I finally got around to disassembling the Rubinette for repair. It turns out to be a perfectly straightforward button filler, and there were no internal clues to its origin.
It scrubbed up pretty well, apart from some ink traces on the barrel threads which I’ll remove later – I have my methods! Further extensive searching online and in my reference materials found no reference to this pen nor any tie-up with the 1950s Rubidor ball-point.
My apologies for the lack of updates recently. It’s pandemonium here. Completion of my retail site is, if not quite imminent, well within sight now. I have plenty of restored pens ready, but they all need to be photographed, the photos need edited, written descriptions have to be prepared for each pen – and so on it goes. It has quite worn out my assistant:
And I’m only marginally better myself.
It’s always been my aim to get a set of all the herringbone pattern colours that Conway Stewart used for their late fifties/early sixties pens. I’ll probably never achieve that but I found a herringbone celluloid that they didn’t use: this beautiful gold-coloured Rubinette button filler.
I have yet to restore this pen, but it’s a lovely piece as it is. The clip and cap ring are patterned and the mount for the button is made of clear plastic. Searching for Rubinette didn’t help me much. It’s a variety of apple and there’s a Rubinette Way in Winchester. Oh, and it’s a seldom-used synonym for “ruby”. Nothing about pens.
So if you know anything about the Rubinette, please share the wisdom!
On another topic, ink’s a useful substance in the bottle or the pen or on paper but anywhere else it’s a messy nuisance. Handling pens all day as I do, there are plenty of opportunities to get inked, so I glove up to work on pens and even to do writing samples. Now, it seems, I need to put on gloves to open the mail:
Please, please drain and flush pens before sending them out…
This rose marbled pattern plastic is, I think, unique to Summit. I’ve seen somewhat similar patterns on Stephens pens and on some Parkettes, but they don’t have the intensity of this colour. It almost glows in the dark like the slumbering embers of a rested fire.
After World War II the S100 became the S100 Cadet Model and I think it’s reasonable to assume that this pen was aimed at the school pupil market. That doesn’t imply a decline in quality; this is still a well-made pen, crafted with attention to detail.
The 14ct gold nib is marked “Cadet” now to match the pen. Compared with the more streamlined pens being produced by Conway Stewart at this date, or the hooded-nib Mentmores, the Cadet may be regarded as conservative – and justly so. A case can be made for conservatism in pen design. Streamlining is purely aesthetic; it confers no practical benefit on the writer. Mentmore’s hooded nib was just an ordinary small nib enclosed in plastic, unlike the Parker 51 it emulated which at least had a redesigned ink delivery system to justify its shape. It might be said that sticking with the tried and tested traditional pen shape gave the owner a better writing instrument.
Certainly, enough of them sold for Cadets to be quite plentiful still, though not all are in this glorious colour. This example has survived in near-perfect condition and it’s a comfortable and well-balanced pen in the hand. It writes well with a consistent medium line.
The range of handsome black hard rubber pens of which this is one were made for most of the nineteen-twenties. For those of you still struggling with the Mabie Todd numbering systems (and I confess there are some numbers that remain a complete puzzle to me) the 2 is the nib size, the 3 means that there’s one band at the top of the cap and two on the barrel and the 0 means there’s no band at the cap lip. I neglected to photograph it but there’s a mottled hard rubber insert at the top of the cap with a white Swan emblem.
The clip is a slightly smaller version of the stepped clip Swan had been using for some years, with the word “Swan” imprinted on it rather than the patent date used earlier. With three bands, a stepped clip and a cap insert, this wasn’t one of the company’s cheaper pens. Though it has the comparatively small No 2 nib this pen probably sat above the middle in the Swan price range.
As is so often the case with Swan pens of this date, the beautifully engraved nib has considerable flexibility. This nib has an ‘H’ designation. Anyone know what that means?
These 1920s Swan have it all for me. They’re light, they have perfect balance in the hand, the nibs are invariably splendid and the filling system, with its long lever, works very well. All in all, this pen must rank as one of the best ever made, by any manufacturer.
Sometimes there’s a tantalising serendipity in our lives. It’s almost as if the universe was about to uncover all its secrets for our satisfaction, but actually it’s just the meaningless hand of coincidence at work. Last week I showed you the seldom seen chocolate brown Conway Stewart 475 and that very day I was able to secure an equally uncommon forest green example.
Are these Conway Stewart’s only full-size self-coloured pens from the pre-war period? I don’t mean black or red hard rubber, I mean coloured celluloid. Answers on a postcard to… well, no, answers here if you have them. I’d really like to know.
On a different subject I received this illuminating missive from eBay this morning:
|
I can’t begin to tell you how far this drivel is from addressing the problem. It’s enough to make you rech – or is that retch? I don’t know how many times they’ve “esclated” this to a higher authority, which said authority doesn’t give a damn.
Yeah, sure. I might just list a pen or two when I’m assured the problem is solved and I can see the evidence myself, but not before then and maybe not even then.
