Vintage Italian Pen series

[AltecGreen]

DanDeM said I should show off my vintage Italian pens. So I'm starting this series of posts where I will go through my collection and talk about some of my pens.




So we kick things off with the pen that started me on the path of vintage Italian pens and vintage pens in general. I had fallen in love with the beauty of celluloid and had already acquired a number of modern Italian pens. One day I was browsing eBay and saw a pen for sale with a BIN. It was a vintage NOS Columbus 92 in a beautiful blue arco celluloid. I had not heard of Columbus and did some research. Columbus was one of the big 4-5 Italian companies and started around 1919. The company was known for high quality and beautiful celluloid. They were a big force until the early 1950's when they made the decision to go low end to survive. The company is still around but focuses on lower end pens.

The pen itself was flawless. The celluloid was incredible and blew away any of the modern celluloid pens. The pen came with a true vintage flexible nib. I never turned back. I slowly phased out my interest in modern pens (except Nakaya) and switched to vintage pens.


So here is the Columbus 92. The pen is from the late 1940's/early 1950's (before 1952) and is a piston filler. The pen itself is a vintage medium sized pen thus somewhat slim by modern standards.



Highlighting the arco pattern. This pen is a pain to photograph. The celluloid is a deep rich blue with the veins of iridescent light blue.


more of the pattern



The true color is closer to this



Here is the nib

[fountainpenkid]

That is a very subtle beauty, but I quite like it!

[caribbean_skye]

I'm sure the pen is gorgeous is person as it looks pretty spectacular already. Will enjoy reading more about Italian vintage pens and your collection.

[Tracy Lee]

Really interesting!! Looking forward to more!

[cedargirl]

That's pretty cool. I know nothing about Italian pens. I would like to learn more about your collection.

[reprieve]

This thread is a fantastic idea! I look forward to seeing more. The celluloid on that Columbus is stunning.

[Laura N]

Lovely. Thank you!

[dsolmei]

Hi AltecGreen,

Thanks for sharing. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing all of the artful patterning of celluloid used by the Italian manufacturers over the years. Other than Omas, do you know if any other manufacturers are using arco patterned celluloid?

I love celluloid, and the Italians probably do it better than anyone else.

[DanDeM]

I haven't seen AG's collection, but a few years ago I saw what he had amassed in just a few hours at the LA Show.
This thread is going to take a while, and I'll enjoy every day of it.


Memo to self: Don't loose focus. DON'T LOOSE FOCUS!

[AltecGreen]

Hi AltecGreen,

Thanks for sharing. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing all of the artful patterning of celluloid used by the Italian manufacturers over the years. Other than Omas, do you know if any other manufacturers are using arco patterned celluloid?

I love celluloid, and the Italians probably do it better than anyone else.

I'll get to that soon but a number of Italian and several German manufacturers used Arco type celluloids. Of the type used by Omas, MontBlanc comes to mind. I don't think MB used the bronze arco pattern but they used the platinum arco on many of their pens as well as a red arco pattern.

When I get back tonight, I'll put up a new pen, one in platinum celluloid.

[AltecGreen]

This pen is the Omas 361. It was introduced circa 1948 and was Omas' answer to the Parker 51. Omas took a different route than Aurora and their 88 pen. The key feature is a simple but effective hood that rotates allowing a firm and fully hooded nib in one position and full flex in the other. This pen in various forms was made into the 1960's. The pen comes in both the bronze arco and platinum arco. It also comes in black and burgundy resin. The body of my pen is in the classic faceted body with post-war trim of a single cap band and a non-roller clip. This pen also comes also with a round body and later ogival bodies. This pen comes in the classic platinum celluloid Omas has used since the early 1930's. Montblanc are also famous for using this material.











fully hooded and stiff position




Flex position




Here's how it works

[KrazyIvan]

I really like the look of that material!

[Jon Szanto]

AG:

LA 2012. 10 pens in a pen case. Massive Italian job. Just sayin...

[cedargirl]

Omas 361 - Wow. Something I never knew. Thanks.

[DanDeM]

Memo to self: Don't loose focus. DON'T LOOSE FOCUS!

[fountainpenkid]

Those look really cool. I hope to see one some day.

[AltecGreen]

For today, I have a pair of pens made by Tibaldi. This would be the first Tibaldi. The original Tibaldi went out of business in 60's. They were revived in the nineties and sold pens that honored the original Tibaldi pens. That went under and was revived by the group that owns Montegrappa.

The two pens are Tibaldi Trasparente in medium size. One cannot overlook the influence of Parker on the Italian pen industry. The Parker Vacumatic created a craze for pens with transparent bodies and non-sac filling systems. Almost all major Italian companies made pens that had transparent barrels. The Omas Lucens and Extra Lucens and the Aurora Optima come to mind. These pens came out in the mid-late 30's and are some of my favorite vintage Italian pens albeit they also come with a high price tag.

[peterpen53]

This is truly from the golden age of fountain pens. I really like the second one with the red flakes in the barrel.
Thank you for taking the time to show us all these beautiful vintage pens. But when you have finished with the Italians, will you be doing a similar series on your Japanese pens (please?)?

Cheers,
Peter

[AltecGreen]

This is truly from the golden age of fountain pens. I really like the second one with the red flakes in the barrel.
Thank you for taking the time to show us all these beautiful vintage pens. But when you have finished with the Italians, will you be doing a similar series on your Japanese pens (please?)?

Cheers,
Peter

Yes. I'll do the Japanese after the Italians. It might take a while since I do own quite a few vintage Italian pens.

[peterpen53]

This is truly from the golden age of fountain pens. I really like the second one with the red flakes in the barrel.
Thank you for taking the time to show us all these beautiful vintage pens. But when you have finished with the Italians, will you be doing a similar series on your Japanese pens (please?)?

Cheers,
Peter

Yes. I'll do the Japanese after the Italians. It might take a while since I do own quite a few vintage Italian pens.

That's what I was afraid of . However, since I like looking at those vintage Italians very much, I will quietly sit back and enjoy what's coming.