Fountain Pen Creation

Happy New Year!

I will move from pen restoration from time to time to highlight a pen that I have not restored, but is worthy of highlight. One such pen I acquired as a Christmas Gift from my family this Season. It is a one of a kind creation of Joe Cali. I have coveted one of his pens for a long time. I have not met Mr. Cali, but have admired his work and had the opportunity to handle one of his pens while at an Omaha, Nebraska pen club meeting in 2007. I enjoy large pens and the one in Omaha was that. In November of 2007, one became available on the web and I mentioned that this would be a nice present for me. It arrived from a collector in Georgia in time for the Holidays, and I resisted temptation and waited until Christmas morning to view it.

The Cali pen did not disappoint. It is large and colorful and all of his pens are unique. The nib used is a vintage Sager Transparo Sackless 14K. I do not know very much about Sager Pens other than they were owned by Solomon Sager in the 1930s in Chicago. I believe there was a relationship with the Greishaber Pen Company, which survived into the early 1930s in Chicago.

My Cali Pen is a button filler, reminiscent of the Parker Button fillers of the 20s and 30s. Here are two pictures ~

Further information on Mr. Cali and his pens can be found here .

Edit 9-29-09: An interesting post was made to the Fountain Pen Network this date from the great granddaughter of Solomon Sager with some insight from his daughter (age 86 this date). Her remarks are here and provide an interesting insight into the development of the Sackless Pen of Sager.