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

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...

The Aurora 88

Restoring a classic model from Aurora Introduction This pen was designed, made and marketed to compete with the famous Parker 51. While there were many pens that were "inspired by" the 51, the Aurora 88 stands out as one of the better built ones. Even just holding the pen, you can feel that this pen was not a by-product, rather, a well designed one; made with enough material thickness that conveys the substantiality. Originally released in 1946 by Aurora in Italy, who enlisted a famous designer Marcello Nizzoli for this model. This 88 model is the first, followed by a few other varieties, including some which are not piston fillers. And because this pen is a piston filler, I slightly prefer it to my 51, plus the gold nib on these are sometimes flexible (in a crisp and nice way). As in the case of this particular sample. Before we start with the restoration story, here's a bit of glossary on the parts that make up a piston filling system: A dial (or knob). This is the par...

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