Remember the ‘1745’? Different brand name, same pens: The Reforms are back: ELITE

[Lexaf]

Recently I found a very interesting lot of vintage pens ( well, almost vintage).
Elite from Switzerland.
There are several color varieties and models. I was brought into contact with a couple that had a small business in fountain pens for some years, but they stopped and wanted to sell the stock. Part of that stock was a collection of ‘Elite’ fountain pens that they bought in Switzerland, end of the 1980’s.
Not much was needed to see what their original manufacture was: Reform (by Mutschler, Heidelberg).

A few years ago,in 2008 and 2009 I was one of those collectors that was able to acquire quite large lots of the Reform type ‘1745’ pen. They became very popular in a short time, because they were good, attractive and reliable little pens. I (and some other pen aficionados) sold an awful lot of them (mainly on ‘the other site', in the good days...), until the sources dried up a bit in 2010. Single pieces and small lots of 1745's still can be found on e-Bay these days, but the heydays of ’08 an ’09 were over.


The immensely popular Reform 1745 and a slightly larger P125 in white.

Besides the 1745 there are also rare finds of other Reform models on the collectors market. Apart from the really vintage original and quite rare Reforms, produced in earlier times before the 1980’s, there is the ‘larger brother‘ of the 1745, known as the P125. These were made in different colors, such as this white one here, but they also exist in the same green & black combination as the 1745, inspired by the famous Pelikan 140, and in burgundy red and all black. Also more luxurious models were made, such as the P120 with a hooded nib, and the models 5640 and 4328, that were similar to the P125, but the latter 3 all sported 14K golden nibs.


The P125 was also made in a special variety as the very sought after Reform Calligraph series. They were sporting steel stub nibs with line width of 0.6, 1.1, 1.5, 1.9 and 2.3mm. (I’m still missing the 0.6 in my collection so if anyone can help me out there? Much obliged… )

And now there are the ‘Elites’.
More or less out of the blue. Before I found this lot, the only Elite named pen I knew of was the Japanese Pilot Elite, also a sought after collectors Item, BTW, but of course without any relation to the Elite pens I am talking about here. I searched the Internet for references to the Reform – Elite pens for days, but could not find anything! According to my source, the couple I bought them from, they acquired the Elite pens about 30 years ago in Switzerland. The pens came to me mint in their original boxes and still have their original price tags in Swiss Francs. So I suppose these pens were made by Reform – Mutschler especially for the Swiss market.

There is an interesting aspect about the nibs in these pens. The quality and measures are exactly as the Reforms I already knew, but some of the pens and model/color varieties have different brand engravings on the nibs. Some carry only the word ELITE, but others have the BOCK logo, some have a REFORM logo and again some others have a DEGUSSA logo. They all have F nibs, and are one color gold plated, not bi color such as the REFORM branded nibs in most of the original 1745’s. For a long time I had already the impression that the Reform nibs were actually made by Bock, so I can imagine nibs with the Bock logo were also used in some production series of the Reform as well as in the Elite pens. But the nibs with the DEGUSSA brand are odd. The only explanation (theory) I have is that maybe Bock took over the production facilities for fountain pen nibs from DEGUSSA, after the latter firm restarted and rebuilt their factories after the WWII. Maybe there is someone here in the community that has an answer for this riddle.

I will conclude my posting with some pictures so you can see what I found and see the striking resemblance of the 2 brands. The design and measurements are exactly identical, the only difference is that the Elite pens have a slightly different clip design without a logo and the Elite brand is in the barrel, whereas the Reforms only have in brand in the clip.
I still expect to get more models and colors from my source and of some models and colors there will be a lot more than one piece, so eventually I will have some of them for sale in the Classifieds section on this FPG site. I do not have to keep them all. As I actually were able to buy them for a very fair price I will pass that bargain on to my friends here on FPG so expect to enjoy some very affordable interesting pens of excellent quality soon to appear in this theater!

Enjoy the pictures.


Some of the Elites I acquired, together with their Reform twin sisters , 2^nd from the left is a 1745, 3^rd from the right is a P125. The others are Elites. Note that the 3 Elites on the left are sisters of the 1745, the black pen in the middle on the writing sample and the metal capped one and the gray one are twins of the P125.


Different nib engravings! From left to right: Degussa, Reform, 2 x Elite, the 2^nd one is a Reform 1745, the other 3 are its Elite twins. The 1745 is only known in green with black cap, the Elites have other colors, see the picture here below.



Another comparision: top to bottom: Elite with Metal chromed cap, Reform P125 in ‘standard’ color,
Elite all black, Reform Calligraph 1.1, all resembling the P125 design.


6 different Elite varieties: 3 left, 1745 sisters, 3 right P125 twins.

I hope you liked my story, I’ll add information when I can find more and hope for your comments.

Thanks for reading,
Lexaf