1940s Waterman's Stalwart *SOLD* ($150 US)

THIS PEN HAS SOLD!

Hello there! Welcome to Inkquiring Minds. My name is Doug, and I’m back with another Pen Resurrection Sunday video. Today, I’m going to restore one of these two Waterman fountain pens. They’re both made in Canada in the 1940s, but they were never dated, so it’s difficult to tell exactly when they were made.

They’re almost identical, with the main difference being that the Waterman Stalwart and Dauntless are largely the same pen, but their names can vary depending on the country of production. A Stalwart is typically a two-band gold-trimmed US model or a two-band Canadian model, while the Dauntless is a single-banded chrome-trim model made in Canada. Some sources suggest that the Dauntless was a separate, lower-priced model also made in Canada.

Since both pens are made in Canada, I’ll call this one a Dauntless and the other a Stalwart. There’s also a smaller version of this made in Canada called the Starlet, which I’ve restored before.

Now, which one should I pick? Which one should I restore today? Well, I think I’ve decided that I’m going to do this one mainly because the nib on the Dauntless has a tine snapped off. See it right there? One of those tines is gone, so the nib, which is 14 karat gold, is going to be a stub of some form or another. We’ll see how it writes. However, this one actually has a nib intact. It has a slight bend to it, but I’ve written with it and it actually writes very nicely. So, I might not have to straighten that nib out. It might just write beautifully the way it is.

THOUGHTS

So, what are my thoughts on this pen resurrection? Well, this Waterman stalwart is just gorgeous now. All that wear is gone, and the celluloid is looking beautiful. The hardware came up even better than I expected. Look at that clip—it has a relatively peculiar offset. You could call it a unique offset on that Waterman. It’s not exactly centred.

The best part about this resurrection, I think, was discovering this very flexible, bouncy 14 karat gold vintage nib. It writes like glass and is very expressive. Another nice thing about these Waterman Stalwarts and Dauntless fountain pens is that they were relatively inexpensive in the day, in the 1940s and early 1940s. So, they weren’t high-end pens at all. They’re gorgeous to look at and to write with, but as vintage pens, they’re relatively easy to resurrect. It just took some polishing on this one. There was nothing really complicated or difficult, like Parker Vacuumatics, for example. You just put a new latex sack in the barrel, and you’re good to go for another half century. These sections are fairly simple. They’re usually shellacked on, so a little bit of heat and you get that out of there. Latex sacks are relatively inexpensive to purchase. And even if you don’t have specialized tools like this sack spreader, you can use a paperclip to do that sack spreading on your resurrection of your lever-filled fountain pens.

So, if you’re interested in restoring pens or getting into restoring old pens, these are relatively inexpensive to purchase on eBay. Find one that needs some restoration, has a nib on it that isn’t completely damaged, and might just need a sack. You can find these at local antique shops now and then. And especially if they only need a latex sack replacement, they can be a really nice project for someone interested in getting started and doing fountain pen repair. Certainly, that’s where I started. My friend Jack helped me out by giving me this sack spreader and giving me some information on where to pick up supplies and so forth. This video provides the basic instructions on restoring one of these fountain pens. If that’s not what you’re looking for, I’m selling a pen that I’ve restored for $150 US plus shipping. To purchase, simply email me at inkquiringminds@gmail.com with your name and address. I’ll send you a shipping quote and instructions on how to pay via PayPal.

Thank you for watching!

And that's all she wrote.