welch
January 2nd, 2014, 06:52 PM
People often ask "What pen should I get now that I've written enough with my Lamy Safari to understand why a fountain pen is wonderful". Before spending $100 or $200 on a good modern pen, consider one of the "vintage" pens, the original Eversharp Skyline.
- The Skyline had some of the best nibs of all time. Most of the Skylines I have gotten -- mostly in raw state from EBay -- have had a soft nib. Not a flex nib for writing elegant swirly "spencerian" works of art, but a comforting soft nib with just the right amount of "give". Yes, a better nib than you can buy on the Montblance 146, which is a pretty fair nib (although pricy). I think Eversharp had some sort of magic spell they used on their nibs.
- Eversharp did not experiment with exotic and complex filling systems. (They left that to Parker and Sheaffer). Instead, the Skyline has a simple lever-and-sac. The benefit is that it is easy to replace a Skyline sac. You can assume that a Skyline will need a new sac unless someone has replaced it...but that's not rocket science or as difficult as repairing a Snorkel. Just wiggle the "section" and nib out of the barrel, clean out any scraps of dead sac, then brush some shellac on the section "nipple" and pull the sac over the nipple. Let the shellac dry, and then roll the new sac/section/nib in talc. Shellac is about $5 from pen repair sites: Pendemonium, Brian and Lisa Anderson, Richard Binder, Ron Zorn, and many others I don't have time to remember and name. Talc is a few dollars for more talc than you will use in a life-time...unless you go into pen repair, or unless you use it for billiards (the most typical use). I find it handy to use "section pliars" to hold the barrel and section as I separate them, and I use a "section spreader" to stretch the sac wide enough to fit iver the sac nipple. More experienced repair people don't bother with a sac spreader, but they do this for a living.
- The Skyline's "plastic" has become brittle. (You'll be brittle, too, after 70 years!). No big deal: be careful, but Skylines often sell between $15 and $40, so you can afford a few "oops" pens.
- I usually hand-polish a Skyline with sunshine cloth.
- Result: a pen from the mid-40s that will delight your hand when you write, and will not cause you to take out a bank-loan to buy it.
The Skyline was, briefly, the best-selling pen in the US. There are many just waiting to be refursbished. Go to it!
Incidentally, Syd "The Wahlnut" Saperstein has bought the right to Eversharp and its product line. If you like the original Skyline, you might start saving to buy one of the new Skylines: a cartridge / converter pen built close to the specs of the old Skyline. I believe new Skyline caps will even fit an old Skyline pen. The new Wahl (corporate name for Eversharp) is committed to developing nibs that give as much pleasure as the old Skyline nibs. That's a tough standard to meet, but it shows that the new Wahl is serious.
(No, I don't work for the new Wahl, and haven't saved enough to buy one of their pens. Someday, though...)
- The Skyline had some of the best nibs of all time. Most of the Skylines I have gotten -- mostly in raw state from EBay -- have had a soft nib. Not a flex nib for writing elegant swirly "spencerian" works of art, but a comforting soft nib with just the right amount of "give". Yes, a better nib than you can buy on the Montblance 146, which is a pretty fair nib (although pricy). I think Eversharp had some sort of magic spell they used on their nibs.
- Eversharp did not experiment with exotic and complex filling systems. (They left that to Parker and Sheaffer). Instead, the Skyline has a simple lever-and-sac. The benefit is that it is easy to replace a Skyline sac. You can assume that a Skyline will need a new sac unless someone has replaced it...but that's not rocket science or as difficult as repairing a Snorkel. Just wiggle the "section" and nib out of the barrel, clean out any scraps of dead sac, then brush some shellac on the section "nipple" and pull the sac over the nipple. Let the shellac dry, and then roll the new sac/section/nib in talc. Shellac is about $5 from pen repair sites: Pendemonium, Brian and Lisa Anderson, Richard Binder, Ron Zorn, and many others I don't have time to remember and name. Talc is a few dollars for more talc than you will use in a life-time...unless you go into pen repair, or unless you use it for billiards (the most typical use). I find it handy to use "section pliars" to hold the barrel and section as I separate them, and I use a "section spreader" to stretch the sac wide enough to fit iver the sac nipple. More experienced repair people don't bother with a sac spreader, but they do this for a living.
- The Skyline's "plastic" has become brittle. (You'll be brittle, too, after 70 years!). No big deal: be careful, but Skylines often sell between $15 and $40, so you can afford a few "oops" pens.
- I usually hand-polish a Skyline with sunshine cloth.
- Result: a pen from the mid-40s that will delight your hand when you write, and will not cause you to take out a bank-loan to buy it.
The Skyline was, briefly, the best-selling pen in the US. There are many just waiting to be refursbished. Go to it!
Incidentally, Syd "The Wahlnut" Saperstein has bought the right to Eversharp and its product line. If you like the original Skyline, you might start saving to buy one of the new Skylines: a cartridge / converter pen built close to the specs of the old Skyline. I believe new Skyline caps will even fit an old Skyline pen. The new Wahl (corporate name for Eversharp) is committed to developing nibs that give as much pleasure as the old Skyline nibs. That's a tough standard to meet, but it shows that the new Wahl is serious.
(No, I don't work for the new Wahl, and haven't saved enough to buy one of their pens. Someday, though...)