Friday, April 3, 2009

Forgotten Waterman pens

I’ve recently discovered a category of pens which I’ve found a delight to use, and beautiful to look at. But, I see very few mentions of them in the pen collecting community. This may just be my perception though, and I’ll probably find quite a number of ardent Waterman specialists who will tell me otherwise!

The pen community talks about the Parker 51, Vacumatics and Duofolds, a whole range of Sheaffers, the Wahl Eversharp Skyline, Ringtops, The Waterman 52, Red Ripples, Patrician and 100 Year pen, Conway Stewart Dinkies and 58s to name but a few of the stars, but seldom talk about the Watermans of the 1940s. A time which was tough for Waterman.

What’s more interesting is you see plenty of them about on Ebay and pen selling sites. The pens I’m talking about are the English W2, W3, W5 and a few other similar pens from the same era made in the States and Canada. The pictures here show a good ol' US of A version.

I’ve now got a number of these, and I love them. I wonder if they get overlooked because they are quite functional – or they appear so in the photography of sites selling them. But in the flesh, the plastics used are wonderful. Reflective, deep, changing colour when viewed in different light. The nibs on each one of mine are a delight to use too, fine with varying degrees of flexibility and fun.

Best of all, they’re not particularly expensive. You should try one. Hmmm. Maybe this is another secret I should have kept to myself?

1 comment:

  1. Your pen reminds me of the box for Waterman Blue Black Ink. What a nice nib!

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