Osmia 61 FL (?)

[7188photo]

I received my first fountain pen eBay purchase yesterday (and my very first vintage fountain pen ever)! Read a lot on this forum about Osmia nibs having a pretty good chance of being flexy, which is what made me buy this pen that had no information provided whatsoever and just two crappy photographs that didn't reveal much. So, after receiving it and being surprised about how tiny it is, I gave it a good bath for half a day and disassembled and cleaned it today.
Here is a picture that shows the disassembly and some details (it's more than 1000px wide, if it doesn't show completely here's a direct link to the jpg file)



The body shows obvious scratches and wear, the clip is bent, and - what I only realized after taking photos with my super close-up iPhone macro plastic lens - the nib is bent, as well! That was quite a bummer and I didn't feel it when I was writing a bit just after I got it, nor did I realize it when looking at it, but if you look at the macro photos you can see that the tip of the nib is slightly bent to the left side. A bit sad about that 

Otherwise I couldn't figure out yet how to disassemble the cap to bend the clip back in shape.

And of course I'd appreciate any information you can give me about this pen.
What I found out on my research so far is that the nib is a flexy steel nib (otherwise it'd say 14K under the "Osmia" right?), and that since the body has a "A.W. Faber Castell Dossenheim-Heidelberg" engraving it is probably from the 1950s.
I could not find out what the "FL" stands for - "61" is the model number, right?

So yeah, not sure how much this pen is still worth - probably not much? - but I'll put some silicone grease on the piston later today and ink it up. Might post some writing examples later, if you want to see them

[7188photo]

Well, unfortunately I had two problems after greasing it and putting it back together:
1) The cork didn't seal
2) I had a pretty hard time getting the piston unit out of there again, damaging the threads for the blind cap a bit

After I finally succeeded in disassembling it again, I substituted the cork ring for a slice of plastic tubing and now it seals and works perfectly
The cork, by the way, broke apart when applying just the tiniest of pressure to it.

[Jeph]

That is how old corks works.
The cap closure just screws off of the car barrel and the clip is sandwiched between the two. A little more soaking and a little heat should let you screw the closure off.

The nib is steel, but many of the old steel nibs are very good which includes Osmia.

It is an Osmia 61 with a fine left oblique (the common oblique) nib. What looks like a bend is actually how it was made. To use it, you rotate the pen slightly counterclockwise until both tines rest evenly on the paper. This will give you line variation without pressure: the down and right lines will be thicker, the up and right lines will be narrower, and both the vertical and horizontal lines will be somewhere in between.

I always grip those piston housing threads with a leather (rubber also works) strap to get a grip without damaging the threads.

If the piece of rubber tube works to seal the piston that is good. Just make sure that you do not have too much of an interference fit or you risk splitting the barrel.

[7188photo]

That is how old corks works.
The cap closure just screws off of the car barrel and the clip is sandwiched between the two. A little more soaking and a little heat should let you screw the closure off.

The nib is steel, but many of the old steel nibs are very good which includes Osmia.

It is an Osmia 61 with a fine left oblique (the common oblique) nib. What looks like a bend is actually how it was made. To use it, you rotate the pen slightly counterclockwise until both tines rest evenly on the paper. This will give you line variation without pressure: the down and right lines will be thicker, the up and right lines will be narrower, and both the vertical and horizontal lines will be somewhere in between.

I always grip those piston housing threads with a leather (rubber also works) strap to get a grip without damaging the threads.

If the piece of rubber tube works to seal the piston that is good. Just make sure that you do not have too much of an interference fit or you risk splitting the barrel.

Thank you! Some wonderful advice and information you gave me there Glad to hear that the nib is not (unwillingly) bent - I did notice that it writes really smoothly when turned a bit to the side.
However, I don't find too much of a line variation - I find the nib actually pretty broad and all variation is usually a result of me having actively applied pressure. What's also confusing me is that the down-right strokes are broader (or easily made broader with a bit of pressure) - I'm used to writing with writing styles that have an emphasised broad down-LEFT stroke. Can't think of many scripts other than blackletter and the like that use a broad down-right stroke, and I tried writing blackletter with this one and, well, it doesn't really work well without a stub nib

[Jeph]

I see the line variation. It is not going to be a lot of variation from a fine nib. The key is that no pressure (and no conscious effort) still gives distinctive writing. Pressure on oblique nibs works a little differently as you have probably noticed. It does look like it is writing relatively broadly for a fine nib but that can also be a function of ink and paper. I have .4 mm nibs that write fatter than a medium (.7mm for me) on more absorbent ( usually but not always = cheaper) paper.

[7188photo]

I see the line variation. It is not going to be a lot of variation from a fine nib. The key is that no pressure (and no conscious effort) still gives distinctive writing. Pressure on oblique nibs works a little differently as you have probably noticed. It does look like it is writing relatively broadly for a fine nib but that can also be a function of ink and paper. I have .4 mm nibs that write fatter than a medium (.7mm for me) on more absorbent ( usually but not always = cheaper) paper.

It also gives a kind of interesting shading with the Permanent Grey ink... just compare how intense the diagonal strokes are: at about the same line width the top to down-right strokes are much more intensive with more ink laid down on the paper.
Well, this nib sure is unusual to me - looking forward to using it over the next few days and figure out all its quirks and special characteristics

By the way, thanks to you the clip is back to normal again! Thanks!