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Gold Overlay No. 2 Safety
This pen is from the personal collection of Marcwithac - a generous contributor on FPN and vintage pen collector with exceptional taste!
This safety filler pen was made between 1925-32. It measures 15.3 cm posted and is a small-sized pen in its series. This is a rather rare pen! Collectible Stars I rates it a 11 out of 12 points in rarity, making the authors "happy to have ever seen one".
There are many things special about this particular pen:
1. The octagonal shape of the pen gives it a distinct character from the more common cylindrical rounded pens. The shape was advertised in 1920s catalogues as being available in "elegant Achtkantform; for those looking for a particularly elegant and shapely pen".
2. The barleycorn gold filled overlay is gorgeous! A few jewellers were known to make gold and silver overlays for MB back in the day - Maenner, Sarastro, and Fend. Also, gold overlays are often connected to Italian manufactured MBs. Some overlay pens have the hard rubber turning knobs and sections, but this one is all gold filled overlay.
Safety fillers are a wonderfully intelligent filling system if you ask me. The nib unit rests inside the barrel when the pen is capped. After uncapping, a turning knob at the bottom of the pen is used to extend the nib unit and lock its collar against the section so that no ink can flow out of the barrel. Because of the fact that the nib unit is always submerged in ink, this pen was advertised as never suffering from hard starts!
For bibliography, see Resources page -->link
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