Turns out there are actually differences! And not just the nibs (the one I bought last year is a bit flexy, whereas Mama's-we-think is pretty solid): flexy-nib has gold trim, and Mama's is silver. (Where by "trim" I mean the pocket clip, cap ring, etc.)
Mama's also clearly hadn't been cleaned out before being fogotten about put into storage. Did Papa use it between 2010ish and 2017? WHO KNOWS but honestly probably not. So that's... going to need some very gentle attention.
I haven't checked whether the filling mechanism is operational, but given that it's almost certainly not been used since 2010 and realistically probably quite a lot longer, it seems Unlikely.
Which means I should decide that discretion is the better part of valour, and send them both off to someone else for repairs. Eventually.