Wearever - An Ode to the Worst Pens Ever Made

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Maybe this topic belongs in chatter, but I am angry. I have a ton of Wearevers and at this point I am convinced they are possibly the worst pens ever made. At least their pens made from the later 1940's onwards. Their early injection molded sections have a not insignificant tendency to crack because despite starting to play around with injection molding nearly a decade before all the other major US-makers, Wearever half-assed it, like they did everything else.

 

A lot of their later pens that I have just don't fit together well. They don't screw in fully, parts don't go together. I just "restored" what I thought was a nice green Wearever of unknown model. Slight banana syndrome from body warping of the extremely low quality plastic, but otherwise nice. At least for a Wearever, the bar is low for a "nice Wearever" because most of them are such horribly made pens.

 

And then I made an unfortunate discovery, when you screw the pen in fully, it latches onto something in the cap or cap liner and the section gets stuck! Unscrewing just pulls the body of the pen off, leaving you to stare at the sac and section stuck in the pen. I did it once but managed to get it out somehow, figured it was a one-off. Made the mistake of screwing the cap on completely again and this time it took me 30 minutes to get it out. I eventually took the finial off and jammed a metal rod in the other end to push it out that way.

 

Has anyone else had absolutely horrible experiences with Wearever pens? What is the worst pen you've ever used, if you disagree with my opinion that Wearever made the worst pens ever made?

[inkstainedruth]

I have one Wearever pen.  Don't know the model or age, just that it is a lever-filler.  A guy at an antiques fair GAVE it to me a few years ago because he said he couldn't sell it.  I had it repaired, and while I don't use it a lot, I remember it writing  pretty well.  I was able to find the name engraved on it online -- it was that of a jewelry store in Canonsburg, PA, in the 1940s (which was a bit east and north of where the antiques fair had been, in Washington, PA): I found some website that had images of old newspapers and there was an ad for the store on one page (the location, more recently, had an antiques store in it -- which has also apparently since closed, or at least gone to online only -- but never got down there while they were still open as a B&M store to show them the pen.

Worst pen I ever used?  Probably the Parker Urban from Hell.  Got the wrong type of converter to replace the slide style one it came with, which then got stuck in the barrel.  It was still under warranty (glad I signed up for the EXTENDED warranty!) so I contacted Parker and had to jump through hoops to send it back.  When I got the pen BACK?  They sent it in a blister pack envelope (although at least in a nice enough 2 piece case), had a snotty note included about how I'd used the "wrong" converter, and there was a cryptic invoice about "defective barrel" (I complained VOCIFEROUSLY to Parker, and they sent me a 2 pen leather case as an apology).  But then the pen started leaking from behind the nib and feed, from under the collar.  And I decided that it wasn't worth even trying to GIVE the pen away (I would have felt too guilty) and chucked it in the trash.  

Ruth Morrisson aka instainedruth

[shalitha33]

Admittedly I only like 3 Wearever pens, all from the later period. 
Although I think Osmiroid 65 might beat it to become the worst one of the lot (If you also count English pens that is). 




banana syndrome, Cracking, warping, shrinking, discoloring etc etc.
 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Oh wow, I've never seen a cap split quite that bad before. Impressive, in a way.

[shalitha33]

its not just a split but rather a shrink as well. When its fully capped it doesn't close all the way.
Metal fittings all look oversized. I guess that's because they are of the "correct" size while the cap is not.

 

[kestrel]

Wearever might be close to the bottom of the quality barrel but there are plenty of (potty word) brands below them.  I have a lot of third tier pens because I like tinkering with old pens.  Any and all old pens.  My youngest sister learned a long time ago that she could give me junk pens from the dollar bin at the local antique mall for my birthday or Christmas and I was happy because I could try to fix them.  A few brands I consider lower than Wearever:

American.  The brand, not the nationality.  I frequently find sections glued into barrels, C rings grossly distorting barrels to the point the lever no longer functions, nibs corroded and pitted so badly they can't be removed from the section for replacement or ground to something useful, cracks in plastic at multiple places, really badly curved banana barrels.  You get the idea.  I have two NOS Americans.  They are beautiful pens that will never write because I can't get the glued-in section out to replace the sac.

