These two pens caught my attention when I was doing repairs at the weekend. They’re not outstanding examples of their kind in terms of quality (though the Blackbird’s pretty good) but they both seemed to have a bit of flex in the nib.

They’re pre-war or wartime pens and I suspect the Blackbird – that’s the blue one – is a few years newer. The Blackbird’s a 5242 – the 42 being simply blue marble. The Swan is a 6145. I confess that the significance of the ‘6’ continues to elude me. I have no idea what it means, but I have a suspicion that it dates the pen to wartime. The 1 is the nib size and 45 indicates pearl grey. It looks a little greenish to me but that may be discolouration. Or it may be that it’s perfectly grey and I suffer from a tad of the colour blind where some shades of green, blue and grey approach each other.

Anyway, it wasn’t until today that I got the chance to write-test them and they lived up to their promise. These aren’t wet noodles (what a ridiculous term!) but they’re pens that have a lot of easily induced flexibility and snappy return. For the past few months I’ve been using and enjoying stiff-nibbed Sheaffer Imperials, but I think that these pens may draw me back into the flex camp – especially the Swan.

1949, 1951 and 1952 were important years for Swan, and not all of them in a good way. 1949 was certainly good as it ushered in the long-awaited series of cigar-shaped pens. 1951 brought the Calligraph and the redesigned Leverless to the market, both very good ideas, just perhaps not as well implemented as previous designs. And, of course, in 1952, Biro took over Mabie Todd. There were not many years left for the company, and the years that remained were not of their best.

It’s the Calligraph I want to look at today. This example is, I think, an early one. The reason I say so is that it’s an italic with flex, a decided nod in the direction of producing calligraphy with a fountain pen. In fact, this nib was advertised as being perfect for Chancery Script. This is, I have to say, only the third Calligraph I have handled with an italic nib. Most Calligraphs seem to have had perfectly ordinary fine or medium nibs. Broad, stub and italics appear to be very much in the minority.

This happened, I believe, because demand was low for real calligraphers’ pens, and the company made a school pen of the Calligraph. I say that because so many of those that arrive on my bench have been chewed and mishandled. They belonged to kids, those pens. They have thinner gold plating that the other models of the time, and seem to have been placed a little lower in the market from the outset. There’s a hint of flimsiness about the Calligraph which I think increases with time. The later, leverless Calligraphs seem more poorly made, to me. Some of those have disappointing nibs and whatever the faults of the earlier ones might have been, their nibs – like this one – are superb.

So whenever a Calligraph arrives, I get out the heat gun and the abrasives to remove the worst of the chomping and the scraping. If I’m unlucky, I have a so-so pen with an adequate nib, but if fortune smiles on me, I have a pen with a nib like this. Who cares about worn plating or a few scratches when the pen has a nib like this one?

That said, italics don’t sit well in my hand, as I’m sure you can see from this writing sample. I prefer a more rounded stub, myself.

I’ve written about Calligraphs on a couple of previous occasions.  The search facility will find them for you if you’re interested.

I like MHR in a wood grain pattern, and I especially like it when it comes in the form of something unusual. This is a Blackbird BB20/61 Fountpen. The BB means Blackbird, the 20 means a No 2 size nib and no bands, and the 61 is for wood grain. This is an eyedropper filler. It’s pre-screw-cap but post over-and-under feed. It has a slip cap and a spoon type of feed. So what date does that indicate? Actually, it’s surprisingly late. This version of the Fountpen was introduced in 1921, so it’s a mere youngster of 92 years.

These long, slender, elegant pens are quite uncommon. It may be that the public wanted self-filling pens by 1921 and so the Fountpen never took off. The black hard rubber version, the BB20/60, is marginally more common but I’ve seen only a couple of them in the last five years. This is the first mottled hard rubber Fountpen that has come my way.

It survived the first ninety or so years in perfect condition. Recently, some cretin had difficulty opening it and resorted to his pliers. I’m not a violent woman but I could think of some uses for those pliers that would make the thickhead think twice before he dug them into the section of a fountain pen again.

By dint of incantations and sacrificing a chicken I’ve been able to reduce the scratch to a less offensively obtrusive level. ‘Scuse me, I’ve got to go now and make gravy for the chicken.