This is almost certainly a late 1940s model, though maybe early 50s. The lever fills were phased out for all but black after the war. Re-sacced this one many years ago, IIRC with the polysac out of a Sheaffer converter, but I’m not inclined to crack it open to verify. Conical 14K triumph nib in a western F/M. Smooth with a hint of feedback, and no flex whatsoever. This was a thoroughly midrange offering, meant to be used daily. It slotted in between the Admiral and Craftsman below it, and several models and trims above it. The 1/4” gold fill band is the giveaway. The nib is STOUT, and the gold fill on the clip and band has held up beautifully.
They were not fucking around with these pens. Even this one retailed for around ten bucks in 1949, making it an $80-100 pen today, roughly equivalent to the cheapest solid gold nib pens from major makers today, funnily enough. Really though, general purchasing power inflation is a weird analogue in this product category, which changed so drastically in the 60s and 70s.
That, and these days most of us seem to be the types of
nerdsaficionados who own about 427 million different pens which we switch between, so the mileage is spread out thinly across them. That’s certainly how it works for me, at any rate.For longevity, I think the switch to cartridge filling has been a major but overlooked boon to keeping pens in operation well past their sell-by dates. Plastic cartridges last functionally forever – I have some from the 1970’s that still look and act brand new – and can be refilled indefinitely as well as fairly easily replaced (or bodged well enough) if you eventually do cack one. Contrast this to the rubber bladders in all the vintage lever/vacuum/snorkel/whatever fillers from back in the day which inevitably disintegrate and require the efforts of a dedicated individual to both want to restore the pen and have the parts and ability to do so. I think a lot of vintage pens wound up in the landfill over the years much to the chagrin of modern collectors because their sacs gave out and nobody at the time could be bothered to repair them.
Very possible. Re-saccing a pen is fiddly but simple, and I bet most towns had a few people who could handle it. The more complicated mechanisms that still relied on rubber bladders and gaskets probably took the hardest hit.
Then there’s the Aero 51 and 21… find pen in drawer, flush pen, start writing with pen. Of course Parker bodged that up with the 61, LOL.