How To Repair Esterbrook Fountain Pen

Some Esterbrooks come in fun colors, too.

Those are a few Esterbrook Pastels (and a Nurse'south Pen). I really like them. For all the fans of the pastel Lamy Safaris coming out in 2019, I hope you lot also go to see Esterbrook Pastels some day.

Esterbrook made and sold the Pastels the 1950s, and they are very "of that era." The Pastels are shorter than the Esterbrook J, and came in solid colors, and were marketed to women — sold as "purse pens." You lot could get them with or without clips. There were matching pencils, too.

I've been working on a tray of pens and pencils from an estate we're treatment, and the colors include pink, peach, blue, mint green and lilac. There is as well a overnice pen and pencil ready from the related Nurse's Pen line.

I'g very taken with the Pastels. The size, colors and design evoke the 1950s so perfectly, that they are almost bits of history. When Esterbrook matched those 1950s colors with the (existing) Esterbrook J design, especially the prune and cap band, and fabricated the pens smaller, well, if there are blueprint angels, they burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.

The colors, the trim, the cute size, and even the "purse pen" name — all piece of work together to tell the same story. That might have been just good luck. But that confluence is what makes for good pattern. It's not my aesthetic, generally. But I can't resist something this perfect.

The best part may be that these were very reasonably priced pens. Esterbrook was not a lesser-of-the-barrel pen maker, but it was a pen maker for the budget-conscious, for students and for other regular people. Esterbrook's principal pens right before the J pens were the "Dollar pens," which as yous'd approximate, started at a dollar, but were very well-made. Here's a random tray of colors.

The nicer Dollar pens cost $1.fifty. Even in the 1930s, that was well-priced. The pens had steel nibs, in a range of widths and grinds, and they could exist screwed in and out, and swapped between Esterbrooks.

Fast-forward 20 years later, and Esterbrook was nevertheless holding the line on price. In that location's a light purple Pastel pencil in this estate with the original price sticker: it was $2.l.

I've been going through a lot of the Esterbrooks this week. Sorting, sifting, checking. And I've been fixing some, a little at a fourth dimension. They are lever fillers, so very easy to go working again. The Pastels are in lite colors, and were made of notoriously soft plastic, so they tend to be plant in more scuffed-up condition than almost. The threads are almost always ink-stained, the pen bodies normally show scratches and the cap lip tin can be cracked. But soaking the pens, opening them, and advisedly removing the one-time sacs and cleaning the pens — sometimes even doing a little J-bar repair — isn't that hard. I've institute information technology kind of soothing. It'southward something I can exercise in fits and starts, when I'm on the phone, or need a intermission from sitting in front of the computer. It'southward satisfying to make clean things up and get them working again.

Now, the Pastels are going to sell at a higher price, and they are probably more collector pens than user pens, if only because they are harder to find and more than delicate.

Only regular Esterbrook J pens are much cheaper and much hardier. Depending on the nib you buy, a skillful-condition but normal Esterbrook J might cost you around $30 or $35, and a regular Dollar pen will be less. The colors are fun, and bonny; you lot can bandy in any Esterbrook J nib; and the nibs are decent writers. But for me information technology's the pens: whatsoever random one is pretty attractive, at least if you like color.

I like these "regular people's pens." I like that the price is reasonable, and that they are notwithstanding good user pens. The merely downside is what makes them so easy to restore — the lever filler.

Lever fillers aren't equally like shooting fish in a barrel to use as mod converters, in my opinion, so with my own Esterbrooks pens, I'm not swapping inks in and out. I selection a color and keep using that same color family in the same pen, so I don't have to spend likewise long working that lever and risking my fingernails to clean the pen. Merely, frankly, I exercise that "same ink color family" thing with all my vintage pens, because almost all vintage pens have filling systems that were designed for refilling with the same ink, rather than for switching colors with each fill.

The regular Dollar and J pens make nice user pens, at that price, if you can stand the levers. It'due south a nice piece of history and a nice everyday pen. If yous find some cheaply in unrestored condition, information technology's a skilful pen to restore yourself too: it's easy, and doesn't require much in the way of special tools or supplies, other than a Number 16 sac and shellac.

And there are a lot of details to proceed you interested. This photo shows a Transitional J fountain pen in greyness, on the left, and on the right a Transitional J pen and pencil fix in brown — but information technology'southward the less flashy black pen in the middle that has a more interesting story. That'southward a black Dollar Pen that was made in the early 1940s: it has a bandless cap and different (and less well-preserved) metal clip, which were changes made to conserve metal for the war effort.

This piffling grouping, below, is also interesting. The pens are tagged with identifying information, hence the strings. From left to right is what I believe to be an uncommon early on pencil, then a 5-Clip pen (predecessor to the Dollar Pens), then a very overnice Visumaster in black, and so a sprightly green Icicle set (which I of course only beloved for the colour).

And so there'due south something for everyone. The colorful Pastels and Icicles are, I like to recollect, precursors to some of my wildly colored, more than fun, modernistic pens. The good user pens, like the Js and the Dollar Pens, are very good value for fountain pen users who may non have tried vintage pens earlier. And there are some less common early Esterbrooks that will go to collectors.

I'm going to pull out something that Brian Goulet said to me, in a different context, at the San Francisco Pen Show. (Because everyone is more likely to listen to him than me.) He told me that early in his career he internalized the saying that "the best way to learn is to teach." I loved hearing that. I'd too like to add that another very good style to larn is to practise. In this example, get your hands muddy — and I mean that literally — and commencement working on some vintage pens. It doesn't take to cost an arm and a leg, either, if you start with pens like lever fillers. And you'll end up with a pen that'due south the equal to some much more than expensive mod pens.

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Source: https://fountainpenfollies.com/2018/11/17/adventures-in-fountain-pen-repair-and-restoration-esterbrooks/2/

Posted by: rodriguezliblow1995.blogspot.com

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