EST01 - My first find

Yesterday I was browsing an antique store near my college campus and found this red Esterbrook Fountain pen. I loved the red swirls in the celluloid. It captivated me, and I brought it home. It looked like it was in great shape for being at least 40 years old. I am hoping to discover more about this pen, it's vintage, and it's classification in the weeks ahead as I attempt to fix a few small issues. After spending some time browsing the web I found a great article on Esterbrook pens on Richard Binders website that is available through the reference pages.

My Capped pen is about 5 Inches long, and the Cap Jewel is noticeably larger than the barrel end jewel. From this, I believe that the pen is a model J. It also looks like this pen was made sometime after 1948 based on it's cap design.

The pen has a very nice 9556 nib that writes nicely. When I dipped the pen it wrote unhesitatingly, but was slightly scratchy every once and a while.  After having dipped the pen, i am quite happy with how it writes, but I do not know how to know if the sac is intact or not.  The pen came in such good shape that I am assuming that it has been restored by someone before they brought it into the antique shop, but I want to know for sure before I fill it up and put it in my pocket.  The lever lifts smoothly, and springs back down smoothly with no noises, which seems to indicate an intact sac.  A bit of forum research should turn this information up.

The nib also has a few small surface rust blotches on it. I need to research how to clean the surface rust off of the nib. From what I have read, it sounds like the Esterbrook nibs are stainless steel, so that may be easier that it sounds at first.

I also need to figure out how to repair a hairline crack in the cap of the pen.  It runs from the edge up to the banding.  You can just see it in the picture to the right.

Finally, I need to modify the clip on the cap.  It is slightly spring away from the cap and I feel that the pen could fall out of my shirt pocket if I am not careful.  Luckily there is a forum post on the fountain pen network dealing with this exact issue.

My repair list for this pen is:

• Clean the rust from the nib
• Repair the crack in the cap (done)
• Tighten the pocket clip
• Ensure the filling system works

This should be a fun little project!