Welcome to- The Fountain Pen Community!

Yeah, yeah, I know the last post on that topic was over a year ago.

"So what? Big deal."

A few days ago I received a lot buy from you-know-where, and one of the pieces therein was one of the very early PM ballpoints, 1950-1953 or thereabouts, in decent condition but missing its clip. I don't know whether it had been removed and lost, or whether they were sometimes sold without clips, but that's what accommodation clips are for, right?

The real challenge was finding a way to make it work, with a refill that would fit both in overall length and in tip diameter. Parker and Sheaffer refills didn't have enough length between their tips and "shoulders" to extend through the nozzle, even without a spring. A Waterman refill did, but there was no good way to accommodate the diameter at the other end.

Here's what I ended up with:

At top is the pen and its original refill and spring. Below is an emptied recent Paper Mate "Lubriglide" refill with both ends removed, a 1-13/16" length of 1/8" diameter dowel glued and crimped into the large end with 1/2" protruding (absolute minimum length that will let the pen work!), and with a D1-type minipen refill inserted into the small end. The D1 sits against the end of the dowel, and I crimped the PM refill slightly to hold the D1 in place. The pen works perfectly, and with an unbranded accommodation clip installed is now a daily carry pen.

I love this stuff.

The pen operates by pushing that button in an gently to the side, which locks that groove into the cap. Pushing it back on center lets it pop out again. Simple and effective!

And, for the record, a Fisher "One-For-All" refill would have worked, but their tips are smaller in diameter and would wobble around a lot in the nozzle.