Esterbrook #158 Anti-corrosive Amalgam Pen

1876 Illustrated Price List

“A large, heavy business pen.”
Corrosion was always a concern with steel pens, especially in the early years when inks were still based on the old, acidic iron gall recipes. Later, synthetic chemical dyes and tints were not quite as destructive, but it was always a concern.
This concern led to all kinds of attempts at slowing down corrosion, including different alloys or coatings. The “amalgam” label implies the pen is an alloy, but there’s no evidence that they were made from anything but the same high-quality steel as other pens. Some were supposedly coated with an amalgam coating, but coatings, even gold, never seemed to do a whole lot of good for corrosion until Esterbrook’s Radio pens. Experiments by Brandon McKinney showed that the Radio coating did actually offer some protection from rust.

1883 Esterbrook Catalog

The existence of this pen is confirmed or surmised by the following:

Listed in the 1876 Illustrated Price List of the Esterbrook Steel Pen Company, January 1, 1876; courtesy of The Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware; contributed by Andrew Midkiff
Listed in the 1879 Trade Price List of the Esterbrook Steel Pen Company (The American Stationer, September 4, 1879) (Contributed by Andrew Midkiff)
Listed in 1883 Esterbrook Catalog
Listed in the Anderson & Krum price list in the 1887 Publisher’s Trade List

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