I was around 8, I think. So that sould happen in 1975, I cannot remember well. Around 38 years ago! An uncle of mine invited my parents and me to celebrate the New Year's Eve at the circus. So we all went there, enjoyed the show -- I am still able to see it when I close my eyes and think about, had the typical "grapes" at the end and, finally, we went back to my uncle's home. There, before going to bed, he gave me a gift that was, according to him, very special. And indeed it was! The gift turned out to be a Waterman set made up of a Graduate fountain pen and a Flair ballpoint in a modern and fine stainless steel finish. How much I liked it!
Waterman advertisement showing
a Graduate fountain pen / Flair ballpoint set
(1975)
a Graduate fountain pen / Flair ballpoint set
(1975)
I used them very much from thereon, especially the ballpoint, for the fountain pen nib was too broad to me. Furthermore, some time later it rolled over the table and fell down to the ground, the nib resulting ruined. As time went by, the type of refill the ballpoint needs was no longer in production so that the set ended its days inside a drawer -- what a common and, yet, terrible story!
Recently I made contact with a Spanish restorer (Teodoro Rodríguez) who worked for Waterman during nearly a whole lifetime. Not only he adapted a current refill for the ballpoint to work properly, but also he put a new old stock nib -- and fine, as my handwriting demands -- into the fountain pen. And so, after almost an eon of inactivity, my first serious writing instruments write again! I feel in a very special way with these humble -- but, in spite of it, superb -- pens in my hands. For they have the power to remind me my childhood, that glorious age!
Forgive me such dreadful pictures -- they were taken with my wife's cellular phone. I promise to upload better ones soon.
