I am not a fountain pen collector or researcher. However, I have had a lifelong affection for English made Mabie Todd & Co. Ltd. "Swan" Fountain Pens which now evoke a great deal of nostalgia for me. I do not possess any great knowledge relating to fountain pens -- manufacturers, types, styles or mechanisms -- not even regarding Swan pens -- but I have owned and used regular iridium tipped nib fountain pens, on and off, for much of my adult life for informal everyday handwriting.
But why just Swan pens for me? It goes back to my boyhood growing up in a small Lancashire Cotton weaving town in north west England during the 1930s. We only had one Stationer's shop (purveyor of books, hand writing and calligraphy supplies, etc.) that I knew of that sold fountain pens and they were a Mabie Todd dealer. They may have carried other makes of fountain pens, but I don't recall any displays or advertisements. I remember that they had some great display ads for Swan pens and inks that really captured my eye and made me want to own a Swan pen.
It was all I could do to scrape up enough spending money to buy my own writing supplies (post 1938) for money was scarce in my family during the 1930s and so a new fountain pen was out of the question. But I had one uncle, a businessman of higher social standing than us, who owned a couple of (Swan) fountain pens. Well, he gave me one of his old pens (he had bought a new American made Parker Vacuumatic -- a real "snazzy" and much in demand fountain pen at that time) -- the first fountain pen I ever owned. I don't remember the date of it's manufacture or the model designation, but I do remember it was black and a lever filler with one of those wonderful Swan #2 flexible nibs. I don't recall exactly when I got that pen, but I believe it was just before the outbreak of WW2 in 1939 and that started my love affair with (especially black) Swan fountain pens.
New fountain pens were impossible to find for sale in shops in northern England during WW2 but I did manage to purchase two other used pre-war manufacture (black) fountain pens (I don't remember any specific details about them). The Mabie Todd manufacturing facilities were heavily damaged during WW2 air raids and their immediate post-war production was a trickle. I didn't like the design and appearance of those post-war 35 shilling Swan pens (I thought their quality had declined significantly) and I never did buy one new. Come to think of it, I have never bought a new Swan pen in a shop.
I go back a long time with Swan fountain pens and I love them -- especially if they are black with gold trim which I think is extremely elegant. All of the rubber filler sacs on my Swan fountain pens have long ago disintegrated, so they are now just nostalgic artifacts for me that I keep on my writing table.
James
And just to lighten things up, courtesy of the wonderful, zany, Groucho Marx:
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana
