Waterman Skywriter

This week’s pen is not an expensive or highly sought after collectible, but an interesting corner of Waterman, and fountain pen, history.

Waterman Skywriters were produced by Waterman over quite a span of time.  They were first produced in Canada under the Waterman and Aiken Lambert name.  Waterman had purchased Aiken Lambert in the 30s and these first Skywriters used both names. See this link for excellent Skywriter information.  These were produced from sometime in the late 30s into the 1940s.

Interestingly, the name Skywriter was capitalizing on the rising popularity of air travel.  Other Pen Companies had also done this as evidenced by the Wahl Eversharp Skyline and the Sheaffer Skyboy. (follow links to previous posts on these pens)

The second “generation” of these Skywriters were produced by Waterman in the 1950s and are represented by this restoration pen.   Produced mostly in the 1950s, they were primarily a chrome adorned lever filler, but this one has gold filled cap, lever, and nib.  A third generation was produced in the 1950s and resembled the Waterman C/F (cartridge filler), but was still a lever filler and had an open nib, not a C/F type nib.

The second generation Skywriter below had normal wear to its parts.  As you can see, it came apart fairly easily with the assistance of a little heat.  The nib and feed knocked out of the section, and the original sac had separated from the section, needing to be replaced.  The section, feed, and nib were cleaned up and a new size 16 sac was fitted to the section unit.  I buffed out a few scratches on the barrel and polished the cap and nib as well.

The finished burgundy / gold pen can be seen below.  It measures 5 1/8 inches closed and 6 1/16 inches posted.

Below is a photo of the gold plated M – 24 Sky Writer nib.

The Skywriter spanned a few decades and many of these low priced pens can still be found today in varying models and configurations.  Interestingly, very little information exists on them.   Waterman did not highly advertise them or catalog them, probably due to the fact that they were an entry level pen.  If anyone has any written material in the form of advertising or catalogs on these lines, I would love to see it!

For those looking for a low priced, reasonably made, fountain pen…. this is another pen to think about finding and restoring.

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