Many thanks to all 22 VPC members (including our newest member, Jenny) who made it out to Perks pen store on Cambie Street for our September meeting. Our topic for the evening was "Your Oldest Working Fountain Pen" and we saw many lovely (and some rare examples) for this topic. I snapped some photos of them, so here we go....
(click on images to enlarge)
A very old but lovely Swan Safety eyedropper-filling fountain pen made ca. 1912-1913, brought in by Louise & Norm:
Christopher R's Paul E. Wirt fountain pen, circa 1907 or earlier, another lovely eyedropper-filling fountain pen:
Ben R's Sheaffer Balance oversize model in the 'Marine Green' colour, which was made from 1930-1935 (top pen) and a Parker Duofold vest pocket model (ca. 1929)
One of these pens is not like the other....
That's my (Maja's) Sheaffer ca. 1918-1919 flat-top in BCHR (Black Chased Hard Rubber) material on the far left, with the four pens shown in the above photos, along with a modern blue-marbled Waterman rollerball that Louise & Norm found recently for a great price and brought in for our secondary topic---Newest Acquisitions. Bravo!
The pen second from the right is my white TWSBI 'Eco' (a new acquisition for me) and the one on the far right is Bill K's oldest fountain pen--his Parker '45' flighter (all-metal) fountain pen, made in the 1960s. Not every pen brought in for our topic was close to celebrating its 100th birthday, as you can see! The '45' was Parker's longest-produced fountain pen model, having been in production from 1960-2007, nearly 50 years!
Mido brought in a gorgeous Waterman '54' made in the red rippled hard rubber material (ca. 1916) as his oldest working fountain pen.
A group shot of the pens thus described in this blog post, showing their relative sizes:
Alejandra's delightful daughter Natasha brought in her oldest working fountain pen, a blue piston-/vac-filling model of unknown origin ca.1960s. No matter who made it, it looked great... and it still writes!
Here's Natasha's fountain pen...
Peter brought in a Parker marbled Duofold made ca. 1932. It's shown next to Ben's Parker Duofold vest pocket model (the bottom pen), in the same lovely marbled pattern.
A Parker Vacumatic desk pen (bottom) and Louise & Norm's Waterman rollerball, two recent acquisitions by our members (I can't remember who brought in the Parker...Peter maybe??) that were incredible bargains as well.
Longtime VPC member Bruce R is a modern fountain pen aficionado, but he has one or two vintage pens and his oldest fountain pen is the copper Esterbrook "J" fountain pen shown here. The pen has a lever-filling mechanism and can be readily found on places like eBay and in antique stores due to its durability and popularity.
Bruce's Esterbrook with his two modernish Italian fountain pens---an OMAS and a Visconti.
Newer VPC member Erin brought in her oldest fountain pen, a Pelikan '400' in the Tortoise pattern, a classic German vintage fountain pen.
That's Natasha's little blue no-name fountain pen above the pen her mother Alejandra
brought for our topic--a lovely Waterman 52 ½ V in BCHR (Black Chased Hard Rubber) ca.1920.
That's Bob W's stunning green Waterman Hundred Year fountain pen (made of Lucite--ca. 1939-1941) and brand-new VPC member Jenny's Parker Vacumatic in Golden Brown (ca. 1945) directly below it.
Penny brought in a variety of really great vintage fountain pens, but the oldest ones were her two Parker Duofold Juniors from the 1920s (the shorter black and green pens in the middle of the photo below):
Two vintage Waterman fountain pens in red rippled hard rubber, one is Mido's Waterman '54' and the other one is Charles' Waterman '52'. Gorgeous pens!
A nice group shot of some classic vintage pens from Europe and North America---starting from the top: a French-made Bayard, two Watermans, and three Sheaffers brought in by Stuart (from top to bottom: a Stylist, a Crest and a Tuckaway). Stuart's oldest pen was an all-metal Sheaffer ringtop (ca. 1918)---not pictured?
Our members did very well in acquiring some great pen bargains this summer! Charles found these three pens--- a Parker '51', a Parker '21' and a blue Esterbrook--- for a great price. Well done, Charles!
For some inexplicable reason, I forgot to photograph the two oldest working fountain pens brought in. They belong to Mark and are a Waterman taper cap eyedropper-filler and a MRHR (Mottled Red Hard Rubber) Waterman '12'. Both are from 1884-1899. My apologies to Mark! I'll see if I can photograph them at the October meeting...
