1958 Waterman CF Fountain Pen Set SOLD ($80US)

Hello there! Welcome to Inkquiring Minds. My name is Doug, and I’m back with another pen resurrection video on Sunday. Today, I have something very interesting to share. I hope it won’t take much of a restoration because it almost looks new in the box. This pen was donated to the channel by Janet Tratt. Thank you so much, Janet, for your generous donation of this fountain pen set. I will look at it today, talk about a little bit of polishing, see if it writes, and discuss some of its unique features.

I hope I don’t have to take this pen apart because, according to my pen repair manual, it’s not easy. Some of you may already recognize this pen case because I showcased it on my live stream just a few days ago. It’s a Waterman CF.

Here’s the original box. This is a ballpoint pen, or could be a Waterman’s version of the liquid lead pencil. Underneath, we have the original documentation that came with this pen: a manual from Waterman’s CF, a famous cartridge-filled fountain pen. Waterman was the first creator of the cartridge pen. This pen was developed by Waterman in 1955 and stopped production in 1958 when the company was sold to Bick Pens of France. Waterman’s now belongs to Newell Brands.

The original manual talks about the cartridge-filled fountain pen, a variety of points available, how to replace the cap and the cartridges, and the convertible ballpoint. There’s a diagram of the convertible ballpoint. They call it a convertible because you can have an ink cartridge, ballpoint, or the fluid lead cartridge, which was a liquid lead kind of pencil.

This is when Waterman was in Connecticut in 1958. They moved to France. You can always write better with Waterman. It’s an interesting original manual there, and there’s a business reply envelope for requesting refills. Please check your local dealer first if you cannot supply you with the CF refill cartridges. Use this convenient order instead. We’ll rush refills out the day we receive your order. I doubt that’ll work, though, because there are eight original cartridges in a box that hasn’t been opened, so the ink is intact. I’m not going to open it because we’ll look at the pen itself. Let’s put all this stuff back together again.

Let’s take a moment to examine this pen. It’s a Waterman CF, featuring a typical split clip, a nicely angled top, a final chrome cap, a gold-plated clip, a plastic resin barrel, and a metal end. It’s very slim. Interestingly, it’s stamped on the barrel with CF 1250, fine flex 1250 KK1. I’m not sure what the KK1 is, but the 1250 is the price back in the day. They used to put the price right on the barrel sometimes, or even engrave it. Sheafer engraved some of their pricing on the barrels of their 1930s and 40s pens. It’s silk-screened, so any polishing might remove that.

I mentioned that this pen might be new old stock. I’m not sure whether it’s ever been inked. We take the cap off and see a very interesting section, very art deco-looking with its plastic and chrome, and a 14-karat gold semi-inlaid nib. This part is difficult to take apart. I hope this pen works because it doesn’t show any signs of having been inked before.

The big deal about this pen in 1955 was the replaceable ink cartridge. Now, let’s take out the one that comes with the pen. It says, “Lift box tab refills under the tab.” There are refills, but you can’t get these anymore. They’re very difficult to get. Instead of opening this box, I think I’ll leave that for whoever wants to own this beautiful new old stock set.

I’m going to fill this cartridge with a syringe, with you guessed it, Waterman Serenity Blue. We’re going to keep the Waterman family together. We’ll fill this demo cartridge with ink and see whether it leaks. This little metal crimped end feels like it might want to come off. It’s kind of wiggly. If that’s the case, then I might actually have to get into one of these cartridges to get one of them out so I can refill it. But with eight cartridges, you would be able to use this pen for a long, long time by refilling the cartridges. You don’t need to find Waterman CF cartridges anywhere. I’ve seen them on eBay.Hey, they’re not inexpensive, so I’d suggest refilling. We’ll see if this pen holds any ink, though. If it does, we can use it. The little red tip has a tiny opening that goes into the cartridge piercer, and there seem to be some remnants of ink there. So, before we try any ink with this pen, let’s try posting it first. See how it posts? Wow, that posts beautifully! It feels like almost like a Parker 45 in my hand.

We’re going to examine this nib. It looks like it’s in completely original shape. It needs some buffing and polishing, so I’m going to polish up that gold. We’re not going to take this apart, though. Then, we’ll dip test it first to see how it writes. Then, we’ll get after this cartridge issue and see whether that cartridge can be used with this pen. Of course, it comes with a nice snap cap and a fairly stiff clip.

let's take a look at the ballpoint for a second it has the same markings on the barrel only this one is $5 it's the SR500 $5 KK1 if any of you Waterman afficionados out there know what that KK1 means please let me know in the comments below you give it a twist and the ballpoint comes out this cartridge is empty right now give it a twist and it closes again you pull the cap off there's an eraser never been used and you unscrew that eraser and you tap out the replacement cartridge now I'm going to look around to see whether there is a cartridge that will retrofit into this pen i doubt you can find one of these Waterman replacements anywhere it has this little flare at the back that I think meets up with this inside when you screw that down because this doesn't screw in it just drops in and then this screws in on top and then the mechanism works so the replacement ball point needs to be the same length as this one so I'm going to go to my stationary store and see what I can find that's similar to that that maybe we can retrofit into this ballpoint but first up I'm going to put this in some pen flush in the uh ultrasonic bath and see if there's any extraneous ink that comes out of it then we'll look to dip test with that nib and if it writes beautifully we'll polish it up and see how it comes up it should because it's 14 karat gold should come up beautifully.

So, what are my thoughts on this pen restoration? Well, I can’t call it a resurrection, but it’s a pen rejuvenation. The pen is from 1955 to 1958, and the price is still on it.

I thought this would be a simple project, but it turned out to be fairly straightforward until the end. When I was polishing the nib, I noticed that the tines were still slightly out of alignment. I tried to align them, but the more I tried, the more they wouldn’t stay put. I spent about an hour getting my fingers very inky, but finally, I managed to align them. Now, the pen writes very nicely, and the ballpoint works well with the refill I cut off to match the original length.

One thing to note is that the pen doesn’t have the original cartridge, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem for people who love vintage ballpoints. I’m really glad that the empty cartridge was refillable and doesn’t leak anywhere. Overall, the pen works nicely, and we don’t have to worry about getting into the original box of eight cartridges.

This can be a working, functional vintage pen from Waterman, the Waterman CF. I want to thank Janet Tratt again for her generosity in donating this beautiful set to my channel.

One of you is going to be lucky enough to purchase it. I’ve decided to sell it for $80 US, which is about the going rate for a pristine Waterman CF from 1955 to 1958.

If you’re interested in purchasing this set, please drop me a line at inquiringminds@gmail.com with your name and address. I’ll send you a shipping quote, and shipping to North America is around $10.

This pen was made in the USA, not in France, so you won’t be hit by any tariffs. When you send me your email, I’ll also give you instructions on how to purchase it via PayPal.

There you have it!

Thanks for watching!