About Redeempens.com

The fountain pen hobby, is an interesting one. I for one, find restored (or Redeemed) vintage fountain pens to be an endless source of fascination.

But first of all, let's me be clear about one thing:

This is not a Blog, as in a blog that is updated regularly.
I don't intend to become a blogger, so I'll just use this space to publish an article once in a while as my schedule allows.
Besides, I am on instagram as @redeempens, and also on various online pen forums.

What about?

From the most humble to the intricate, if a fountain pen were made and built well, I am eager to restore them to be used again at the hand of a loving new owner.

Furthermore, my other passion is sketching using these old restored gems.

So, if you like these two things, most likely you'll enjoy my articles about vintage pens, my thoughts on them, and stories from my restorations.

With that, Welcome, and enjoy!

-- Will

An Old Fountain Pen Travels The Pacific Northwest

It is probably difficult for non- fountain pen hobbyist to fathom the common anxiety of choosing the pens to bring with on a road trip. A road trip, usually spans a few days to a week or so, ideally visiting a place that we have not been to or haven't visited for decades. Given that context, those of us who likes to journal, sketch, or both, are faced with the dilemma of which pen(s) -- and ink, and notebook/sketchbook/paper/etc. -- to bring from our collection. Naturally, the more pens we collect, the harder it would be for us to decide. I have many fountain pens, most of them are vintage (made in the eras when fountain pens were common household item ca.1880-1960s), which I bought and restored to be usable again today. I even have a website where I find new homes for some of my pens. The Road Trip So here is where the chronicle began. Last week my family and I trekked the Pacific Northwest in search of nice Summer weather, hiking trails, and awesome vistas. So which pen did I b

The Garant Alkor

At First Glance Here's a good-looking fountain pen. The name is Garant Alkor. Garant was a pen manufacturer in the former East Germany (DDR) in the 1950s. Some of their pens were identified as late as the 1960s. Beyond that, sadly, very few pen factories survived globally, and among those who did, there are even fewer who still manufacture fountain pens. This "Alkor" is considered the top-of-the-line model. There are the Nilor and Silor models (and maybe others that I'm not aware of) which are smaller. It's quite a big vintage pen, clocking at 5-3/8 inches (or 136 mm) capped. The "girth" (barrel diameter) is about 13 mm, and the cap diameter is 14.6 mm at the widest part. Far from being small and skinny. Here it is with fellow German piston fillers from around the same era, the Montblanc 254 and the Pelikan 400: As you can see, it is quite big compared to the Pelikan, and the Montblanc. The material is plastic, but I can't say that it feels like cel

The Camel Pen Restoration

The Brown Marble Beauty I got this beautifully preserved sample of the Camel pen late last year (2021). It was also one of the highlights for Redeem Pens if only because of the amount of time I spent restoring it. It is not an exaggeration when I said that it took me months to get this pen back to its original function. But it's all worth it because this pen is just amazing. Not only it looks good, but it is also a super nice pen to sketch / write with. Model-wise, this one does not have the ornate cap band, but it is equipped with the Camel 14K gold nib, which puts it near the top-of-the-line offering. The nib writes in a wet fine, and it is one of those vintage high-quality flex nib. It is absolutely one of those pens that I enjoy to sketch with. The History The Camel Pen Company was created by Joseph Wustman in the mid-1930s in New Jersey, USA. The star of the company's products is a fountain pen that uses dry ink pellets, stored in a compartment at the end of the barrel. Th

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