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Post Info TOPIC: Flo-Ball retractable ballpoint
Chthulhu


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Flo-Ball retractable ballpoint
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Here's something I just acquired in a lot buy:

IMG224a.jpg

This design was patented May 5, 1959 (filed September 16, 1952) on patent number 2,884,900 and assigned to Flo-Master Corporation. It came without a refill, though the spring was still in the barrel, and a few minutes' experimentation showed that an old-style straight Paper Mate refill would fit at the tip, but was 5/8" too short! An old (1994) Fisher "1-For-All" refill worked by removing the very last break-off segment for a length of 4-13/16", and I was lucky to have one that still works after nearly twenty years, so this pen is up and running!

The pen has a rather small pushbutton at the top (with no refill, it sits flush with the end of the cap; I didn't know it was even there at first) which extends the refill; gently pressing the clip, or clipping the pen into a pocket, releases the mechanism to retract the refill:

IMG226a.jpg

Sorry for the lousy cellphone images; my Canon needs new batteries. <G>



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Mike Hungerford
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Chthulhu


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Found an ad from 1952 for this exact pen:

Flo-Ball 1952 Ad.jpg



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Mike Hungerford
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penmanent


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Pretty neat. It does remind me of the old Scripto and Paper Mate BPs of the old. Congrats on your find! What else did you get in the lot?

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Chthulhu


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The lot also included a Marsh marker that may be salvageable, an unmarked watch pen, a very rough chrome Cross Century pencil, and a Deltograph piston-filler technical pen.

I just picked up a second Flo-Ball pen with a black barrel that someone had tinkered with: they had a standard-length brass refill in it with an extension of some sort stuck on the end of it. "Stuck" was the right word: it took a lot of work to first get the refill out, and then to get the extension out of the cap. I ended up repeatedly heating the end of the refill until it would melt through the extension and leave the remainder in pieces that I could shake out. Now it works exactly like the first one.

Minor differences: the grey one has "FLO BALL" on the clip, and no other markings; the black one has a bare clip, and "FLO·BALL" around the cap at the barrel end.



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Mike Hungerford
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Chthulhu


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And I managed to damage the mechanism of the grey one by dropping it on its button. It works, but the button is tighter in its travel, and the spring isn't enough to retract it. I swapped the cap from the black one onto the grey barrel for now.

(Later) A close comparison between the two caps showed that there was some play around the button where it enters the cap on the black pen, and none on the grey pen. Some careful side pressure of the button against my cutting mat while rotating the cap did the trick: whatever invisible ding or distortion was there loosened up enough for normal button travel once more!



-- Edited by Chthulhu on Tuesday 18th of February 2014 06:50:25 PM

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Mike Hungerford
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WriteAway


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Mike,
Once again not only have you found a very interesting BP, but you also successfully resolved the button problem too! Do you have a refill to work properly in it yet?
Hubert
'

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Chthulhu


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Hubert,

See the first post above. I have yet to find a different refill that will fit this pen.

Mike

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Mike Hungerford
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bunny roller


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It looks lovely just was wondering how well does it really writes wanted to know if anyone please do tell !!

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Chthulhu


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It writes quite nicely, and was my daily carry for quite awhile (I switched to an old blue Papermate for variety). Of course, that's all in the Fisher refill, but it's comfortable as well, even as slim as it is.


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Mike Hungerford
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bunny roller


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Thank for the information Chthulhu .I really appreciate it a lot .. thank you once again !!

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Heavy offers are available in some of the online websites must check it out !!

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