The Three Deccan Onyxes …

The Onyx is one of the staple models from the Deccan Pens’ stable.  It is a sort of bread-and-butter pen for user-customers.  Everything is as a Deccan fountain should be, except for subtle designing that they spend time and skill over their other slightly more expensive sort of limited edition pens.  The Onyx keeps changing its shape and keeps moving up and down in terms of size too.  So, when you ask for an Onyx you might get a model that is currently on display, which may not be exactly the model that you see in the pictures here.  Onyx, then, is a straightforward ebonite ED filler fountain pen.

I purchased this set of 3 Onyx fountain pens during my previous visit to the Secunderabad branch of Deccan Pens, when I had purchased the Deccan Wispys too.  This set of 3 has one light striated brown, one dark striated brown, and one striated green.  These pens are actually really thin, slightly bigger than the Deccan Wispy.  These pictures make them look fatter.  When I saw them, I was not sure whether I wanted these pens or not.  They looked nondescript, but for me a Deccan FP is a Deccan FP and somewhere I also felt that I should not abandon these pens just because they are not glamourous. 

Ha ha ha … itta excuje kaiku de rein bhai … lene ka dil kara to le liye … bus uttaich … arre, jaando bhai … bachche ko kaiku pareshan karrein …

baataan nakko karo, pichchaaraan batao … 

hau bhai, abhbhich batatoon … haan, yeh dekho pen ki pichcharaan …  

The clips look straight and sturdy ...

One gets these accidental beautiful designs only on ebonite ...

These are the cap jewels ... very well rounded and symmetrical with the caps and clips

In these pens too they have used the Wality nibs ...  I had bought these three and the Deccan Wispy together and this is the first time I was seeing such slim Wality nibs ...

Regular ebonite feeders ...

A side view of the nibs and feeders

Another look at the swirls ...

Here's how thin they are actually ... the Onyxes along with the Wispys ...

And for those who are familiar with the MB 146, this is how thin the Wispys and Onyxes look in comparison ... 

The Deccan Wispy …. A mid-year model from Deccan Pens, Hyderabad …

Aah … back to fountain pens … and it is all serendipity … so to say, but what to say … for the last six months or so (huh…when I actually checked, I was surprised myself … ) it has been about second hand books and travel books and hunting books and so on and … I was thinking about pens and one is always in my pocket … but I was getting sort of desperate … I haven’t gone without pens or writing about pens for this long … but I didn’t have new pens to post or boast about …

That changed in the first week of August when Hari came to Hyderabad on work for a couple of days … it has almost become ritualized now that we take off on one of the evenings and visit Deccan Pens at Abids and then we head out for drinks and dinner … Deccan Pens is constant, but the restaurants change every time … this time it was Waterfront on Necklace Road …

The visit to Deccan Pens yielded one new model, an old archival model not seen before (at least not by us!  We are true blue Deccan connoisseurs you see…), another combo model, and a variation of the Deccan Majaz … Hari bought quite a few pens … actually more than quite a few actually … this is Hari’s haul that day …

I didn’t buy a single pen that day … I didn’t know why … but I bought three bottles of inks and some colour colour gel pens for Shruti …

But that new thin pen (the ones in the red satin pouch in the picture above …) stayed in mind … after a couple of weeks, I felt I should have that pen … but I was not sure whether there would be one piece left for me to buy, because Hari seemed to have bought all the available pieces at Abids … nonetheless, I called up Zubair at Deccan Pens, Secunderabad to find out if he had any of those thin pens available … he said he had that model with him … haa … that was some relief … at the back of my mind I was somehow confident that I would get at least one piece of that new thin pen …

I went there the same evening … Zubair showed me the brown Wispy … and a little while later, I thought I spied him handling a similar green coloured pen … and asked him to show it to me … waah … the Wispy green pen was a real surprise … I hadn’t expected that there would be a green one too … we didn’t see that at Abids … and as it happens usually there were other pens too that I couldn’t just hold back from buying … but first, the thin pen … the Deccan people haven’t given this model a name but I am calling it the Deccan Wispy … it is thin and light, that’s why … (Hari calls it the Datoon) …

So, anyway, here are the photos of the pens … I don’t think I have captured the colour of the brown pen very well … it appears orange-ish in flash-aided photos and more actual colour in flash-less photos … but it is slightly more browner than the brown you see in the flash-less photos … 

