Diamond Medal Wide Band Fountain Pen

This week’s restoration was found at an antiques store in Central Wisconsin this Winter while taking a break during a business trip.  It was in a glass amidst many other pens and pencils.  Kind of a “Diamond Medal In The Rough”, pardon the pun….

I finally got around to working on it this week and below is the photo after I took the pen apart.  Two things stand out here.  First, the sac is completely hardened, showing that the pen had not been used, or opened in quite some time.  Second is the lever system.  This is a “hanging pressure bar” found on many of these Chicago pens.  Instead of the common jbar found on many lever fillers, the hanging bar was attached through a hinge in a circular anchor at the top of the cap.  See my article dated February 7, 2008 titled Rexall Monogram for a photo and brief discussion of this lever – bar system common to National Pen Products pens.

Unfortunately, the anchor was broken on this pen and I will have to improvise.

The pen was thoroughly cleaned.  I used a dremel and cleaner on the outside to the cap and barrel, including the gold cap band, lever, nib, and clip.  They did not show any signs of wear, and with gentle cleaning and I was able to be more aggressive once I determined they were not a cheap gold plate.  The inside of the cap was cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner and with qtips to get rid of the inevitable caked on ink.  The channels of the feed were traced with a sharp hobby knife and cleared.   I used a size 16 sac on this one ~ attaching it to the section/feed/nib with sac cement.

Below are two photos of the completed pen which measures 5 1/2 inches closed and 6 9/16 inches posted.

I then photographed the pen along side of a larger (width) Diamond Medal I have had for quite some time.  You can see that it is a narrow pen.  The wider pen compares in size to a large OS Sheaffer or Parker Duofold.

The nib is a Diamond Medal No. 2, fairly small to fit the narrower pen and section.  It has a fair amount of flex, not unusual to pens of this era.

Here is the crisp imprint on the clip, which cleaned to a very shiny gold.

Diamond Medal Pens were produced for Sears Roebuck and sold  by them during the 1920s and 1930s.  The earlier production pens of the 1920s came in a variety of plastics and were produced by National Pen Products of Chicago, IL.    This would be an NPP pen, that Sears would have probably sold in its stores and through its famous and popular catalog.   Later Diamond Medal Pens were produced for Sears by Parker, including vacumatic and button fillers that resemble the Parker pens of the 30s.  But those are for another day…

You never know where you might find a user and collector quality pen.  Thank you to those that have shared their “finds in the wild” with me back channel.  They are still out there…

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