Arnold.  I have seen some nice Arnolds (nice for third tier, that is) but later production Arnolds make Wearevers look like second tier pens for most of the reasons mentioned for American.

Quite a few no name pens with all of the above problems plus some were made from a plastic that, sixty years later, still smells like stale vomit.

Wearever made a lot of junk but I have more than a dozen of them in the collection that I restored into good writers that are fun to use. 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

27 minutes ago, kestrel said:

Wearever might be close to the bottom of the quality barrel but there are plenty of (potty word) brands below them.  I have a lot of third tier pens because I like tinkering with old pens.  Any and all old pens.  My youngest sister learned a long time ago that she could give me junk pens from the dollar bin at the local antique mall for my birthday or Christmas and I was happy because I could try to fix them.  A few brands I consider lower than Wearever:

American.  The brand, not the nationality.  I frequently find sections glued into barrels, C rings grossly distorting barrels to the point the lever no longer functions, nibs corroded and pitted so badly they can't be removed from the section for replacement or ground to something useful, cracks in plastic at multiple places, really badly curved banana barrels.  You get the idea.  I have two NOS Americans.  They are beautiful pens that will never write because I can't get the glued-in section out to replace the sac.

Arnold.  I have seen some nice Arnolds (nice for third tier, that is) but later production Arnolds make Wearevers look like second tier pens for most of the reasons mentioned for American.

Quite a few no name pens with all of the above problems plus some were made from a plastic that, sixty years later, still smells like stale vomit.

Wearever made a lot of junk but I have more than a dozen of them in the collection that I restored into good writers that are fun to use. 

 

I have a couple of Arnolds and they're not great but the ones I have aren't too bad. They kind of look like low-grade Esterbrook ripoffs but they're decent writers. But I guess my sample of them is way smaller than my sample of Wearevers.

 

I have a few nice Wearevers, but it's something like... for every one nice Wearever you find worth keeping, you'll find three or four that don't fit together, that have warped plastic, the tiniest thinnest steel nibs known to man, and so on. 

 

I saw another user on these forums compare Wearevers favorably to Esterbrooks and I just can't understand that, it's such an egregious insult to Esterbrooks. I've never owned a single Wearever pen even remotely as well built as a humble Esterbrook J. Even their highest grade pens like the Deluxe and Pacemaker, while prettier than anything Esterbrook put out (IMO at least), are poorly built in comparison.

[kestrel]

20 hours ago, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

 

I have a couple of Arnolds and they're not great but the ones I have aren't too bad. They kind of look like low-grade Esterbrook ripoffs but they're decent writers. But I guess my sample of them is way smaller than my sample of Wearevers.

 

I have a few nice Wearevers, but it's something like... for every one nice Wearever you find worth keeping, you'll find three or four that don't fit together, that have warped plastic, the tiniest thinnest steel nibs known to man, and so on. 

 

I saw another user on these forums compare Wearevers favorably to Esterbrooks and I just can't understand that, it's such an egregious insult to Esterbrooks. I've never owned a single Wearever pen even remotely as well built as a humble Esterbrook J. Even their highest grade pens like the Deluxe and Pacemaker, while prettier than anything Esterbrook put out (IMO at least), are poorly built in comparison.

The first pen I actually did substantial work on (as opposed to a simple resac) was a pretty little caramel swirl Arnold from the late 1930s.  I have probably restored a dozen or so over the years and the results were good writers with pretty plastic.  Their combo pens, especially the larger ones, were well made.  It's the later models where quality fell off the cliff.  Caps and barrels were still pretty but made from a far inferior grade of plastic.  Glued sections, of all things.

