Very Rare ** Emerald Pearl Soennecken S25 Fountain Pen, Germany ca 1940 **
This is a beautifully kept Soennecken S25 piston filler fountain pen from 1940. It has a 14K gold nib, exquisite Emerald Pearl celluloid barrel / cap and is crowned with a large ebony cap jewel.
The Sonnecken S25 pen is a particularly rare model, as it uniquely was produced for and sold in the Swiss market!
Point size: medium
- Overall Length: 11.7 cm / 4 1/2′”
- Filling Mechanism: Soennecken patent pump, fully serviced, including fresh cork seal
- Nib: 14K solid gold, semi-flex, signed 14K – 585, Soenneckenlogo
- Condition: Excellent, serviced and fully tested… Good clear Soennecken imprint, no brassing, no personal engraving, no cracks nor any other damage.
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Soennecken Pen Company
In the U.S. the familiar names are Parker, Sheaffer and Waterman. In Germany and Europe an equally famous and prestigious name in the history of writing and pens is Soennecken.
Tracing its roots to the writing society founded by Friedrich Soennecken in 1868 to disseminate the “Rundschrift” (round) writing system he’d developed by the age of 20. This penmanship showed a radical departure from the distinctly Germanic Fraktur style which predominated at the time, eschewing instead the Antiqua style created by the “godless humanist movement” in Italy
Soennecken’s accomplishments in that period include designing the perfect steel nibs for his writing style… At one time, the nibs of choice used by Friederich Nietzsche and Franz Kafka.
In 1875 he founded The Soennecken Pen Company, Bonn, German and began his own production of nibs, inkwells and various exercise books about his new penmanship method. The firm prospered, and by 1883 a new three-story building was constructed, housing some 40 employees. Soennecken also soon went on to invent the ring binder and hole puncher, as well as setting up a company department for the manufacture of office furniture.
By 1890, one of the most important articles offered within Soennecken’s product range of some 150 items was the first-ever German fountain pen, a hard rubber eyedropper filler. Succeeding versions were produced over the years; and in 1905 Soennecken also went on to introduce his first safety pen. By then, the Company’s pen range consisted of some 30 models, safety pens as well as eyedropper fillers, in various sizes and based on different technical solutions that included overfeeds, alternatively underfeeds, to conduct ink from the pen’s reservoir to the nib.
Following Friedrichs death in 1919, his son Alfred headed-up the firm. He succeeded to maintain operations despite the currency depreciation and material shortages which marked post WWI Germany.
Starting in 1927, Soennecken also briefly produced lever fillers, eventually discarding the system in favour of the more successful button fillers introduced in 1931.
Also by this time, Soennecken’s main competitors had become the Simplo Filler Pen Company (later renamed Montblanc), Pelikan and Parker-Osmia who had began strongly promoting their Duofold range.
World War II went on to annihilate the combined work of two Soennecken generations, as both factories in Bonn were completely destroyed. However, in 1945, Alfred, and a third generation Alfred Jr. gathered some of their old staff and production was relaunched, finally ceasing in 1967.