I used to buy small collections of pens, often just for the one or two pens I really wanted. The result was an ever-accumulating pile of vaguely fountain pen-related odds and ends which I scrapped or gave away. I thought it was all gone, then I came upon a small stash the other day.

This was the most interesting thing, a small dip pen about 15cm long but very thin, too thin for any extended use except by the most supple small hands. It isn’t a toy; the shaft is beautifully marbled white celluloid, the ferrule is good gold plate with no brassing and the nib, I am sure, is gold though it doesn’t have a 14k stamp. The nib is Grieshaber, so American.

It’s not the only tiny dip pen I’ve seen. I’ve come across them from time to time. Once upon a time it must have been a thing, to use the modern idiom.

I made a writing sample but it isn’t worth adding here because I have such difficulty with as slender a pen as this. Suffice it to say that it is a Western fine with considerable flexibility.