All Pens and Ephemera

Hailing from Canada, this is a Sheaffer Craftsman fountain pen made in 1940s Toronto! We restored this vintage pen with a new ink sac and O-ring. Click the headline for close-ups. The pen is a little worn and the blue is a darker with age. No cracks. You will write a nice smooth, extra-fine line with its 14k gold nib and a light touch. It starts to dig a little if you use any pressure. 13cm capped.

What better pen is there for Halloween than the Montegrappa Fortuna Merry Skulls pen? This is the "silver" fountain pen that isn't really actual silver. Dozens of rather happy looking skulls cover the barrel of the pen, and dozens more on the back of the cap form one large skull. Our pen is almost new with minimal use and minimal wear. Ours comes with the complete boxes and papers. Additionally, its standard international converter is installed in the pen. It also takes like cartridges. You will write a fine line with its steel nib that is both smooth with a little feedback. Click the headline for close-ups. 13.8cm capped.

Here's a Sheaffer Triumph from the 1940s that you don't see in working order all that often. In the rarer carmine (red) design with the wide cap band these pens are notoriously tricky to restore. Happily for us...and for you...we had this one restored by the fabulous Sheaffer maven Sherrell Tyree. It is a Vacuum-Fil pen. Unscrew the tail's blind cap, pull back the blind cap as far as it goes and then dip the nib all the way in ink and push down on the blind cap all the way. The whole barrel fills with ink. Its conical nib is made of 14k gold and writes a really firm fine line. You can seem some light wear on the cap and barrel. A shallow barrel imprint. No cracks. A little brassing on the ball of the clip. Click the headline for close-ups. 13.2cm capped.

Glittering yellow dust swirls through the black acrylic of this really stunning Karas Kustoms Vertex fountain pen. Unlike other Vertex pens that we've seen, this one has an amber "jewel" in the top of the pen. We aren't sure if that is from the factory or a former owner's bedazzling. Sporting minimal wear, this preowned pen comes with a standard international converter. You will write a firm extra-fine line with its steel nib. It does have some feedback, as most extra-fine nibs seem to have. 13.5cm capped.

A strong argument can be made that the Sheaffer PFM was the very pinnacle of Sheaffer pen design and manufacture. Released in the late 1950s and continued into the mid-'60s, it was elegance, innovation and performance wrapped into one pen. Our Sheaffer PFM-I in kelly green is the base model with a palladium-silver inlaid nib and chrome trim. We restored this one with a new ink sac and snorkel. The point seal and O-ring look and perform as if they were recently replaced before we got the pen. No cracks. A little wear from past use. You will write a smooth, firm medium line. When we dipped this pen, it started as a fine-point nib, but the more we wrote with it, the more it turned to a medium. 13.7cm capped.

Suddenly playing catch-up to Parker with its transparent barrels, Waterman developed its own see-through barrel pen. The Waterman Ink-Vue was introduced in the mid-1930s. This is an insanely rare demonstrator model of that classic vintage pen! It has some ambering, but it is in really amazing condition. Crisp imprints. No cracks in the main cap or barrel. It appears the inner cap has some fractals. In truth, it is mostly a bulb filler, only it has a cover over the rubber bulb and a lever system pumps the bulb. This pen is so rare and delicate, we've left the petrified original bulb in it. Click the headline for close-ups. The name Val Steiniger is engraved on the tail of the barrel. We don't expect you to write with this museum piece, but its 14k gold nib has a little flex and feedback. 12.8cm capped.

Golden Brown striations make for a very handsome Sheaffer Balance Lifetime fountain pen. The clear imprint finishes with the number 875. Though not a model number, it helps to identify its slender but standard-length size. It also represented the original price of $8.75. We restored this vintage pen with a new ink sac. Closely examine the pen and you will see wear and a couple of deep scratches that are small. However, the design pattern obscures most of that at a casual glance. No cracks. Light brassing on the ball of the pocket clip. You will write a very smooth extra-fine line with its two-tone 14k gold nib. Click the headline for close-ups. 13.7cm capped.

Here's another pen to help you get your Halloween on. The stunning orange-and-black of this Edison Pen Co. Collier fountain pen is actually called tiger swirl. It looks as close to new as any preowned pen can be. This is one of the pens that uses a standard international cartridge or converter. It comes with a converter. The two-tone steel nib you will find to be a surprisingly smooth medium. Click the headline for close-ups. It is a big pen. 15cm capped.