The fountain pen is an ingenious device.  So simple, yet do advanced.  Made back during a time when there was beauty and an art to pen making.  I acquired my first Esterbrook SJ pen a few months ago.  It was light green and very thin.  It was in good working order with a pliable ink sac.  Mine came with a Master Series Pen point 9556.  Esterbrook would have started making these styles of pen in the 30's perhaps even the 40's.  The J pen is thicker, and longer as the SJ is thinner and a bit smaller.  These later morphed into solid pastel-like colors of yellow, and pink in the late 50's and early 60's.  In the pictures to your left you can see my small, yet beautiful collection.  the first pen, the brown one, is actually a Sheaffer WASP  The feed and nib are broken i__i and I am having trouble finding a replacement.  So if you know anyone, please drop me a line.The rest are Esterbrooks. The Green and Blue one are SJ pens while the Red and Black ones are J models.  The things to look out for on these pens are the top and bottom 'Jewels'.

The "jewels" aren't precious stones or anything.  Actually they are nothing more than polished black plastic.  As tough as they are, they seem to break easily enough.  Collectors, when searching for these pens, often check to see if there are cracks or chips in these jewels.  Another thing of note are the presence of bite marks or scratches.  One would think that people wouldn't bite on something so beautiful...but they did.  Heck they only cost about 1.50 new.  I Suppose that was like 10 - 15 dollars back then.

The patterns on these pens also give it a value.  Mine are not the most sought after because they are only the pearl-like pattern.  Some of them have blocks of pearl-like patterns clustered around.  Amazingly beautiful and it is what makes them the most valuable.  The older pens would have had Gold and real Silver accents, clips and rings.

The best thing about Esterbrooks is argueably the interchangable nibs.  The 'Re-New Point' lets the user be able to change the nib at any time.  One day you can be flowing along using a 'General Writing' nib and decide you want more flare and put in a 'Broad Stub.'  Sadly, the most common nibs you find are the ones I have.  Such as 2556 and 2668 and even the 1461.  The 'stubs' are harder to find and are the most expensive to purchase.  I am still trying to get one myself ^__^.