It would take a page or two to list all the ways that the latex sac has been used to fill pens and I don’t plan to do that – not here, at least. The ones that most interest me are the two most common and one that is limited to Mabie Todd alone. There’s a hierarchy in those sac-fillers; for me the lever filler is at the bottom, next is the button filler and finally the Leverless.

The Leverless is sometimes referred to as a twist filler but I would reserve that term for filling systems in which the sac is twisted, like the AA Waterman 291M. In the Leverless one turns the button at the end of the barrel but the sac is not twisted. Instead it is compressed by the paddle.

The Leverless went into production in 1933 and this L330/60 is a slightly later example, produced in 1936. It is a handsome pen indeed with its two barrel bands and a band at the top of the cap, all of the “stacked coins” style. It has a Swan No. 3 keyhole nib, a variation applied to this particular model.

It isn’t especially long at 12.9cm capped but it has good girth. The celluloid of barrel and cap shines like new. The clip screw and turn-button are made from black hard rubber and their colour has changed over the years. I prefer to leave them as they are. The nib is a soft semi-flex medium. It glides smoothly over the page.

Such pens don’t turn up all that often. I appreciate its design and though I will have to part with it before long I will enjoy this pen while I have it.

The Blackbird was always the poor relation of the Swan and it may be viewed in the same way today, but the quality was never any less than its more expensive sibling, unlike the Jackdaw which was definitely the red-haired stepchild though it is compensated by the glorious colours of the Visofil.

Who used the Blackbird? I think it was a school pen for the luckier kids but it was also in general use. After all the Blackbird had its own charm and designs which differed from the Swan. That said, this particular Blackbird closely resembles the Swan of the time. The chrome plating goes well with the blue marbled pattern. The pen is in splendid condition, barely marked by use and the passage of time.

In low light the pattern almost looks grey but as the light increases the blue shines through. In full daylight it is an exceptionally bright, intense blue.

Blue marble always shines and yet for some reason it was less popular in its time than the ubiquitous green marble. Fashions change and I suspect it would be the other way round now, though green marble is still well liked.

I picked up this 4260 recently, a post-war Leverless in very good condition. It came in a repair box with a cover note stating that it had been repaired in Yeovil by W. Gibson Esq. in 1951. It seems that pen repair runs in the family!

That aside, this was the last in the long and successful line of the paddle Leverlesses. Shortly after this pen left the factory Mabie Todd re-tooled for production of a pressure-bar Leverless, an excellent and efficient design but not such a pleasure to repair.

I haven’t seen one of those cover notes before though I’ve had lots of Swans in repair boxes. I suppose they were thrown away though the box was kept. What makes this one different is that I don’t think the pen was used after repair. When I flushed it no ink appeared and when I ran a cotton bud through the section it came out clean. Here’s a little supposition: by time the pen came back from repair the owner, in need of something to write with, had picked up one of those new-fangled Biros. The Leverless was set aside in the drawer until the ballpoint was used up, with every intention of going back to it, but the Biro proved so convenient that a replacement refill was bought, and another, and another…

Can anyone tell me about this desk pen? I don’t recognise the nib or the cartridge (hardly surprising; I don’t use them much). It came with a pen I wanted.

For me all Swans are precious but I must admit that some are more precious than others! Last Sunday there was an L112/87 offered on eBay. That’s the blue lizard pattern that’s usually seen on Swam Minors. A Leverless in that pattern is very rare indeed. It isn’t completely unique; I found another in a search on the web but I don’t think many of us have actually had one of these in our hands.

I bid on it but was unsuccessful. In fact I bid twice, something I hardly ever do. Usually I bid and leave it at that, win or lose. Some collector out there has a fine addition to his array of glistening Swans.

These snake or lizard patterns undoubtedly look good on Swan Minors but the pattern is broken by the black hard rubber lever. There is no interruption to the pattern on the barrel of the Leverless.

I asked the seller for permission to use his excellent photos here, which he kindly granted. Many thanks to davidtna.

Or perhaps I should say just one of many Mabie Todd mysteries!

For the first time in a long while I happened to have a Swan Leverless L212/60 and a Leverless 0160 at the same time.

The top one is the 0160 and yes, you’re right – they’re identical. The parts are interchangeable.

Why did Mabie Todd have two pens the same with different model numbers? My guess is that the L212 pen was very popular and when they changed the numbering system they kept the model but gave it a new number in line with the rest of the range.

Whichever of these pens you have it’s one of the Swan greats.

Look here, from top to bottom
With photo lens, I shot ’em:
More pens for you this autumn;
I’d love it if you bought ’em!

https://www.goodwriterssales.com/

There are several Mabie Todd patterns that have so far evaded me. Some are extremely rare and it’s unlikely I’ll ever see them. The /46 pattern, Oriental Blue, is far from common but it does turn up occasionally.

In eBay I saw a Blackbird BB2/46 without a cap. The seller had held on to it for years in the hope of finding a cap without success. He decided to move it on. I hesitated for a bit. Clearly the pen had little commercial value but not everything is about selling – it’s a hobby too. I bid on the pen and got it.

The very bright blue and russet pattern does not disappoint. It stands out beautifully. I went through the spares to find a cap that would fit. This one does; the diameter and the threads are correct but it looks decidedly odd. Never mind, it makes the pen useable.

It’s a delight in use with its highly unusual stub nib. I would not be surprised to find such a nib on a Swan of this period but not on a Blackbird. It’s a gorgeous nib.

I’m not usually all that fond of Frankenpens. Some I have seen are dreadful freaks. The exception is a mixture of Parker parts I have that works very well. This Blackbird Frankenpen is not so elegant. Perhaps in time I’ll find a better cap though I don’t think there’s any hope of finding the correct one. This will do for the moment as it allows me to use a splendid rarity. It’s a pity that Mabie Todd didn’t make more use of this pattern. As someone said to me, imagine this on a large Leverless.

I thought that UK and US Mabie Todd pens were the same in the early part of the twentieth century but I have never seen a British Swan like this American one.

Unlike most Swan eyedropper fillers it is chunky and flat-ended, quite like a later Blackbird BB2/60 lever filler in fact. As if that was not confusing enough, the Clipper accommodation clip was made in England.

This pen was used by employees of the New York Telephone Company and it may be that this model was especially made for bulk sale to businesses.

Finally, I would find it difficult to show another example of this unusual, long section in a British Swan. A handsome pen with attractive chasing.

With thanks to Rob Parsons

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.