Minerva 60

[Paul-in-SF]

This pen arrived recently.  It is a Minerva 60, as testified by the barrel inscription. As you can see it has issues, including the obvious and nearly complete brassing of the clip and clip ring. There are others that are more serious.

 

First, I have read that Minerva pens were made by Omas. This would have clearly been a utility brand for them, no fancy celluloid here. It is a piston filler, and the piston works well. There was some dried ink in it, which I have cleaned out.

One problem is with the nib, which seems to be slightly loose in the section, and doesn't fit snugly against the feed. I haven't tried heat-setting the feed yet. Although the nib comes out fairly easily, I have not yet been able to remove the feed, even after extensive soaking. I am reluctant to try very hard. The nib includes, as well as I can make out, the expression [ 1 'Qualita' ] (without the brackets) which I assume means something like 1st quality. When it is writing, there is some line variation but it's not flexible per se. 

 

The feed itself has some of the vanes broken off (which I knew about before I bought it, the seller was very conscientious about that). These two factors (nib looseness, feed damage) probably contribute to the writing problems, which include drying out between writing sessions, and flow that is a little uncertain even once you get it going. 

 

The worst for me, and which appears to have no solution (and which I can't take a photo of) is that the cap does not post at all, the barrel just runs into the inner cap too soon and so the cap just wobbles on the barrel. The pen uncapped is quite short, only 114 mm, and writing with it uncapped is not very comfortable. I might be able to put up with that at least for a page of writing if it weren't for the flow problems. 

 

So I am writing for any comments on the pen, and advice on any of these issues. Here are the last two photos.

 

 

 

[Paul-in-SF]

I am bumping this because I now need help putting the piston mechanism back together. I was able to get the knob off and the shaft out, but that's all, and now I can't get the shaft and knob to go all the way back in when I tighten it back down. I have fiddled with it quite a bit, but it always comes out with at least a fingernail's width of space between the knob and the barrel.

 

Any tips or tricks for how I can get this together properly?