This beautiful and mysterious safety pen was shown to me by Rob Parsons. The tapering shape of the pen suggests that it is a late one. The mottled hard rubber is lovely as it always is.
Who made it? It has a superficial resemblance to Waterman pens and it has an 18k Waterman nib. There’s no writing at all on the pen and that excludes Waterman as the manufacturer even though the internal parts are very like those used by Waterman in their safety pens.
I’d be prepared to hazard a guess that the pen is French. Years ago, when I bought more internationally than I do now I bought several French MHR pens that were shameless copies of Waterman products. This may be another. The pens were always of the highest quality and I was never able to find out who made them. Nibs are changed often so they are an unreliable method of determining where a pen was made but I can’t entirely ignore the fact that vintage 18k nibs were usually French.
Thanks to Rob for sight of this unusual pen.
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Thank you, Deb. I have several of these nameless beauties, without nibs. One is in service, with the clip and steel nib from a junked Kaweco Colleg 55A. Writes like a dream for me. Cheers.
That’s interesting! Are they safety pens or some other filling system?
They are lever fillers, with chrome plated levers, heavily brassed. Typically 136 x 11 in size, they were made without cap bands; the feeds are also red ripple. They are in quite good condition but have no markings at all. I bought them locally, here in Australia, as a job lot of five.
I have brought one into service, and the others are in the ‘sooner or later’ box. I love the material, whereas my wife thinks it’s ugly, which demonstrates just how varied personal tastes can be. Her favourite is a Parker 45 Flighter that her mother gave her in 1970 (the 14K nib is pretty good, IMHO.)
Those sound like interesting pens. As you say, tastes vary! The Parker 45 is the ultimate post-war workhorse.
I have a suggestion: this pen is thought to have a French nib as you say.
https://www.peytonstreetpens.com/wahl-hard-rubber-safety-pen-red-ripple-hard-rubber-medium-flexible-nib-excellent-restored.html
Commenting to add: extremely unlikely to be that one, of course, as it is so rare, but it is at least similar. The shape has elements of a Parker Duofold and is similar to a orange/black mottled rubber Conway Stewart Dinkie, but doesn’t seem to be either. Mysterious, as you say!
Another beautiful safety. Did Wahl-Eversharp have a factory in France?
They had many customers in France and were very popular there, I can’t seem to find out if they had a factory there. However, it seems that since 14k gold nibs were commonly produced in France, they might have had a factory there?
Deb, the thing for me that makes it super strange is the cap, being ordinary fountain pen configuration.
Most, if not all safeties I’ve come across have the short squared cap, usually with no clip.
This one has fooled me twice since obtaining it …….I’ve opened it horizontally. 😕, you can imagine the result.
Oh dear! You would have had some mopping up to do! I think the cap looks different from most safety pens because it was made much later – the thirties probably – and it follows the fashion of that time.