MERLIN ED Ebonite Fountain Pens - from Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India

In my quest to locate Indian handmade fountain pens, I often take the help of my colleagues in the college where I teach…I had mentioned earlier in one of my posts that Andhra Pradesh, the state where Hyderabad is located, was at one point of time a hub of fountain pen manufacturing activity…and many small towns had FP-making units…almost like a cottage industry… names of places like Rajahmundry, Tenali, Vijayawada, Guntur Machilipatnam, Kadapa keep cropping up when one talks of fountain pens from Andhra Pradesh…Rajahmundry, Tenali, Vijayawada are names still associated with pens...but pen units in Machilipatnam and Kadapa seem to have closed down…

And when my colleague Pavan told me the name of a pen shop in a town called Warangal (a town which is two hours by rail from Hyderabad)…I added the name of one more town to this list…and got in touch with the owners and asked them about ebonite fountain pens and they said they had two models…a large one and a small one…I requested them to send me two large pens (in fact, they had only two)…

And when I received the package and opened it, I was surprised to see the size of these pens…one pen was slightly longer than the other…the name MERLIN appears clearly on the clips of both pens…I called them simply Merlin-1 (the bigger one) and Merlin-2!!

Merlin-1 is slightly less than 7 inches capped; 5 ¾ inches uncapped; and 8 ¼ inches posted; and Merlin-2 is 6 ¾ inches capped; 5 ¾ inches uncapped; and 8 inches posted. Both are ED filler pens and really huge. I filled the barrel with water to check the reservoir capacity, and though I didn’t measure the amount of water it held, I realized one could go on for quite some time with a single filling. The nibs are regular iridium point nibs; though I feel a pen of this size needs a nib that is equally solid in terms of name and looks. Both pens look very strong and sturdy and the photos of the thickness of the barrel walls bear this out. When I saw the clips first, I felt there wasn’t enough gap near the top, but when I clipped the pen to my shirt pocket, it went up till the top and sat snug. Here are some pictures…


Both Merlins capped...


Both Merlins posted...


Clips with MERLIN on them...


I like this swirling design on the cap jewel...


Oh yeah...BTW, that is the MB 149 in the middle...

Thanks...

SOME OLD INDIAN FOUNTAIN PEN BRANDS - 3 - PRESIDENT

The third in this series of Old Indian Fountain Pen Brands is a fountain pen brand called PRESIDENT…I am presenting two FPs here…one has a black plastic body and a gold coloured metal cap…and the other looks like it has a celluloid body, but from my experience with the Parko FPs, I am not too sure…but the silver and black pattern looks very good…

The pen with the black barrel has a kind of nib which is partially open…the front is open and the sides are covered… a semi-hooded nib or a semi open nib? The other pen has an open nib…both nibs have the brand name imprinted on them…the imprint can also be seen on the barrels of both pens…clearly visible on the black pen and the colour on the imprint seemed to have disappeared on the celluloid-like FP…and it says ‘unbreakable’ below the brand name on the celluloid-like FP…

I have come across the name PRESIDENT w. r. t. fountain pens earlier…but I not sure whether these pens and those are made by the same company…I will have to do a little bit of re/search in the pens shops to find out if PRESIDENT FPs are still being made and sold…

Here are some pictures of the PRESIDENTs…











There are some more...

Still on the crime fiction trail - 2nd haul @ Best Books Sale - Part 2

So, I walked around looking at the books on the shelves and books arranged on the floor hoping to see a book or books that would put a kind of closure to my second visit to the books sale…and among the books arranged on the floor I happened to see the spine of a biggish book with ‘Ian Rankin’ on it…I was not too sure initially because Rankin’s books are usually of the paperback size and then picked it up tentatively…the book surprised me…it was the most unexpected book that I hoped to find…and I didn’t know it existed…this was Ian Rankin – The Complete Short Stories, comprising two of his short story collections A Good Hanging and Beggars Banquet plus Atonement – A brand new Rebus story … was this book going to signal the end of my quest this time? Should I quit and leave while the going was good? This book provided that slight rush and I wanted to linger a bit more…



