What do Waterman and Wearever have in common?

Every collector who’s been in the hobby for more than a couple of weeks is bound to have heard about the Waterman Philéas, one of the great fountain pen bargains of this or any era. The Philéas is one of many good low-priced modern pens — but when it comes to good-writing cheap vintage pens, the pickings seem to be a bit slimmer. Of course, you can always pack your pen chest with the ubiquitous Esterbrook J, LJ, and SJ:

But given that the fountain pen was far more widespread in use back in the day than it is now, there should be more than just Esties. Lots more. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Esterbrooks. But what else was there back then, that you can get cheap now?

I was reminded rather forcefully this morning that the place to look is in the third tier. Yes, that’s right, those crappy, crufty, junky pens that you’d rather ignore. The first two pens I worked on today were a Parker 61 Signet and a Wearever Pacemaker. This Wearever Pacemaker:

Now that doesn’t look too crufty, does it? It shouldn’t, because it’s a spectacularly clean pen, and it writes remarkably nicely, easily as well as a contemporaneous Parker or Sheaffer — for about the same price as the big boys’ steel-nibbed bargain-basement pens.

Not all Wearevers are good pens. Most of them have steel nibs, and by the time you get up into the Fifties, quality was definitely not Job 1 at David Kahn’s place. This steel-nibbed Pennant is a sample of the Wearever output at that time: flashy, priced at $1.95, and worth about half that today:

But the Pacemaker, a $2.75 pen of the World War II era, is a well made button filler with a surprisingly good 14K nib. And for those who’d rather flip than press, there’s always the $1.95 Zenith, a skosh smaller and just as nice a pen, 14K nib and all:

Lest it be thought that I’m warming up to hawk a slew of Wearevers, ’tain’t so. That gray Pacemaker, following after Don Fluckinger’s Extra Fine Points piece for this month — in which Don places the Pacemaker at the Number Two spot on his all-time best vintage pen list — just brought the thing into focus. Pacemakers and Zeniths can usually be snagged on the ‘Bay, in excellent condition, for prices ranging downward from $30.00. That’s Philéas territory, and a gold nib besides.

(For the terminally curious, the Pacemaker’s $2.75 price is equivalent to $33.69 in 2008 dollars, the $1.95 for the Zenith working out to about $23.89.)