Professionalism With an A1 Rating.

Professionalism with an A1 rating.

One of my favorite Esterbrook pens is the A1 Professional. It is an ornamental script pen that is extra fine and elastic; just like the #128 Extra Fine Elastic pen. Why did Esterbrook need two of the same pen? Well, as it turns out it was meant to be slightly different.

As you can see above, the concept was the A1 Professional would be shorter, smaller and thinner in comparison to the #128 Extra Fine Elastic Pen. This would afford more flexibility but would sacrifice durability and wear & tear. That is a concept most calligraphers don’t understand about such pens as the Joseph Gillott #303 Extra Fine or even the pen amongst pens, the Joseph Gillott Principality. They are indeed wondrous pens, but made so thin that they often break when too much pressure is applied. However, I digress; with the death of Richard Esterbrook in 1895 coupled with the steel restrictions made during WWI (in 1918), the A1 Professional lost its original purpose and became just another #128 clone. (Note: I purposely excluded the A1 from my previous post about cloned #128s because more detail could be added in this post.)

Here is a comparison of four A1 Professionals ranging from its debut year in 1885 (top) on into the late 1930s (bottom). As you can see there is a size gap from the 1900 version (middle) into the 1926 version (middle). During WWI, Esterbrook dropped over 70% of their pen line in order to donate the remainder of their steel to the United States war effort. They also decided to permanently end production on a few series of pens. After the war, when they were allowed to resume full manufacturing, it is possible they no longer had the original mold for the A1. It is also plausible that they decided it was too much trouble to switch out molds during production just to have a separate A1 and 128 when you could use just one mold (the 128) and simply change stamps. This probably saved them on time to market and speculated no one would notice or care; after all the Penman was dead.

Here is an example of how the A1 Professional became just another #128 clone. These two pens are from the same manufacturing era, circa late 1930s. There are versions out there from the 1940s that are groove stamped. 

This photo shown above serves to demonstrate the point further, that the A1 Professional had lost its special assignment and would be regarded as just another ornamental pen.

Here is an example of metal thickness of the pens from the 1885 versions of the 128 and A1. The A1 is a just a fraction thinner.  Apparently, that was all you needed!

I lucked out and found a sealed box of A1 Professionals from its debut year in 1885. Richard Esterbrook the 3^rd senior would still be alive and would be over seeing production.The box is simply gorgeous. I wish they had continued this type of creative boxing.

Here is a close up of the side of the pen. You can see how carefully it was constructed. Look at that grind! It had to be done by hand and as you can see it evenly shaves off a layer of metal right to the bottom of the A and 1 and perfectly borders the side cuts. The grind mistress (because apparently only women were employed to do the grinding) left a perfect point as well! This is probably the best pen Esterbrook ever made. Sadly, I have practically sold them all to pay the bills.  Good luck finding any that are this old, but if you do…go ALL in!!  They’re more than worth it!

Happy hunting!