About This Pen

Waterman’s 12PSF pens were very important pens: the first real lever-filled fountain pen. They were only around as a distinct model for two years, 1915-17, but set the path for the next fifteen years. These are the prototypical ebonite (hard rubber) pen: 5 1/4″ long capped,.4″ girth just below the cap, of solid ebonite. The 12 PSF’s were lever-filled pens, with #2 Ideal nibs, and threaded caps. This example is a very good one, with the one perhaps flaw of having a 12PSF cap that fits perfectly but is not a match for the barrel. The cap is chased with a common wavy pattern and the barrel is smooth. This aside, it is a very solid pen, especially so when its 107 year age is considered. The chrome trim is clean, with clearly read imprints. The barrel imprint is present but faint (one can only imagine how many years it was held to wear down the imprint), and the crown “12PSF” imprint is complete. However, one owns an early ebonite pen for how it writes, and this pen is a wonderful writer. It’s not a “wet noodle” by any means, but it is a surprisingly smooth flexible nib that will perform for a wide range of writing styles, including this restorer’s overhanded lefthanded script.