Mucking about with pens

[chickenfeet]

I just spent a few hours mucking about with a batch of junk yard pens.

I have repaired two. The first is a fairly nice green marbled lever filler with gold trim. It has a "Signature no.4 nib" but no other identifying markings. The second is a "Postal" filler type. i.e. it has a bladder under the blind cap which draws ink into the body of the pen, so it is probably quite old, 20s or 30s maybe. It is maroon marbled with white metal trim and an art deco design on the cap band. It appears to be a Signet; whoever they were.

There was a Waltham button filler which I have stripped and cleaned. The inside was a nightmare of corroded rubber, dried ink and rotting pressure bar. It's clean now but I need a new pressure bar for it. For the first time I risked using direct heat (cigarette lighter) to get the section off and it worked like a charm.

The really odd pen was a strangely proportioned Sheaffer Waterman France cartridge pen. The cap seems way too small for the pen but since they match I think they must be genuine. The pen itself is blue enamel with gold rim but unfortunately the enamel isn't in great shape. It has an 18K gold nib though so it can't have been a cheap pen.

Three no names will likely end up in the parts bin and there is also a Universal lever filler which may have a 14K nib but which has so far resisted my efforts to disassemble it.

ETA: Universal duly fixed up but I am pretty sure the nib is only gold plated.

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