I agree with you on the Esterbrook J.  It's a classic example of cutting corners to lower cost without producing an inferior product.  They are wonderful pens that I would rank considerably above the best Wearevers I have used.

To clarify, the American pens I referred to in my original post were made by American Pen Works in Chicago.

[Paul-in-SF]

Sadly I can't remember the brand name at the moment, but far the worst fountain pens I ever encountered were sold in drugstores and other such places, hanging on a revolving rack on the counter by the cash register, contained in a plastic blister pack on a cardboard backing. This was in the 1960's when I was in high school. I could never get one of those to write worth a darn, they were scratchy, they would blob ink, and then they would dry up. I may have bought 3 in the course of my high school career, but they really turned me off of fountain pens for a long time. 

 

I wish I could remember the brand name. It was pretty well known (although not for quality). I was buying them with my pocket money (which wasn't much) so you can imagine how cheap they were. 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Wanted to revive this thread cause I had a question... were a lot of Wearevers made without inner cap liners?

 

I've amassed a few examples of "oversized" Wearever pens (including a really pretty one in a black and pearl reminiscent of Sheaffer's, except made with a sheet - the seams are visible) and a Deluxe model and all of them are missing inner cap liners.

 

With any other brand, I would assume if there was a pattern like this, it means it was intentional. But with how poorly Wearevers were made I am not convinced they didn't just fall out at some point. But it would also not be beyond Wearever to have tried to save a few cents by not manufacturing an inner cap.

 

So, if anyone else has an extended collection of these, would love to know if your pens have these or not.

[kestrel]

On 12/25/2022 at 2:43 PM, Paul-in-SF said:

Sadly I can't remember the brand name at the moment, but far the worst fountain pens I ever encountered were sold in drugstores and other such places, hanging on a revolving rack on the counter by the cash register, contained in a plastic blister pack on a cardboard backing. This was in the 1960's when I was in high school. I could never get one of those to write worth a darn, they were scratchy, they would blob ink, and then they would dry up. I may have bought 3 in the course of my high school career, but they really turned me off of fountain pens for a long time. 

 

I wish I could remember the brand name. It was pretty well known (although not for quality). I was buying them with my pocket money (which wasn't much) so you can imagine how cheap they were. 

Scripto perhaps?  They were sold in blister packs, hanging from racks not far from the tabloids (Ratboy crashes State Dinner at White House!!) and the junk food.

I have a few, acquired in lots that contained other pens I wanted to hone my repair skills on.  No matter what I did I couldn't make a usable writer out of any of them. 

[Paul-in-SF]

20 minutes ago, kestrel said:

Scripto perhaps?

Very possibly. 

 

I have a very specific memory of the last time I bought one of those pens. I was a junior or senior in high school, and I was killing time while waiting for a bus, at the big drug store in Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon, and there they were, hanging on a little swiveling rack on the counter near the checkout that led to the Weidler Street exit. I picked one up, looked at it, and put it on the counter and paid for it. What a disappointment and waste of materials. 

[Sailor Kenshin]

I have a few Arnolds that were deemed not worth restoring.  They work well as dippers.

 

That poor blue Osmiroid!  One of my favorite brands.  😢

[kestrel]

22 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

Very possibly. 

 

I have a very specific memory of the last time I bought one of those pens. I was a junior or senior in high school, and I was killing time while waiting for a bus, at the big drug store in Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon, and there they were, hanging on a little swiveling rack on the counter near the checkout that led to the Weidler Street exit. I picked one up, looked at it, and put it on the counter and paid for it. What a disappointment and waste of materials. 

Try grinding the nib to an extra fine and attaching fletching to the other end of the barrel.  They make dandy darts.

[Penguincollector]

23 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

Very possibly. 

