Miller 649

The Miller Pen Company was established in 1908 by Johannes Iversen and was located in Copenhagen. The company was initially called “Johannes Iversen”. The name was changed to the “Orion Pen Company” in 1914, and then to the “Miller Pen Company” in the 1930’s.

It’s unknown whether the company actually produced its own pens, or imported them from Germany, although most assumptions tend to the latter… The trading company sold pens under various English-sounding names such as Orion, London, Miller and Hoover. (For example, compare this pen to the Hoover 827)

This 649 is a “stretch vacumatic” filler, which uses a mechanism patented by Iversen, similar to the Parker vacumatic system. I’ve described that filling system in this posting and this posting.

This pen was obviously well-used by someone who enjoyed occasionally biting the pen. You can see some teeth marks on the blind cap at the end of the barrel.

As can be seen in the photo above, the entire barrel is an ink window with a chevron pattern. The nib is 14k gold and has a nice flex, but does not spring back quickly, so it’s a little difficult to get a fine line after a thick one. It also is quite a wet writer – so it’s not great with regular paper… However, it’s quite nice when used with pads from Rhodia and Marumann.

Total weight: 19.4  g
Body weight 12.0 g
Total length (not posted): 121.4 mm
Total length(with cap): 131.7 mm
Barrel max diameter: 12.8 mm
Cap max diameter: 14.3 mm

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