The first thing I noticed, apart from the slender-ness of the pen, was the clip … the clip comes straight down from the cap jewel and does a ‘u’ and then straightens out … ok, this style is unique … normally clips stick almost close to the cap surface and whatever little gap is there is closed at the end either by either side horizontal folds or vertical end roll … so that the pen can be clipped to the pocket … that’s what clips are for, anyway … for clipping … if you look at the picture of the clip shown sideways, you can see there is considerable gap between cap surface and clip … so this ‘u’ in the middle helps the clip to clip ... if this ‘u’ wasn’t there, there would be many a slip between the clip and the clipping … he he …

The other thing is the MEBSONS 61 imprinted on the clip … we wondered and we were told that (I am using Hari’s words) “Mebsons (an old pen manufacturing company in Mumbai, now they make only some ball points etc, they still have a dealer on AR street in Mumbai, here is some interesting information with mention of Mebsons: link ) had made a slim ballpoint a long while back. Deccan had the spare clips left over and they decided to put the stock to use to make some really slim fountain pens. So, that was the Mebsons connection.”

The most notable part is the exquisite slender long tapering shape of the pen … the barrel is as slender as one of those Parker ink cartridges … and look at the section … ooh … such mastery over the craft of shaping the pen … this has to be Deccan … their chhaap is unmistakable … Deccan does this section designing beautifully … notice the ridge right at the top near the nib … gives you the grip and prevents fingers sliding … in other pens they have this hourglass shaped section that serves the same function …

For this pen, they have put in the Wality nib … the ones that Hari bought had Ambitious nibs ... Hari was surprised when I told him that mine had Wality nibs … apparently, Wality at present don’t make slim pens, but at some point they used to make and the surplus nibs might have found their way to Deccan … I am just guessing 

The Deccan Steel Cap Masterpiece – a 2014 year-end model from Deccan Pens, Hyderabad

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2015 ... 

An unscheduled visit to Deccan Pens, Secunderabad branch, to buy some stationery items, yielded a big surprise on the last day of 2014 … and a new pen for the new year…

I was visiting Deccan Pens after a long long time and Zubair was very effusive in his welcome and before I could ask for things I wanted to buy, he asked me if I had seen their latest model and if Wasimbhai at Abids branch had shown me their latest creation … I said no and told him that I had visited their Abids branch a couple of months ago and Wasimbhai hadn’t spoken about a new model … he then took out this fountain pen from inside the steel cupboard and showed it to me … it was their very sturdy and very popular Masterpiece model, and this one was with a steel cap … ‘pure’ stainless steel, Zubair said … the first thing I noticed was the clip … most of the times, the clips on Deccan pens are straightforward … I can remember only the clip on Author being slightly ornamental … the clip on this pen was ever so slightly ornamental at the top and also curves down ending in a kind of teardrop …

I opened the pen and the cap felt very heavy … really heavy … I had my  Deccan brushed Masterpiece in my pocket and when I compared the weights of the caps just by holding each cap in either palm, I could sense the heaviness …

The pen is a green and black combination with steel on the cap adding the ‘steel’ … the pen looks sturdy and the cap is very well done … the green is actually military green and my personal opinion is that steel goes well with green … I had always admired the green steel capped Advocate more than the brown steel capped one, but somehow that Advocate is not in my collection … the black, military green, and steel makes a very pleasing combination for me … and as you can see, the nib is a regular large one found in Deccan Masterpiece fountain pens …

Posting the cap makes it heavy at the barrel end and therefore one has to hold the section more firmly than usual while writing … it would be better to use the pen unposted … and since the pen was inked for testing, I tried writing and as expected, the flow is even and the nib smooth … and Zubair said he has taken the pen out after two weeks and I wrote with it and no starting trouble at all … I have seen this amazing feature myself with my Deccan pens and it is one of the outstanding features of Deccan pens and found in very few Indian ebonite pens … I am pleased that this quality continues in this pen too …

As of now, this is the only piece that was made … a sort of prototype model … and Zubair gave it to me for the time being … here are some pics of this new model circa 2014 … 

Minor siblings of the Deccan Advocate...

I should have written about these two Deccan models long back … I think it was nearly four years ago, or maybe five years ago, that I found these two models at Deccan…I had gone there on one of those routine visits and found these...the reason I did not showcase these was maybe because there was another pen which had caught my fancy and I had written about that…maybe the Deccan Retro Series…I am not sure…

So…what made me pick up these models was this feeling that they looked like smaller and slimmer versions of the Advocate…these were smaller than the Advocate Jr… and I had felt that if these models took off then those FP enthusiasts who found the Advocate too big, but liked the looks, might go for one of these… I still do not know whether this was the first and only batch of these models or whether there were some earlier…but, I haven’t seen these models since…