That week, I had read Jon Stock’s column in The Week where had written about John Le Carre, the espionage novelist (?) and mentioned the film version of a novel written by Le Carre and another novel by Le Carre praised by Graham Greene as the greatest spy novel ever written…I couldn’t remember their names at the Sale, but still thought I’d take a look and see if the titles gave off clues…I went over to the shelves near the door where Le Carre books were stacked and went through the titles…no clues…then I started reading the blurbs…I wanted to buy at least one Le Carre novel…I zeroed in on Smiley’s People and then temptation overtook me and I selected Our Game too…but I knew these were not the novels that Jon Stock had written about…and then from the nearby shelf I thought I saw Rankins beckoning me…I once again succumbed and went over but didn’t know which one to pick up, because I was not sure which ones I had purchased recently…I chided myself for not preparing well before coming to the sale and took a chance and picked up Strip Jack hoping that this was not already in my collection…I knew my wallet would become considerably lighter and there is a higher authority who would wish to know where these books came from…but at that moment I was after my fix and didn’t think too much…I paid for these books and came home with the bundle…

The first thing I did was to check my Rankin collection…Strip Jack was not in that collection…relief…I then searched for The Week and read Jon Stock’s column again…alas…the Le Carre novels he mentions are Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold … well, something to look forward to in the next Sale…

In the meanwhile, I finished reading three Parker-Spenser novels…Early Autumn, Valediction, and A Catskill Eagle…Spenser is so addictive…

Parkermania - still on the the crime fiction trail - 2nd haul @ Best Books Sale - Part 1

When I went to the Best Books sale the first time this time, I got pretty much what I was looking for, except books by Robert B. Parker. I asked them about it and they said they'd be getting a new lot of books and that they'd inform me about the Parker books and took my phone number. I didn't think much about all this and left. But I was pleasantly surprised when I got a call from the Best Books people informing me that they have some Parkers and asked me come and get them. I said I'd come and see the books, but couldn't go there soon because of the strike here in Hyderabad. I got a call again and also a message informing me that they had extended the last date of the exhibition. So, I took some time off two days ago and went there...

I was shown at least 25 books by Robert B. Parker...ooofff...I was not expecting this...I didnt know what to do...how many to select...I tentatively started looking at the books...I was a bit careful this time...I wanted to look for only Spenser novels... Parker has other books too, which I discovered when I ordered 5 books online without doing a bit of homework...while sifting the books I realised that I had quite a pile of Spenser novels in front of me...I then took away the books that I already have and was left with nine Spenser novels...I didn't want to leave behind any of these and with a glad heart I took all of them...Chance, Valediction, Playmates, Small Vices, A Catskill Eagle, Back Story, Hush Money, Early Autumn, and Pale Kings and Princes...



This was an unexpected bonanza for me...but somehow, despite the depletion of my wallet weight to a great extent, I still went around to see if could lay my eyes on something that was not really on my list...

SOME OLD INDIAN FOUNTAIN PEN BRANDS - 2 - SEVIKA

This is the second in the series on Old Indian Fountain Pen Brands. The featured brand here is SEVIKA; and we have three models of this brand and these three models are distinctly different… two of them have open nibs and one has a semi-hooded nib (can we call it that?)…the name ‘SEVIKA REGD’ (Regd. Meaning ‘registered’, implying that the brand name has been registered at the government office concerned with brand names, and therefore the pen is ‘authentic’) is imprinted on the barrels…the nibs too have the brand name imprinted on them (further strengthening the authenticity??)…and one of the feeders also has the brand name engraved on it…one cap has a metal covering and this cap also has ‘sevika regd.’ imprinted on it…the other two caps have bands, one broad and the other narrow…the clips are again different, as are the cap jewels and barrel ends…

I have no clue regarding the date or place of manufacture or name of the manufacturer…the pens are NOS and are in fairly good condition…there is tarnish on one of the clips and on the cap jewels and barrel ends…the nibs look good and when inked they would write well, I suppose...here are the pictures...











Thanks for looking...there's more to come...