Jowo 6 Nib Unit | Waterman's | #7 Purple Keyhole | 14k Gold | Fine

🥇 Grade: B+
🏠 Housing: Nikko Black Ebonite, JOWO #6
🔱 Nib: Purple Waterman's Ideal Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. Made in U.S.A.
🖋️ Line Spec: F | 0.25mm
🌡️ Flexibility Pressure: Stiff fine, no flex
📐 Dimensions: 22.58mm nib length past housing
⚖️ Weight: 2.193g

The tip of this Purple grade curves down slightly at the point, posting geometry, so the nib stiffens exactly where it meets the paper and you press clean, even 0.25mm strokes with almost no force. A slight architect bias keeps your horizontals extra crisp while the width holds a steady F.

In 1927 Waterman launched the No. 7 at seven dollars with a simple idea: grade every nib by color and band the cap in matching casein, so you could walk up to a pen counter and ask for a Purple instead of guessing at a grind. Pink was the flexible fine, Purple the stiff fine, Red the standard, Blue the stub, Green the rigid manifold, Yellow the left-hand point, Grey the oblique, and the last colors arrived by decade's end. The nibs are a 1920s #5 in size, the smaller No. 5 companion of 1928 came in five colors of its own, and the line sold into the early 1940s.

Purple's job was exactness. Ledgers, standardized forms, carbon copies, anywhere the line had to match from the first entry to the last, and that downturned point pressed perfect duplicates through transfer paper without forcing the hand. On a single sheet today it reads as pure precision, smooth and consistent, and it will feel different from your modern nibs even with the same grind.

The tines were tuned and the tipping smoothed to a polish, then the nib was heat-set into the Nikko black ebonite JOWO #6 housing over an ebonite feed and writing-tested assembled. B+ with light use and a strong imprint.

Tested on Tomoe River 52gsm cream with Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black.