The Pen Decumulation No. 3 - Skribent Senior 6

Pens from manufacturers based in smaller western European countries tend to be a little undervalued in the vintage market. The companies didn’t survive - there are no Scandinavian, Benelux or even Iberian fountain pen makers of any size today (Conid might be the closest) - but that often reflected a lack of sufficient scale in the home market to weather the bad times, rather than any deficiency in quality. So there are sometimes bargains here - even if that might mean sourcing them from continental sellers.

Here's a good example - although ultimately one which I let go. There isn't a huge amount of information about Skribent online (this post by PM pens is pretty much all I've been able to find), but they seem to have been a nom du plume (haha!) of Danish manufacturer Penol, who cut their chops manufacturing Parker and Montblanc under license for Scandinavia. It's possible that Skribents were made in the same factory as the Montblancs. This particular model is called the Senior 6 and seems to have been the flagship in the line at the time (50s at a guess, given the styling).

It's a button-filler rather than the piston or aerometric filler that one might have expected by that stage. I'm not a huge fan of pens with sacs - they may be easy to fix if you like to tinker, but there's a lot that can go wrong. Nonetheless, if a pen has to have one I much prefer a button to a lever, as it's less likely to get stuck and you can also pump the button when cleaning the pen, rather than laboriously working the lever back and forth.

The button is hidden under a black blind cap that complements the black finial on the cap. Otherwise the pen is a subdued burgundy that nicely complemented by the gold furniture. Underneath the cap is a black concave section and quite a nice gold nib that has a simple 'Skribent' engraving. It has a bit of flex - nothing dramatic, but very pleasant.

I think someone else might have really loved this pen (indeed, I hope my buyer is doing so right now...). To me, though, its Parker genes are the dominant ones while its Montblanc ones are pretty recessive once you look beyond the styling. I bought this in part to try to get a sense of what a vintage Montblanc nib might feel like, but this feels very Duofold-y or even Vacumatic-like to me. Nothing wrong with that in the least, but something I was already familiar with. On top of that, the placement of the threads (and their sharpness) was a dealbreaker, and the character of the nib and aesthetics weren't enough to make it up for me. Worth a try, though, if mid-century modern is your thing.

Stats

Length (capped) - 140mm

Length (uncapped) - 122mm 

Length (posted) - 169mm (it barely posts...)

Section diameter - 10mm