My 2 nicest P 51s
Two nice 51s relatively recently. One was some months ago, but I only got around to getting proper photos this week. The other I got just last week, and completed my restoration efforts yesterday. The earlier one is a 1945 vacumatic DJ in blue cedar (the catalogues of the time said, blue cedar not cedar blue). The nib needed work as it was badly splayed at the tip, but that was not terribly hard to fix. The sterling silver cap was nearly perfect. The newest one is a 1948 DJ It looked great on the outside, but inside was goo-ed up with black muck. My guess is that the original owner plugged it up with India ink or something similarly not good for pens, and then never used it again. In any event, it needed a good clean, a new clutch ring, and a breather tube. The original nib looked OK but was XF and scratchy, so I replaced it with a NOS medium. The nib still took a bit of effort, including tightening up the tubular end to make it snugly fit the feed, and a good smoothing on ultra fine grit film followed by pro;onged polishing on a leather strap and a dab of Simichrome.
I need to give a thankful call-out to the Lotts at Fivestar Pens who had all the parts, including some nibs stamped 1948. Also to Pentooling where I got all the tools I use.
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Originally Posted by calamus
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