Recently I was the happy recipient of another unexpected gift of pens, from my friend in Melbourne. As you can imagine, for a fountain pen enthusiast, it is exciting to receive such a package and to discover its contents.

One of them was this Geha 715, a vintage German piston-filler dating from around the 1960’s. My friend had bought it on ebay.

This name was new to me. I have since read that Geha was founded in 1918 by two brothers, Heinrich and Conrad Hartmann. The name was a contraction of Gebruder-Hartmann, – Hartmann Brothers. Based in Hannover, the firm initially dealt in stationery and office supplies and began making pens in 1950. They made fountain pens for the student market until ultimately the company was bought by Pelikan in around 1990.

This particular model, the 715, is in a classic black resin with gold coloured trim. The model name Geha 715 is engraved in the side of the cap. The cap finial is a plain gold-coloured flat disc. There is a functional gold coloured pocket clip and a single cap-ring engraved with “Geha, Made in Germany, Rolled gold.”

The cap unscrews, in one full turn. This reveals a gold coloured, semi-hooded nib. To my delight, this one has an Oblique Broad nib. My friend sent it to me, knowing of my liking for such nibs.

There is an ink window in blue plastic. The barrel then tapers gracefully up to the piston turning knob and another gold coloured disc at the base.

The pen is on the slim side, but comfortable to hold and can be used with or without the cap being posted. Unposted, it is already 123mm long, but the cap posts deeply and firmly to increase the length to about 147mm, which feels very comfortable.

I flushed the pen, and tried the piston. It felt a bit stiff to lower the plunger, but smooth and easy when raising the plunger again.

The nib looks like gold, but my friend tells me it is steel. There are no visible markings on the exposed part of the nib. I presume that both nib and cap ring are plated in rolled gold. The nib shows no sign of any rust or staining, although a slight kink just behind the tipping suggests that the pen may have been dropped at some point and the nib straightened out again.

I inked it up with Waterman Absolute Brown ink. Initially the pen wrote rather dry and pale and needed pressure on the nib to keep ink flowing. I decided to try flossing the tines. I then tried widening the tine gap just marginally by bending the tip upwards, before trying again to widen the tine gap by means of inserting the blade of a craft knife in the gap and wriggling it very gently from side to side, until the pen wrote smoothly and with only minimal downward pressure.

Looking online, I found some Youtube videos on other Geha models, by The Pen Collector. I also learned that the Geha pens had a special feature – an ink reserve, which could be released by pressing a button on the underside of the feed. On some pens, this was a small round button, but on the 715, there is a shiny rod like the hull of a boat, which can be slid inwards towards the section.

Having succeeded in sliding the button in, I then had an anxious few minutes worrying how to slide it back again. However it transpires that the button resets itself when the piston is next lowered. As you turn the piston knob to lower the piston down before re-filling, the piston can be lowered further, pushing against some resistance, to push the ink reserve tube back down into the section again.

It is arguable whether an ink reserve is necessary when you have a piston filler with an ink window. It seems to have been a gimmick. But I admit that I would have loved this as a school boy, like having a secret gadget in your pencil case. The idea was that if you were taken by surprise at running out of ink in your main tank, you could activate the reserve, releasing enough ink for another two or three pages of writing, which might get you to the end of your exam without having to re-fill! No doubt my 1960’s self would have pushed the ink reserve button in with my finger nail, getting inky fingers in the process, but I have just read in another Geha review, that the instruction manual suggested using your pen cap for this task. Of course.

All in all, it is a gorgeous pen. Although produced as a school pen, the black resin body remains just as smart and glossy as on my Montblancs of this era. It is nice to think that it may have belonged to a school boy, or girl, in 1960’s Germany and I wonder at the pen’s unknown history before it found me.

Update: 21 May 2022

Following a suggestion by Gasquolet in the comments to the above post, I learned that the section unscrews, just before the cap threads. This exposed a rather delicate looking feed, protruding from the section, with a small collar piece at the top. I lifted off the collar, pushed the delicate feed channel out through the front, and was then able to pull the nib out. Sure enough the nib is gold. It is clearly marked Geha 14k 585, but you do not see any markings when the nib is in situ.

I took the opportunity to do a little more flossing of the nib with a fine brass shim, before putting everything back together. Some care is needed to re-align the tines, after pushing the nib back into the section.

I also applied a little grease to the threads for the section. This might have been the first time that the section had ever been unscrewed and the nib removed in the pen’s 60 year life, for all I know.

I refilled the pen with Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz and tried some writing samples.