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Ink Reserve

Maker: Scripto.

This pen might also be the Scripto 100, or even the Scripto Dollar Pen; it cost a dollar, and had on the shoulder of the clip a little 100 impressed by way of a MSRP indicator. It is, in all aspects, a very low-end fountain pen, and I suspect that it is exists mainly to catch the still-running wave of interest in Parker’s hooded pens.  There is one interesting technical aspect, which lends the pen one of its possible names.  Since it lacks any means of checking on the available ink supply, it was equipped with a reserve to abolish the spectre of running out in mid-paragraph; a little bit of sponge thrust into the back end of the ink sac.  If the pen ran dry, working the lever would force a drop or two out of the sponge, and in theory allow the all-important message to be written.

For all that it is a very painfully cheap pen, is it actually a slightly better writer than contemporary Wearevers.  This is damning with faint praise, of course.

Production Run: The only evidence I know of for this pen is an ad of c. 1953, and I don’t expect it had a long run.

Cost When New: $1.00 (for modern value, try this calculator).

Size: 13.0cm long capped, 14.2cm posted, 11.8 cm uncapped.

Point: Steel.

Body: Polystyrene.

Filler: Lever, capacity approx. 0.7 ml

Scripto’s fountain pen – The tab-attached clip was removed by my own negligence, and should stand as a warning to others; it’s not on there very tightly.  Note a slight beginning of the “banana” distortion which can afflict lever-filled pens as plastic shrinkage is made asymetrical by the hole for the lever (more common in cheaper pens).

 

 

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