I did a pile of pen fixin’ today, I’m pleased to say, and among those restored was this Mabie Todd Swan 4261. It dates to around 1950 and it’s a black hard rubber Leverless. Though it’s not a large pen with its No 2 nib, it has three-band trim and was probably fairly high in the price range. It has few of the surface scratches that a well-used pen develops and the gold plating is in excellent condition. When I took it apart I found this:

Original Swan sacs don’t appear all that often. I find Conway Stewart ones all the time, the original ones being pale brown and the replacements black. I suspect that Swan didn’t issue sacs to their repair agents but just left them to fit standard stock.

Given its pristine condition this pen might be well unused shop stock. There’s no box, it doesn’t have a price label or chalk marks but it’s more likely than not that that’s what it is. I didn’t buy it as New Old Stock, nor could I advertise it in that way, but it’s nice to have an essentially new sixty-year-old pen.