As you may have noticed I’m rather fond of Swans. There are numerous reasons for that: design, quality of build and nibs that are hard to beat whether you like flex or firm. The Swan implementation of the lever filling system is unequalled. I especially like the Leverless method of filling.

When I first became involved in the fountain pen boards the Leverless was routinely condemned. This was because many of those people repairing them were doing it as if it were a lever filler. Re-sacced that way the pen took on little ink if it took on any at all. It was commonly said that the Leverless held less ink than an equivalent lever filler. Small wonder!

Nowadays most repair people know how to replace the sac in a Leverless properly, and correctly set up a Leverless will hold more ink than a lever filler of the same size because it contains a larger sac which it fills efficiently.

That’s a long introduction to this pen, a green marbled wartime Leverless. It was said to be sourced from a house clearance. It has had a long and hard life and somewhere along the way it has lost one of its three cap rings. but it has retained the gold plated swan insert on the cap top, usually the first to go!

The nib is a No 4 Eternal, a considerable lump of gold. This one had been dropped nib down at some tragic point in its history. The thickness of the metal made straightening the nib challenging but thankfully it had bent in only one plane. The nib is a wet, firm medium which lays down a generous quantity of ink – an ideal pen in so many situations. With its No 22 sac it holds enough ink to prevent refilling from being required too often. The mechanism works like new.

There are two shades of green used on Swan marble and this is the darker one, making a contrasting pattern.