This pen does not have the dramatic beauty of some of the others Deb and I have posted before but it has a quieter beauty and a lot of history.
This is a World War Two pen. Those were difficult years for Mabie Todd. Like all pen manufacturers fountain pen production was limited to a few models and the skills and equipment were turned over to armament production. Then the company's headquarters and production facilities were bombed. They recovered and continued to produce their much-demanded pens but those events had their effects.
At 13.3cm capped, this pen is the green marbled equivalent of the black 1060. It has no number stamped on the barrel but if it had one it would be 1041, the 41 indicating the pattern. Why did it have no number? We don't know. We suspect that the numbers guy took a lot of time off work, or maybe he was more interested in the girls in the nib department. Anyway during this period and subsequently many pens were issued without model numbers.
Pens of this size formed a large part of wartime output. The size of the pen suggests that it should be fitted with a No. 4 nib but I have seen them with everything from No. 2 to No. 4 with the appropriate sections and feeds. I think Mabie Todd used whatever stocks were to hand to continue issuing pens.
Quality, however, did not suffer. These pens are as well made as their pre-war predecessors. World War Two was the last great period of mass production of fountain pens. Every serviceman overseas and everyone left at home needed to communicate with each other, so pens like these are commonly found today. After the war Swan Leverlesses and Self-Fillers took on a more tapered, almost torpedo shape. For myself, I prefer these more restrained lines.
The barrel imprint shows the Swan in a central position whereas previously it had always sat to the left of the text. Over the years the depiction of the swan has changed a lot. Andreas Lambrou believes that the pens can be dated by the Swan image.
The No. 3 nib is fine and semi-flexible, a lovely writer. It looks a little small in a pen of this girth but it's better than those that come with a No. 2 nib! Other pen restorers will be familiar with the old sac that welds itself to the interior of the barrel and has to be picked off, fragment by fragment. This one took about half an hour for that alone and it isn't the most entertaining work...
Bookmarks