They have the similar shape as the Advocate…the slimmest ones have the cap jewel almost halved…the cap band is still there…the original ball clip seen in the black Advocate and Advocate Junior in the group photo at the end, has given way to the tear-drop clip…I bought three, the bigger one in brown and the two smaller ones in green and black…the green one has a black cap jewel… all three pens have the Ambitious nibs and the feeders have that vertical groove on the middle, just like the earlier big Advocates…  

In the last photo, the group photo, one can see the Advocate, the Advocate Jr., the Advocate Minor Sr. and the Advocate Minor Jr.…

The Deccan Advocate - Transitions - from 2007 to 2014

Hari’s post on Fountain Pen Network on the evolution of the Deccan Advocate in the last decade inspired me to put together this post … a sort of companion post … I bought my first Advocate in December 2007 and that was a fortuitous event for me as far as fountain pens are concerned … I have been living in Hyderabad since 1992 and I remember visiting Deccan Pens at Abids around 1995 or so in search of a fountain pen … I had no idea about handmade Indian FPs, let alone pens made of ebonite and celluloid … I vaguely remember seeing long black thick bodied pens under the glass cases there … I didn’t even bother to ask the price of this pen, but distinctly remember buying a plastic fountain pen, which could also be used with a cartridge … after that it was in 2007 that I went again to Deccan Pens … I called up before going and was pleasantly surprised to know that they had a branch in Secunderabad too … and since it was on my way back home from college, it was convenient too and so, I got down at Secunderabad and wended my way to the shop … to cut things short, I saw the legendary black Advocate (I didn’t know about the legendary status then…) and bought it without thinking … oh my god, how good I felt … a pen should be like this, I thought … and since then, I have bought many Advocates, and gifted many more … so, here is my Advocate story … with pictures … a kind of photo essay …

The black Advocate seen here is the first Advocate that I bought … and the striated green one was bought in March 2008, along with a striated brown one (I subsequently gifted the brown one to a friend … I hope he is using it well … I don’t know … I will check and take it back if he is not using it…) … I had also bought a striated brown metal cap Advocate in March 2008 … the almost plain light brown seen here was bought sometime later, I don’t remember the exact month … possibly very late in 2008, I think …

The Advocate always had a steel band on the cap lip whenever I have seen it, till almost recently … and you can see that in this photo and also the ball clip … this clip and band were distinctive features till almost 2009 … and therefore I was surprised to see that Hari’s Advocates bought in 2004 did not have this cap band …

These two pictures show the feeders of the 2007-2008 Advocates … the feeder on the black Advocate is distinctively different and it had, as Hari says, “the feeders had an extra air channel/groove running underneath the feeder and also some extra fins hidden inside the section”… I never found it again in the full ebonite Advocates that I bought subsequently, except the striated brown metal capped Advocate … from then on it was the usual shaped feeders that we see on the Advocates … so, I feel this is a change that can be seen from 2007 to 2008 as far as full ebonite Advocates are concerned … also if you observe closely, the shape of the section has changed ever so slightly, the smooth curve seen in the black Advocate gives way to a slightly sharper cut …

This is the striated brown metal capped Advocate … the metal cap Advocate is a different thing altogether … Deccan made it with rounded ends as well as flat ends … I bought the one with rounded ends … in fact, it was after reading Hari’s post on the metal capped Advocate that I ran to Deccan at Secunderabad the same evening and bought it … Hari has both versions and I have always been eyeing the flat topped green metal capped Advocate, but never felt forced to buy it … here again, we see that old feeder … this feeder has never appeared again … and in the flat topped example that Hari shows, one can already see the tear drop clip, that would go on to be the stale clip for the next 5 years …

 I put these two brown advocates to show the transition in the clip … the dark brown one has the new tear drop clip … the ball clip never to be seen again on the Advocate … I didn’t like this clip one bit, but I bought this dark brown Advocate to compensate for the earlier ball clip one that I gave my friend … the steel cap band is still very much there …

All right, these three black Advocates were customized at Hari’s behest by Deccan … Hari is not too fond of the cap band and had asked them to remove them for this particular order and as you can see, he had also asked them to reduce the length of the pens so that it becomes slightly more convenient to keep in one’s shirt pocket, but since Deccan already has a shorter and thinner Advocate Junior, they just customized these Advocates for Hari and continued with the earlier specifications for the regular Advocate … the long and the short one are mine, and the shortest pen is Hari’s …

I have already documented the latest avatar of the Advocate in the previous post and so, will not bring it here again … suffice to say that, the present Advocate is very very good compared to its previous version (that tear drop clip!) … the cap band is gone forever, I think and the new flat clip gets the look just right, I feel …

Now, for the final group photo of all the different versions of the Advocates that I have bought from 2007 onwards till date … and remarkably, the nibs have remained the same … the engineering remains the same and the writing experience is still very good …