A.W Faber Castell 554D Progress : A Vintage Pen

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a NOS (New Old Stock) Faber Castell 554D Progress fountain pen, when I was searching for inks. It was placed inside a cellophane wrap, printed with green A.W Faber-Castell and was finally packaged inside a small cardboard box. A small pen which kind of resembled a rather compressed modern MB146, with its striped ink-windows. Since, I have an excellent experience with most of the Faber-Castell fountain pens including the reviewed ones here – Ambition, Intuition and Elemento, I went ahead and purchased the pen. Later, Faber-Castell Co. confirmed that the 554D featured in their brochure till 1960.

Faber-Castell started manufacturing fountain pens in 1951, after acquiring the Osmia Company and produced fountain pens till 1975. It carried the Osmia logo [diamond-in-a-circle] till the 1960s, given Osmia’s high brand recognition in the fountain pen industry and the same logo is also present in this one.

PRESENTATION

I like the vintage bit of packaging in the traditional way - a thick cardboard box, which has actually become thin these days. As you can see, the cellophane wrap carries the green A.W Faber-Castell name. There is a classical user-guide in German, with instructions on how to fill the pen.

DESIGN

The pen is made of up plastic parts with gold plated trims. This gloss of black and dazzle of gold is still being followed in modern times.

The nib size and the model number are etched in golden on the barrel, just below the piston-knob.

The golden cap band mentions PROGRESS on one side and FABER-CASTELL on the other.

The striped transparency of ink windows renders a rather elegant angle to the overall design of the pen.

FILLING SYSTEM

The piston filling system was initially clogged, as the lubricants had dried out over all these years. After the first stop of the piston knob, by rotating the piston-knob further in a counter-clockwise direction, the entire piston unit can be pulled out. I applied some silicone grease (metroark211) on the piston seal, which is made of transparent plastic, and the piston mechanism was as good as new. If you can notice a white plastic thing through the ink windows below, that’s the piston seal.

It takes in a good amount of ink with the piston fill mechanism, which lasts as long as the 0.8-0.9 mL capacity Faber-Castell converters.

NIB – ALL THAT MATTERS

The 14k gold nib is inserted into a screw-fit sleeve unit and the unit can be easily unscrewed from the barrel. It is a vintage EF nib and has got a hint of feedback, which is duly compensated by a rather wet flow of ink. You will notice an old Osmia diamond-in-a-circle logo embossed at the centre of the nib with Faber and Castell at top and bottom respectively. The nib specifications of 14K and 58.5% follow these impressions towards the tail end.

PHYSICS OF IT – RELATIVELY SPEAKING

The cigar structure of this pen makes it a somewhat comfortable companion. The only disadvantage is that the cap cannot be posted securely.

• Uncapped Length ~ 12 cm
• Nib Leverage ~ 1.85 cm
• Capped Length ~ 13.3 cm

Though the length is comparable to a M400, a wider grip section and post-ability of cap are the duly missed elements. Now a days, most of the fountain pens can be posted.

OVERALL

This vintage 14k nib has a wet flow, with a hint of feedback like most EF nibs. The nib is quite stiff with no hint of flex. There is also a bit of line variation among the horizontal and vertical lines. It takes almost the same time (15 secs) to dry as a modern GvFC Intuition Fine nib.

It was fun reviewing the 554D. Hope you enjoyed it.

Midori MD Notebook Review (A5)

After falling in love with my MTN and the entire ecosystem part of it, I wanted to have a similar fountain pen friendly paper, sans the panache of an MTN. And it’s closest cousin seemed to be an MD notebook. I went for a A5 sized one, as it was quite readily available.

PRESENTATION (6/6)

The entire package rests within a polyethylene plastic wrap, and a tracing paper enclosure keeps you happy with the very process of unravelling. There is a bottom band of blue branding wrapped over the notebook, which covers essential product specifications/branding in English and certain things in Japanese.

MD ELEMENTS (6/6)

The notebook is thread-stitched and a weaved cloth is glued along the outer-spine, perhaps as an embellishment for a classical literary look. You would feel at ease, to write on a MD Notebook, as it remains completely open, thanks to the stitching. Clever! A ribbon/bookmark can be found in the middle, and I feel it is quite well-thought of, in case you choose to mark something essential.

The cover is made up of card stock usually meant for business cards, post cards or catalogue covers. On the front, it carries the branding of ‘MD PAPER, Made in Japan’, in a subtly embossed format.

As an ecosystem refill, a clear PVC cover is also available for each of the notebook sizes, in case you are planning to use a particular size regularly.

There are four stickers to label your notebook.

The inside cover has a box of particulars along with a bit of MD branding.

PHYSICS OF IT (6/6) – RELATIVELY SPEAKING

Quite a compact one with dimensions - L(21 cm) X W (14.8 cm) X H (1.1 cm), it does get a bit wider and shorter, than a standard parker A5 notebook or even an MTN. It has 88 leaves with square grids (of 0.5 cm) on both sides.

ECONOMIC VALUE (6/6)

It cost me a pretty decent USD 9 with some combined shipping from Japan. I ordered it online on Rakuten global.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE (5/6)

I love the understated looks of this notebook. A Pelikan fine nib glides along the paper with a wet line although it takes around half a minute to dry. I did observe a minute feathering and a decent show-through after writing on the first page. I have observed that one specific ink, i.e Montblanc Toffee Brown in Japanese nibs tends to skip sometimes on this paper. Though it does well enough with deeper feed channels of European nibs.

Unlike the MTN refill paper, these pages are quite thin and  the ghosting is visible on the other side. Although from a personal context. I feel that you can write on the other side too but YMMV.

I hope you enjoyed this short review and it helps with your next notebook purchase.