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RALLY 10
Manufacturer/Model: Rally - Paris France / 10 Black
Year of production: Estimated 1943 or 1944
Filling system: Push button filling (Original press bar, replaced rubber ink sac/bladder)
Nib: 14K 585 - F/M Fine-Medium - Semi Flex, writes up to BB/; Original Ebonite feed
Material: Entire pen is made out of black celluloid. Trimmings, ring and clip gold filled
Length (pen closed): 137mm, Posted: 165mm!
Condition and information:
We just love these gems that seemingly show up out of nowhere in our shop, hidden in some drawer for decades, that challenge our knowledge (and we love to be challenged), but open new windows into these amazing vintage pens, and drive us to extend the sphere of our knowledge.
Astonishingly, made during WWII while France was still under occupation, this is the famous lost brand Rally, model number 10, made in Paris - France. No matter how many pens we have worked on in the last couple of decades, sometimes, a pen appears that breaks with the ordinary, and this is one of those pens.
It is also extremely rare that we have the exact pen in our hands, featured in an ad or a poster from that very same company. As shown in the first two photos, we can see this very same pen, with the same Art Deco deep chevron engravings, featured in a very nice ad. The ad is from 1944 but we don't know the month it was published. In June 1944 France was liberated, so this pen has either been made that year or the year before in 1943. There is a Rally poster from 1943 which states that with the purchase of each pen, a 2000 Francs donation will be made to the "prisoners", assuming they are referring to the French Resistance prisoners - simply astonishing that we can peek into that world so many years later, with those very same objects in our hands.
The pen is massive, a true oversize. For a size reference, the last couple of photos show a comparison of this pen next to an Old Style Pelikan M200, which is basically the same size as the modern M400 from the 1980s onwards. The Pelikan is simply dwarfed in all dimensions, especially the thickness. This Rally 10 is 15.5mm diameter at the cap, and 13.5mm at the body. We rarely see these dimensions on a pen, and it was obvious it was made to impose with its size, and targeted exclusively at the man's audience. The size is even emphasised on the poster ad, where the gentleman holds this pen, it is obvious the pen is very large even for its time.
One peculiar thing is that, we have seen this exact clip design, or extremely similar to it, on the 1930s Reform pens, with the faceted Snake head, even the engraving decorations are similar, expect the Rally clip has a bend mid way which follows the slope of the cap design: Reform Luxus
This close to 100% similarity, we believe, cannot be a coincidence. The clip was either copied by Rally, or it was made by Reform or another German company and imported in France. Hard to know without specific literature on this brand, but nothing will surprise us, as we've seen this collaboration among companies across European countries, however with one big difference here, that being, these two countries were at war.
The pen is made out of very thick black celluloid, we rarely see such thick walls of the barrel and cap. Same goes for all other parts, including the captop and the pushbutton blind cap. The pen simply feels massive in the hand, both in size and construction.
It is a push button fillier with a large sac, and a new one is installed, the largest we had, size 18. The push lever is the original one, it is marked "Rustproof 70", and 70 stands for 70mm which is its exact length of this part. Again this brings up another question, as to why this bar has an english word "Rustproof", very likely imported from the US. This would not be so strange if this was not taking place literally in the middle of WWII. As far as we can see and determine, this is the original press-bar, and not a replacement that was installed later on, as when we first disassembled the pen decades after it had been stored, we can recognize the telltale signs if a part had been replaced or a pen had been tamped with. This pen seemed to be untouched for decades until it showed up in our shop.
Some lucky collectors who are finding these Rally pens, claim to have found them with Swan or even other brands nibs. This would also play into the possibility that Rally was sourcing parts anywhere they could. However, not this pen, this one bears its very own Rally insignia and it may be one of the handful of Rally pens with its own 14K Rally nib. And again, having to make a 14K gold nib in the middle of the war where even Pelikan had to switch to CN non-gold nibs, it's simply baffling. We could imagine that only a small quantity of these pens was ever made, hundreds if not much less, certainly not thousands during the war when the gold was at a premium and the country under occupation.
The nib size is not marked on the pen, but it writes F to M size. It has a decent flexibility but not as much as other pens from this era. This is because this nib is large but also much thicker than other 14K gold nibs from the 1930s and 1940s. One reason we assume the nib was made thicker is to match the appearance and durability of the pen, built as a very tough, solid, difficult to damage or bend nib even if the pen is dropped. In addition to 14K it is also marked Osmi-Iridium, basically describing what the tip of the nib is made from, which is a rare, naturally occurring, and extremely hard alloy of iridium and osmium, used for its high corrosion resistance and durability in fountain pen nib tips. It is suspended over a very large, 6.5mm diameter, ski-sloped ebonite feed, with a very large ink canal to feed this very ink-thirsty nib.
The pen is a very precise and responsive push button filler. The only thing requiring a change was of course the original bladder, which was basically disintegrated into dust and small particles. It will fully fill the sac with 2-3 presses on the button, and it's ready to go.
The pen is in great condition, perfectly preserved, there is no shrinkage, discoloration, no scratches, dings or cracks, only minimal surface scuffs from the passage of time.
We believe, originally, the deep chevron and Art Deco pattern engravings were gold color filled as we can see traces of that color in some of the grooves. Nonetheless, not having this gold inlaid color does not detriment the beauty and imposity of this pen, the engraving is deep and still very visible.
The pen also bears a personal engraving, and it is also very deep and seems made with the same tooling as the rest of the engraving, possibly even at the factory? The name is J.P. Breman, obviously a German name, so it's not too difficult to image that this was some German officer in occupied Paris who was responsible for the sector where the Rally workshop/factory was, and extorting a pen from them, or them curing a favor with him by giving him a personalized pen. None of these two scenarios seem far-fetched in a wartime France.
We are thrilled to host and offer this pen, and we welcome any information anyone can contribute with, which will be added to this description.
This item is covered by our 1 Year Full International Warranty at no additional cost. The terms of our Warranty are very simple, meant to give you a secure and trouble-free buying experience.
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