It’s too little, too late. I’ve had enough. I engaged the services of a company to write me an e-commerce site yesterday, so you can look out for Goodwriters’ pen sales in a few weeks. I note that there are many companies who invite you to put together your own site for rather less money, but I know what my design sense is like. I couldn’t build a dog kennel, never mind a successful online store. To be sure, it’s an investment, but it works out at about three months eBay fees or a bit less. I think it will be worth it in the long run. At least this way I get to run my own show, and I’m not at the mercy of an uncaring international monopoly.
You may have noticed that I’ve changed the theme for this blog. I liked the old one better, I must say, but it didn’t have a search facility. A couple of years ago that wouldn’t have mattered but as the posts proliferate it becomes harder to find what you’re looking for. Of course, it would help if I kept up with the categorisation…
I gave the search bar a try or two. It seems to be quite good.
Advertisements are wonderful things. This one nails the introduction of the ladder feed for Swan pens at 1912. I have a suspicion that Mabie Todd continued to experiment with other feeds in Blackbirds for a time, but this was the date that Swans adopted the ladder feed which they retained right to the end.
It was only the year before, 1911, that Swan had brought out the Safety Screw Cap so it’s new enough to also be made a feature in this full page spread. Would you pay 12/6d (62 ½ pence) for a pen like that? I would, and indeed I’ve paid a great deal more on many occasions. Safety Screw Caps are wonderful pens, fully modern in every respect except the filling system – and who can say the eyedropper filler is outdated, with so many on the market today?
On the middle pen illustrated, you’ll see what Swan call the top-feed. Discussion still goes on around this short-lived feature which Swan and a few other manufacturers installed on their pens in those years. It isn’t a feed, exactly, because it doesn’t extend far enough through the section to reach the reservoir of ink in the barrel. Only the ladder feed does that. However, it may redirect some of the flow of ink once it reaches the nib. Another possibility is that it shields the gap between the tines from the air and delays drying out. It’s quite likely that the gold top-feed did these things, to some degree at least, but it was entirely unnecessary. Later models dispensed with it and performed just as well. The ladder feed itself delivered the ink to the nib beautifully without assistance.
Provided the appropriate feed was matched to the nib, Swan’s ladder feed was (and remains, of course) superior to the other types of feed around at the time and it continued to hold that lead for many years. Properly adjusted, broad, stub and even flexible Swan nibs don’t suffer from ink starvation as so many of their contemporaries do. Even into the forties and fifties when Sheaffer and Waterman developed deeply-cut multi-finned feeds to control ink flow, Swan stuck with their tried and tested ladder feed which remained the equal of of these innovations.
When I bought this Conway Stewart 475, it was advertised as being black, which it clearly isn’t. It’s a rich, dark, chocolate brown, and as such it’s a quite uncommon pen, uncommon enough that we might use the ‘r’ word, much as I abhor its over-use on perfectly common everyday pens.
Many of the 475s that turn up today are black, and the 475 tends to be regarded as just an economy-level pen in Conway Stewart’s pre-war range but there’s more to the 475 than that. Conway Stewart experimented with several colours that are seldom – or never – seen in other pens. Apart from the gorgeous moss agate and red-veined jazz*, there are moire-patterned colours and the self-coloured pens – aubergine, forest green and this chocolate brown.
Most 475s are 1930s pens. This example is the last version, made from 1937 to some indeterminate point in the 1940s. They come with the number stamped on the barrel either large or small; this one’s decidedly large.
Beautiful and uncommon as some of these colours are, they’re part of a pattern of Conway Stewart behaviour, in which eye-catching colours were often applied to inexpensive pens. The Scribes and 479s are other examples of this trend. After all, these unusual colours were just another celluloid rod to the supplier, doubtless costing the same as any other. At no extra cost, then, the company was able to make some of their economy ranges more attractive and therefore probably sell better.
* I use Jonathan Donahaye’s colour descriptions here.
I had always assumed that all the colourful pre-war Swans were celluloid but it seems it is not so. I sent this pocket-size jade lever filler to Eric Wilson to have a crack in the cap lip celluloid welded. Eric gave it a try but, to his surprise, couldn’t because it’s not celluloid!
So what is it? At that date the most likely alternative would be casein. It may be casein but I’m by no means sure that it is. With the application of a little heat, casein gives off an unmistakable cheesy smell that indicates its origins. I hope none of the neighbours were looking in my kitchen window as I alternatively heated and sniffed the pen – they might have got the wrong idea! (Watch out for that Deb! She’s a pen sniffer, y’know…) Despite my best efforts, I could detect no dairy smells from the pen. It smelled of nothing, in fact.
The other test for casein is its reaction to water. I’m not going to dump this pen in a glass of water – that’s a test too far – but I’ve never seen a Swan pen with the craquelure that afflicts casein pens that have been exposed to a mixture of humid and dry conditions. Admittedly, some caseins are more resistant to this failure than others – Burnhams show it more than Conway Stewarts, for instance – but given the right – or wrong – conditions, all will show it to some degree.
If it’s not casein, and though I can’t be absolutely positive the indications are strong that it’s not, then what is it?
Goodwriterspens's Blog 