Established in India in 1951, Airmail claims to be the oldest company of its type in the county; one assumes that by this they mean “writing instruments maker”. From a North American perspective, they are but one of a slightly obscure legion of pen-makers in that country, one with perhaps a slightly higher than average quality of finish and somewhat unusual in offering more than just eyedropper pens. I don’t mean any of this as a put-down; there’s nothing wrong with making affordable pens, and I wish more companies were at it.
I should, being outside India, probably stick to the name “Wality”. Airmail is the older name, and is still appropriate, but is used only within India, as they have a longstanding exclusivity arrangment with their distributor in that nation; only the distributor may handly Airmail pens, and that distributor is limited to India. When the company expanded to the point of undertaking international sales, to avoid offending this arrangement, they must rebrand all the pens bound for export as Wality.
A look at the company’s website in 2011 shows rather fewer models of fountain pen than were available even five years earlier. I hope that this is just a sign of concentrating the better lines, rather than an indication that the “modernization” of India is going to start undoing pen-makers there the way it has in North America and, to a lesser degree, Europe.
Models I’ve examined:
| Alphabetically | By Date |
| In this, I admit some defeat. All recent if not current production, but that’s all I’ve got. |