 

I have a very specific memory of the last time I bought one of those pens. I was a junior or senior in high school, and I was killing time while waiting for a bus, at the big drug store in Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon, and there they were, hanging on a little swiveling rack on the counter near the checkout that led to the Weidler Street exit. I picked one up, looked at it, and put it on the counter and paid for it. What a disappointment and waste of materials. 

  I pictured this like a movie. Was the mall still open air then, or had it already been enclosed?

[Paul-in-SF]

39 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

Was the mall still open air then, or had it already been enclosed?

This would have been in the mid-60s, so probably in its original condition -- if it was open air when it started (I really don't remember) then it still was. I remember you had to cross a street from the main mall to get to the drug store and some other big store across from it (that is apparently now a gym). I'm reading that the center is being (or has already been) torn down, having been sold due to massive debt. 

[USG]

I remember the Weaver Pens that had an overfeed running down the center of a nib that had the Wearever name stamped into it.  I hated it because it was a lever fill that when you dropped it, the sac would hit the sides of the barrel and splatter ink up into the inside the cap and then get all over the section.  That's when I learned to coil up a tissue and twist it into the cap to absorb all the ink so I could write with the pen.  Sheaffer cartridge pens came along and didn't splatter like that floppy sac.  That experience gave me a lifelong negative feeling about lever fillers.

[lightspirit]

Absolute worst? I vote for the Berwick plunger filler and possibly all the other plunger fillers. I tried a restore. Not gonna happen. The plastic cracked, the nib had deteriorated very badly, and the plunger seal was totally a lost cause. I like the pretty celluloid, but there it ends. 

 

Wearever, though certainly a cheaply made pen, is not as bad as you may think. I was gifted some. I learned that one was a Deluxe 100 with gold plated trim and nib. This 80 year old relic got a new sac and kinda works. I suspect this may need a new section due to shrinkage, as that's where it leaks. 

 

I was also gifted four of the Supreme models that sold for 29 cents in 1950-1960. One of the first truly disposables. All of these have intact ink sacs but cracks where the two halves of the section were glued, maybe due to shrinkage over the past 70+ years. I would expect issues with these but not intact sacs and fairly good nibs after 70 years with no maintenance. If the section can be replaced, I believe these pens could still be usable.

 

The third model I received were three Pennants. A model designed to be taken apart by the user, I discovered. Fancy another nib size? Buy the other set (nib, feed, section, sac). Pull the present one out, and insert the new one. All three of these needed some overdue maintenance after 70+ years: new sacs. I replaced one and smoothed the nib, to give myself a rather nice vintage pen that works quite well. 

 

Full disclosure: Some of my Wearever information came from Pen Hero website.

 

Are they better or worse than some of the early 1000 series untipped Esterbrook nibs? At last these have tipping material. That means they can be worked into a smooth nib. 

 

Meantime, if you wanna get rid of your lever filled Wearver pens, I will send my address. lightspiritphotography@gmail.com

 

[Ron Z]

I had two Wearevers, cartridge/converter pens with metal caps in 4th grade, spring of 1966.  They always leaked and I always got blue hands.  They instilled a life long dislike disdain for the pens. The sections of the pens crack if you sneeze in the same room.  I bought 4 at the end of a pen show once to fix a client's pen.  No time to really inspect them, and they were cheap.  Three of the four had cracks.  My pessimism was justfified.

 

  I like Frank Dubiel's practice of sticking fire crackers in them and lighting the fuse. Best use ever.  My good wife and I refer to them as "Whatevers." and so they ever shall be.

[Sailor Kenshin]

@Ron Z, that's what we call them too.  Though I do like my Pennants, one of which has a nice overfeed.

 

Wearever's semi-hooded school pen was a 'grail' of sorts for me, mostly for nostalgia's sake.  (The pen at that time was advertised as free.  You paid for the dozen or so included carts.) 
 

I got one off fleabay and reconstituted a cart.  Somewhat of a writing disappointment, even refilled with Monteverde ink.

 

I may build a mini-museum exhibit for it.