ON061: Onoto The Pen, No. 5601.

Date: c1930s

Size: Capped - 5 7/16 inches; posted - 7 1/8 inches.

A very substantial and well-balanced Onoto piston filled pen.  This pen has a beautiful glossy jet black marbled celluloid barrel and cap chased with the barleycorn pattern, and a hard rubber cap top button and filling knob.  Everything is as it should be and the pen is in excellent condition.  The only damage I can see on it is a tiny bit of brassing to the pocket clip ball.  The barrel imprint is crisp and shows no wear.  This is a "streamlined" design pen with a large tapering top button.  The pocket clip is gold filled and has the De La Rue sun logo at the shoulder and a ball at the bottom.  Below this is a single gold filled band.  The barrel end filler knob is imprinted with an arrow to show the direction that it must be unscrewed in order to withdraw the plunger.  Also imprinted on this knob is the model number of the pen.  The nib is a lovely shiny Onoto No. 3st made from 14 carat gold and in a fine point.

I have fully serviced this pen.  The filling mechanism works very well with its new washers and seals and fills the pen effortlessly.  The nib is very smooth and writes with a lovely wet and consistent fine width line.  The nib also has a little softness and will produce some very attractive line width variation with very little effort on the part of the writer.

I don't often get these Onoto piston fillers, and this is an excellent example.