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Jowo 6 Nib Unit | Mabie Todd Swan | #4 England | 14ct Gold | Medium Flex Stub
Jowo 6 Nib Unit | Mabie Todd Swan | #4 England | 14ct Gold | Medium Flex Stub
🥇 Grade: D
🏠 Housing: Nikko Black Ebonite, JOWO #6
🔱 Nib: Swan 4 14ct Mabie Todd & Co. Made in England
🖋️ Line Spec: M/F – 6B | 0.60mm V / 0.30mm H – 2.15mm (7.17x)
🌡️ Flexibility Pressure: 410g Semi Flex
📐 Dimensions: 22.19mm nib length past housing
⚖️ Weight: 1.844g
A factory flex stub, two ranges in one nib. At rest your downstrokes run 0.60mm against 0.30mm cross strokes, stub contrast with no pressure at all, and firm pressure opens the tines to a 2.15mm 6B, over seven times the hairline. Wetness holds even with dry inks, so the widest strokes fill solid without railroading.
The D grade is the repair, nothing else. This nib was bent, most likely from careless capping, and repaired; you can see the work, and the price accounts for it. The tines run thick through that area, the writing is untouched by it, and what you get is a cosmetic scar on a nib performing at full strength.
Swan gold nibs of the 1930s came out of Mabie Todd's English factories, in the decade the company ran one of London's largest pen plants at Harlesden and ranked among the wealthiest firms in the city. Two lines left those benches side by side: stiff Eternal manifolds for office work, and the flexible Swans that built the brand's reputation with writers. This is the flexible line, and an extremely expressive example of it.
Tuning trued the tines, the tipping was smoothed and polished, and the nib was heat-set to an ebonite feed in the Nikko black ebonite JOWO #6 housing before a full writing test as a unit. The imprint is legible and the stub writes as it left the factory.
Tested on Tomoe River 52gsm cream with Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black.
Technical Specifications
Technical Specifications
Brand:
Model:
Production Year:
Material:
Trim Color:
Nib Size:
Nib Material:
Nib Grind:
Nib Flexibility: g
Line Variation: - (x)
Pen Length:
Pen Grip Section:
Restorer: Heron's Mooncake
Restoration Grade:
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Jowo 6 Nib Unit | Mabie Todd Swan | #4 England | 14ct Gold | Medium Flex Stub
Get it between - and -.
Appendix for Listing Details
Sweating the details is fundamental to understanding, appreciating, and knowing the peice of history you have in your hands.
All pens are filled and tested, not just dipped in ink, which does not reflect writing characteristics whatsoever.
Line Variation Standard
Different restorers have different standards for line sizing and especially for vintage pens, the printed tipping size will not always be accurate due to repairs/grinds/etc. Please use this as a frame of reference for consistency.
Flexibility Standard
Nib flexibility is such a controversial topic, but there needs to be some level of consistency so please take this table as a frame of reference for my restorations and as someone who is writing in a calligraphic/spencerian style of cursive script. Without objective measurements, flexibility terms such as wet noodle are useless as someone with stronger forearms and grip strength will make even manifold nibs into a wet noodle.
Restoration Ratings
These are guidelines incorporated from various online sources not limited to Reddit, David Nishimura, etc.
