Fountain pens manufactured in Israel (formerly Palestine) Israel Ben-Sinai
2. Ball Pens & Refills
Globus Ball Pens & Refills
A gentleman by the name of Mr. Lautman, who had a fine shop on Nachalat Benjamin Street in Tel Aviv, established his factory in Ramat Hechayal, a suburb of Tel-Aviv.
The factory produced all plastic as well as metal parts. They existed well into the seventies and produced many models, some of them quite handsome. The refills were made of brass tubing and had a spring stop in the form of a ring around the tubing. The refills came in several colors and were imprinted with the brand name.
The balls for the refills were imported from a Swiss company and the ink was probably also imported, however, there were some attempts to produce it locally. Globus (a term in Hebrew for a globe representing the earth) also made decorative or memoranda pens made of silver. Those will be dealt with separately.
Rolex Ball Pens & Refills
A gentleman by the name of Grievsky from Jerusalem (mentioned earlier in connection with the Gafir and Concentra brands of fountain pens) had also established a ball pen manufacturing facility in Jerusalem. Mr. Uri Orland informed me that Mr. Uzi Vekssler managed Mr. Grievsky’s business.
In many details his pens were similar to those of Globus, however, being a true entrepreneur he had a special mechanism developed for retracting the refill into the body of the pen. Contrary to the rotary system mainly used by almost all other manufacturers, his method was a small piece of plastic inserted into the open side of the refill. In the cap there was a piece of elastic plastic in which there were two adjacent holes (of different depths) connected by a narrow cut. When the knob of the cap was pressed, the small piece of plastic in the refill passed from the deeper hole (closed pen position) into the shallower hole (open, ready for use position) and vice versa.
The mechanism performed very well, however, not all Rolex pens used this method. There were also refills made by Rolex and imprinted with the brand name.
It is my personal notion that although openly there was a fierce competition between Globus and Rolex, they secretly cooperated.
Kuli Ball Pens & Refills
There existed another brand name that produced ball pens. They used a very simple mechanism. The clip was used to protrude the refill outside the body of the pen by moving it to a lower position and anchoring it in a special groove. The upper part of the pen was always made of chrome-coated brass. It was screwed into the lower plastic or metal part.
Ornamental Silver (and sometimes gold coated) Ball Pens
The silver outer casing was embossed with Jewish and Israeli motives in an art form known as Betzalel style. The Betzalel from the Bible was the son of Uri, son of Chur of the tribe of Judah, who made the holy decorations of the Mishkan (portable Tabernacle), which preceded the first Jewish temple in the Sinai desert. It is the given name of the very famous art school in Jerusalem established by Prof. Boris Shatz. Some of the designs also carry paint patterns. I found one pen, probably a cheaper model, since the embossed plate was made of copper and completely bare, with no trace of silver plate. There is a gold plated one with a Gold Globus embossed on the clip, as well as a gold plated model with a Silver Globus embossed on the clip. This is certainly a product of an inexperienced entrepreneur.
I also found one silver “Betzalel” style mechanical pencil.