No 45s here, folks.
This is Waterman’s ideal Nº 56.
It’s among the all-time classic fountain pens: big and bold, light in weight for extended use, and attractively proportioned. It’s a true classic, a veritable Golden Oldie. What’s not to like, right? How about the fact that Waterman stopped making the 56 about 75 years ago?
So, since Waterman isn’t making the 56 anymore, what do you do if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life finding a 56? What I did was to snag myself one of the Bexley 56s that went to the 2008 Washington DC SuperShow with Bexley president Howard Levy.
Is this a Waterman 56? No, of course not. What it is, is a modern version, the same size and proportions except for its overall length, which Bexley made shorter so that the pen would be a little more pocket friendly in the 21st century. I swapped the Bexley nib out in favor of a plain gold 14K nib, and this is one sweetheart of a pen. It’s not an Oldie, but I think it’s Golden. I’m putting delicate pressure on Bexley to see whether I can get them to produce this pen as a regular item in their catalog instead of just a show special. This is all Howard Levy’s fault, you see, because he sucked me in by selling me that Waterman 56 up there — at the 2007 DC show.
Bits ’n’ pieces…
In other DC show news, I tackled Rob Morrison on Sunday afternoon and extracted from his possession this display cabinet of Esterbrooks.
They’re not all of a piece, so to speak, given that they range from the green Dollar Pen (next to last on right) to the blue Icicle LJ next to it. Even considering the NOS stickered nurse’s pen (the white SJ), they wouldn’t be worth what I paid, except that the black pen on the far left is a Twist Filler. (It’s really a piston filler, but I won’t argue semantics with dead people.) The Twister is in beautiful condition, sterling furniture and all, except for one little problem: the mechanism is dead. I mean seriously deceased.
The rock salt-like chunks in the picture are the remains of roughly two-thirds of the celluloid piston shaft. It was the leadscrew end, of course, which has a two-lead thread and isn’t even a little bit fun to make. It gets worse, naturally. Not only is the piston shaft toast, but the driver, a celluloid tube with internal threads at one end and a smaller shaft at the other for the knob to screw onto, is in two pieces. <heavy sigh> The hopeful news is that the dead parts are on their way to a very good machinist friend of mine who has a CNC lathe, to see whether he can make complete new replacement parts for me.
I took my best-writing vintage pen, a Waterman’s Hundred Year Pen from about 1943, to the show.
I’ve had this pen loaded with my new Dried Blood ink, and it made quite a hit at the show, both at our table and in my sunday morning seminar, in which I expatiated at moderate length on flex nibs: where they came from, how they’re different to ordinary nibs, what it takes to make them, and so on. I’m told that a good time was had by all. I know I had fun!
I have three tons of email to answer, so that’s enough for now.
