Silver 1950s Waterman Skywriter

In my post of March 1, 2012, I wrote about a gold and burgundy 2nd generation 1950s Skywriter and its restoration. This week’s pen is a similar Skywriter, but in Silver trim and red in color.  Remember that the first Skywriters were produced under the Aiken Lambert name after Waterman had purchased them.  These appeared several years later in the late 40s and 50s.  Several colors existed and this pen is an example of a different trim option.

You can see that the pen came apart without too much effort.  Be careful when removing the sections of these pens as the plastic is quite brittle and can crack easily.  I used a heat gun for quite a while before the section finally released.  You can see that it is a friction fit and that the old sac was detached from the section and had dried up.

I cleaned the nib and cap in an ultrasonic cleaner, removed the old sac from the section and cleaned the section and feed, removing the old ink from the inside of each.  I attached a size 14 sac to the section and allowed it to sit overnight.  The next day I placed the section / nib / feed into the barrel and the resulting pen is below.

The pen measures 5 1/8 inches closed and 6 1/16 inches posted.

Below, you can see the pen from the March 1 post underneath this pen.  Differences are the trim, nib color, and the letters USA appear on the clip.

From the earlier post ~

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)

and

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!

These are surprisingly hearty pens that perform well for inexpensively nibbed pens.  I will be on the lookout for further variations.

See also Waterman Third Generation Skywriter, dated just last month.

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