Waterman's Ideal No. 3 Set

Some Saturdays come with a happy surprise.  A package arrived for me last weekend!  A good friend from the US sent over a combined Christmas and birthday gift in the form of a vintage Waterman’s Ideal No. 3 set of fountain pen and matching propelling pencil!  It came complete with an original Waterman’s box, complete with paper insert of instructions on how to fill the pen and pencil correctly.

I could not stop staring.  The celluloid was beautiful!  The pen is pristine – the clip and lever are absolutely clean and shiny, the Waterman’s imprint on the barrel strong and easy to read.  There are no major use marks.  It’s been resacced, ready to fill and write with. The pencil still had its original eraser, and contained the right size lead!

When I removed the pen and pencil from the box I was delighted to discover a pencilled inscription: “Frank Jr. Christmas 1941 Annie Carrisa Edna John.”  I like to think this was a gift to Frank Jr. from his siblings.

The paper insert mentioned a patent date of 1932, so the date of manufacture could’ve been close.  (Later, my friend, a member of the Pen Collectors of America, discovered the very pen listed in a 1933 Waterman’s catalogue.  The beautiful silvery-grey swirls in a black matrix with random red flecks is a celluloid pattern simply called “Black Pearl”.)

 

The nib is a sweet 14k no. 2 flexible fine.  My friend tuned the flow to be able to write well under a light hand, and to be wet enough to handle flexing.  I haven’t really tried any sustained Copperplate-ish writing with it yet, but I feel it can certainly used that way.  (I’d say my Wahl and Swan pens have slightly softer flex nibs.) I did try a fancy capital W in my writing sample, however.

This pen and pencil set was acquired from an antique store sale.  Back in the 1933 people paid USD 3 to buy this fountain pen.  It might have been a bit more when it was given to Frank Jr. Vintage Waterman’s Ideal pens come from the time when the brand was still American and American-made – about 1884-1954. (Now owned by Newell Rubbermaid, today’s Waterman fountain pen brand is based in France.)

I have inked it with Cross Blue and intend to use it often – which is the best way to honor such a wonderful gift.  And the best way to start the New Year!

Wheatgrass for the Guinea Pigs

At the end of February, my sister Joy started a new project - growing wheatgrass for our pets Moonball and Walnut. We live in a condo building, and usually have a hard time getting fresh grass. We do mostly small container gardening in the balconies. We give our guinea pigs some inexpensive leafy vegetables, but they're not a substitute for fresh, sweet grass. So Joy did her homework, and discovered a very good tutorial on SproutPeople.org. There are also many blogs that have excellent how-to videos and directions as well.

It was a challenge finding the seeds. At first Joy went to a feed store and bought oat groats, but only a small percentage of that sprouted and grew. She later remembered that Healthy Options Shangri-la had a selection of organic grains for sale. She found some Bob's Red Mill brand "Hard Red Winter Wheat Berries" and "Hard Red Spring Wheat Berries" which were being sold for P169 per 2-lb pack. Oddly this was a better price than what was being offered at Manila Seedling Bank.

The grains are soaked (and drained, and soaked, and drained) for anywhere from 8 hours to 18 hours. They are later spread on potting mix or shredded newspaper in small recycled take-out containers, and left to grow, covered, in a dark area until they sprout and etiolate (grow pale grass shoots without sunlight). After some time the shoots are transferred to an area with indirect sunlight, and the grass shoots eventually turn green. They are spray-watered several times a day. By the time the grass reaches 5-7" it is ready to harvest. Joy does staggered plantings so she has a harvest every day, or every other day. A serving of wheatgrass in a low take-out tray is enough to feed the guinea pigs - it's only meant to be a treat, since they have pellets for daily sustenance.

One day instead of cutting the wheatgrass and putting it in a bowl, we decided to give Moonball and Walnut the entire tray. They loved it!

The mowed-down grass, root system and potting mix are then shredded and returned to our little compost bin for later re-use. We've tried growing some wheatgrass in A4-sized low plastic containers for wheatgrass juice, but the yield was quite low - after a spell in a Jack Lalanne juicer, we only produced about 5 oz for 2 containers' worth of grass! We fed the discarded grass from the juicer to Moonball and Walnut, so nothing was wasted. That was worth a try anyway :)

Sheaffer Pens Launch in Manila

One of the first things I ever bought with my first ever paycheck in the early 1990s was a Sheaffer No-Nonsense fountain pen. It was translucent purple, it had a fine nib, and best of all, I could afford it. I bought it at National Bookstore, whose Sheaffer kiosk shared space with Parker, Waterman and Cross pens. I still have this pen, and it still writes as well as ever. I also now have a handful of vintage Sheaffer pens, thanks to eBay and my pen group, Fountain Pen Network-Philippines.
In those two decades or so, fountain pen use and sales seriously declined, since Sheaffer disappeared from the stores, to be followed by Rotring and Waterman brands. Imagine my pleasant surprise one day when I read an email that 20 of us FPN-P members could sign up to attend the Sheaffer Pens Launch (held last February 21)!

Jeweler Walter A. Sheaffer started the W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company in 1912, in Fort Madison, Iowa. He wanted to create attractive fountain pens that wrote well and were easy to refill, and successfully came up with lever-filler pens. From the 1920s to the 1940s the Sheaffer lever-filler became the US industry standard; some of these pens came with a lifetime guarantee symbolized by a white dot. Sheaffer also trailblazed with revolutionary and innovative designs in nibs (the conical “Triumph” nib, the inlaid nib) and other filling systems (the Snorkel, the Touchdown). Many iconic pen models were produced throughout the years: the Balance, the Pen for Men, the Imperial, the Targa, the No-Nonsense. Since the 1960s the company has changed owners. In 1997 it was bought by its current owner, Bic USA, the American subsidiary of the French ballpoint pen manufacturer. Click here and here for a detailed history of the Sheaffer Pen Company.

 

So, after about 25 years, National Bookstore returns Sheaffer to its stores. Sheaffer pens are marketed from Singapore by BIC Product (Asia) Pte. Ltd. They held the launch party at The Gallery in Greenbelt 5, last February 21. The program was hosted by the lovely Daphne Osena-Paez. They borrowed fountain pens from the collections of Jose “Butch” Dalisay, Jr. and Clement Dionglay to create a historical exhibit. Daphne took the audience on a tour of the historical Sheaffer pens, to today’s current product offerings. She interviewed Butch and Clem about their how their collections started, and why they choose to write with fountain pens. There was also a raffle, at which I was one of the lucky winners. There was a confusion between the announced prize and the awarded prize, which led to me being presented a pricey Legacy Heritage instead of a Prelude. Fellow FPN-P member Caloy Abad Santos, who won the Legacy and got the Prelude instead, graciously allowed me to keep the pen. Another lucky gentleman won the Valor.
After the raffle we got to chat with Alejandro Rodriguez Tabo, General Manager for Asia. He told us that the Sheaffer pens were now manufactured in different countries (although no longer at the Fort Madison plant, which closed down in 2006), with the Valor being manufactured in Italy.

 

I inked the Legacy Heritage at once when I got home. It was a black lacque metal-bodied model (inspired by the Pen for Men design) with palladium plate trim, and filled via a converter. It sported a very smooth and juicy 18k medium nib. It was quite solidly built and well-balanced in the hand. I was very glad to see that this particular modern Sheaffer pen was a well-made pen worthy of Sheaffer’s long history of fine writing instruments. In fact, I made up my mind to get myself the more affordable Prelude next…

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National Bookstore is the exclusive distributor of Sheaffer pens and inks in the Philippines. This blog is not affiliated with National Bookstore.