PEN NEWS JAN-FEB 2018
Pen news while neglected by me has not stopped in the bigger picture. New ideas coming from China have been very interesting, surprising and welcome. The newest Fountain Pen that I have been stocking is the JINHAO #992 which is the most impressive "cheap" fountain pen I have seen in awhile. Based on new tooling the model comes with so many features for so little price? It uses the modern Acrylic plastic for construction. No doubt this helps keep costs low, but then you find brands asking $100+ using the same stuff, so it's not any kind of cop out. They've used a classic design, the Meisterstuck shape. Kept features in like a screw cap, the section to body doesn't just screw it's got seals and it's tight and fine threaded enough to use the pen as an Eyedropper fill. The section is also separate of the nib and feed. These are a threaded cassette so that there is the possibility that there will be aftermarket options of nib styles, the concept of even 14K nibs is now there. Maybe in more expensive models later on? Even without the cassette the handily sized #5 nib is keyhole slotted and comes out of the cassette with simple "tooth-wiggle" application. This is why I have been able to offer Fude de Mannen nibs as an accessory. They swap on the fly, with or, without ink in the pen. A Fude Nib and a large Eyedropper fill and you have a very serviceable artists' pen. Or you can use it as a great office tool. Versatile.
Not to be outdone, HERO PENS have been coming out with a lot of new models as well. They tend to be using the older Wing Sung badge on these. So maybe they are tapping the local Asia market? Wing Sung used to be it's own factory, but shut down in the noughties. Hero bought the rights and has introduced a growing list of new pens with this brand. A few months ago they came out with a handful of internal pump Fountain pens. These seemed to be based on the popular TWSBI pens. Not dead-on clones, but subtle improvements made these exciting. I had a couple of one-offs. Thought them too expensive, and I am reconsidering, as they now have much cheaper models as well. Even a TWSBI pen is a salute to older pen designs. Companies like Noodlers, TWSBI bring back old ideas that were left behind, generally because the cost of that design can't compete with the age of the cartridge pen. But nostalgic demand hasn't disappeared.
With HERO, I found they held onto old school designs in their own line. Hero produces most of the modern Aerometric designs. These came from PARKER's famous 51 Fountain Pen. Which in the early 40s models was probably one of the most complex and costly pens when it came to mechanical design. Now in 2018 Hero, under the badge of WING SUNG, has reintroduced a pen that I never expected to see except as vintage rebuilds and historic collectors pens. I am waiting on the first ones to see in hand, I can show some low rez images from stock photos. A Vacumatic Aerometric Wing Sung. Steel cap, Acryilic body, Aerometric nib closed section and collar. And a full-on diaphram, Vacumatic filler. The parts pieces look like Parker originals, at least 95% identical?
I am looking at this modern fountain pen and it's really a Vacumatic. Hero has done great Aerometric tributes, but always with more modern squeeze bulb spring lever fillers. This is a Vac pump, right down to the little bead that holds the bladder to the stem. They showed a clear demo in their early photos and you can see that the vac works exactly like the PARKERS of the 30s and 40s. It's the WWII era vac design, without any ban on using metal for the parts. As someone that deals with vintage Parkers, I am very curious to see how close these parts are?
Personally I am getting some more Parker pens from the past to restore. And so will be able to offer those when those projects come to completion. The Jinhao #992 are here now, I just got in solid Black body versions, the Wing Sung Vacumatics are on their way, I am guessing that these may just sell out really quickly? That is my own view, but this has to effect other collectors like myself?
