)

 

Unfortunately these are the only pics I have. I can see that it says Merlin on the pictured nibs, but the clips don't look like the Merlin 33's at all! Does anyone have a clue what these could be?

 

http://i.imgur.com/n1q8gyo.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/U2qXWjl.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/doqbOG2.jpg

[CollectorGirl]

Heeeey, that's my photos!!!! If you need more detailed photos, I can send them to you. Everything that I have written is true about the pens, it says so ON the pens.

[sirgilbert357]

Small world eh?

[Russianwolf]

The clips look similar to the one on my Merlin Lady, but there should also be an imprint on the barrel that says Merlin with a model name. Here is my Merlin Lady. You can barely make out the imprint on the barrel.

 

I will say this. If the clip on the bottom one is the same size as the clip on my Lady, that makes the pen the same size as far as I can see. The Lady is the smallest in my collection. Smaller even than the 33 or Merlina. And that would be the larger of the two pens in the picture.

 

Edited September 26, 2015 by Russianwolf

[Russianwolf]

Did you guys ever figure out what these were?

[bjorn1981]

Hi, why would you say that is your pens? They belong to me. I'm gonna prove it with pics. I'm trying to find out what they are precisely worth myself. I pretty much told on Marktplaats they were one of a kind. I have a refill pencil too. Never heard of it anywhere. Can anyone give some information on the subject?

Edited May 22, 2017 by bjorn1981

[Bo Bo Olson]

Made by Osmia....there for the 'osmi-irid'. Osmium tipping was patented in 1922 by a Heidelberg professor who sold the patent to the Boehler brothers who founded the Osmia pen company.

Osmia made for export, Akkermann, for the Dutch department store and Merlin and Ciba.

 

The clip resembles one of the 5-6 Osmia clips. I've not seen an Osmia pen with that cap jewel, but I know of at least 4-5 cap jewels Osmia used on Osmia pens.

 

Pg 172, Adndreas Lambrou's book, shows two Merlin...Osmi, and Elegant, and a Ciba pen. So there are a number of Merlin models.

 

The one shown in the thread has a different clip than the two Merlin's mentioned...but as said, looks like one of the Osmia clips that are not labeled. The other looks more generic, which Osmia also used.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Bo Bo Olson

[OMASsimo]

Unfortunately, it's a myth that Osmia produced the Merlin pens and this myth was spread erroneously by Andreas Lambrou. Yes, there are similarities but the build quality is not the same. But many similarities of German pens from that period originate from the fact that many parts were bought from small producers and used in various brand pens with minor modifications.

 

A while ago I bought a bunch of Merlins from someone who knew a bit more about the origin. Maybe the pens were produced by a number of tiny manufacturers who made the barrels. One of them was the company Huch in Gross Bieberau (near Darmstadt) where also Senator has it's headquarters. The founder of the company now called Senator, originally called Merz & Krell, was Friedrich Merz, a pharmacist, together with his brother Georg and an lathe machinist, Justus Krell, who is said to have learned his craft at Osmia. The lathe shop in an old mill was taken over by Huch later and produced the barrels for the Merlin pens. All parts are pretty much standard and appear to be from unknown small manufacturers which produced for all the big brands. This would also explain why for formally the same model one can find various nib and feed designs and even clips. It's not like a Pelikan, Montblanc, Osmia (Faber-Castell), Soennecken, or Kaweco of that time to name just a few quality brands who produced consistent lines of pens.

 

According to the seller, this information is based on statements from a co-worker (actually a collector) from Senator and Beate Huch, the head of the Huch company. I can't verify them but based on my own experience with Merlin pens this appears to be very reasonable.

 

You can help spread the word.

 

Peter

 

P.s.: The pharmaceutical/chemical company Merz was also founded by Friedrich Merz.

[Bo Bo Olson]

From what I understand a lot of big companies including MB produced parts for small companies. Many who just made pens for the local pen shops and Department stores.

Osmia is supposed to have done the same.

Osmia's nib factory was sold to Degussa in 1932 in they were broke again.

So I'd not be surprised that Merlin had good nibs.

[OMASsimo]

I'm not sure if the big brand companies like MB produced parts for the general market and I kind of doubt it. But there were countless small companies producing specialized components for the big brands. Especially clips, feeds, nibs, piston mechanisms were made by specialized and often small manufacturers. They sold to local no-name manufacturers as well as to the big brands. There was a large concentration of such makers around Heidelberg and if you look at pens from Osmia, Boehler, and Kaweco you can guess that they probably used the branded clips of the same supplier. But then you find the same shapes of components in no-name products often produced from standard parts by tiny local manufacturers or put together by local jewellers (especially pre 1940s).

 

I got no information on where the Merlin nibs came from and I'm inclined to think that there wasn't a single unique supplier. I have one Merlin Osmi with an absolutely superb nib which has a shape I cannot correlate with any of the well-known nib producers. My other Merlins, including another Osmi, were all fitted with Bock nibs as far as I can judge it. Bock makes sense because it is also in the Heidelberg region and there was a strong connection to the makers of Merlin.

 

It's an interesting puzzle...