tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20009754081418834212024-03-18T21:58:12.049-04:00Vintage Pen NewsA blog about antique and vintage writing instruments: fountain pens, mechanical (propelling) pencils, dip pens, and more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger343125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-10656480768451455832024-03-18T21:55:00.003-04:002024-03-18T21:57:37.941-04:00More on the overflexing of vintage nibsI've been sounding the alarm about the abuse of flexible nibs for years now, and though others have also tried to spread the word, far too many irreplaceable vintage nibs are still being destroyed by being pushed far beyond their safe limits. The simple fact is that even very flexible vintage nibs were only meant to open up in routine use by a millimeter or so. A recent post by Otto Yang in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-88787016252800858132024-02-12T10:15:00.002-05:002024-02-12T10:15:25.371-05:00Erasers for vintage Eversharp pencils When it comes to old writing instruments, the least standardized consumables must be erasers. There are some hard to find lead sizes, to be sure, but the number of different eraser sizes is mind-numbing. Nor is there any comprehensive list of what pencils take what size, though there have been efforts made.Up until recently I was content to leave erasers to others. Then I stumbled across a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-19374011460905450632024-02-09T20:58:00.005-05:002024-02-11T17:20:52.420-05:00Touring Waterman's Newark factoryNew Jersey: A Guide to its Present and Past, 1939, p. 335I'm afraid we are a little late to book a group tour of Waterman's New Jersey factory. Would surely have been interesting. Waterman left it not long after the publication of the entry above, moving its Newark operations back to New York in early 1941 (an announcement that the move was pending appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle on Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-10087394717240516762024-02-08T20:51:00.003-05:002024-02-09T13:53:26.121-05:00Waterman and HeathIt has long been known that Waterman purchased overlays from George W. Heath & Co. A number of early Watermans bear silver overlays with the Heath "H" mark, and though the mark is absent on later examples, the continuity of style and workmanship strongly suggests continuity of sourcing. The same pattern of marking is seen with other penmakers using Heath overlays, and it is reasonable to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-84586938444121491252024-01-16T12:06:00.001-05:002024-01-16T12:09:49.616-05:00Please stop calling them "Continental safeties"Once upon a time and long long ago, American collectors would occasionally come across safety pens with fancy overlays like the one shown above. They knew that these pens were European but not much more, so borrowing a usage from the antiques trade they started to call them "Continental" -- the umbrella term for furniture that was neither American nor British, but from somewhere in continental Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-66511588346178379212023-10-22T12:17:00.004-04:002023-10-22T12:17:40.678-04:00Unpacking "made on original Parker machinery"There is a misconception among pen collectors regarding the claim that certain aftermarket pen parts were made on original Parker machinery. While the claim might be narrowly true, the use of an ex-Parker buffing wheel or drill press isn't what is called to mind. Rather, the implication is that the aftermarket parts were made in exactly the same way as the originals and to the exact same Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-330940109053116232023-08-04T18:56:00.000-04:002023-08-04T18:56:49.197-04:00Plastic replacement cartridges for Eagle glass-cartridge pens Eagle's glass-cartridge fountain pens are relics that I've always been content to regard as nonfunctional historic curiosities. A few years ago though after multiple requests for usable examples I adapted a few to use rubber sacs as simple squeeze-fillers. I only used pens missing their cartridge attachment nipples (originally soft rubber, they harden with age and sometimes crumble away Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-70798324028660703452023-06-25T17:22:00.004-04:002023-06-28T11:29:43.829-04:00Rendell and Fairchild revelations from the R. G. Dun collectionThe R.G. Dun collection of 19th-century credit reports first came to my attention years ago with the publication of Barbara Lambert's A. T. Cross monograph (Writing History, 1996). Though housed nearby at Harvard's Baker Library it was only last week that I finally made my first visit. While I had been hoping to find new insights into the relationships between early manufacturers of fountain pensUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-66698204585955646982023-06-08T09:53:00.001-04:002023-06-08T09:56:33.785-04:00Making safety pens yet saferA customer was recently asking about safety pen leakage. A safety with good seals should be as leakproof as any fountain pen could be. That doesn't mean, however, that it can't leave a mess quite without any leakage. One example is how ink can end up spattering in tiny droplets when the nib is extended if there happens to be a film of ink spanning the barrel opening when the pen is uncapped, likeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-33017324256761987522023-05-01T11:21:00.001-04:002023-06-08T09:56:33.784-04:00Research in progress: rewriting the history of the first retracting-nib safety pens I recently promised Pennant editor Jim Mamoulides a few short articles on early safety pens. Over the years I'd managed to accumulate some interesting examples by Horton, Moore, and Caw's -- the "Big Three" in this rather obscure byway of fountain pen history -- and it seemed as if it would be easy to throw together some simple descriptive articles.Silly me. "Can of worms" doesn't begin to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-52770801242061827992023-04-29T15:12:00.008-04:002023-04-29T15:13:26.793-04:00 What's in a name? The Moore FingertipCollectors have long wondered about the naming of the Moore Fingertip. The streamlined nib assembly echoes the aesthetics of airplanes and rockets -- so why "Fingertip" (or "Finger Tip")?Nearly thirty years ago I completely took apart a Fingertip nib assembly, and it immediately struck me that the "fingertip" reference might well have been to the design's feed. You don't really see it from the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-84151211906999816682022-12-27T14:27:00.005-05:002022-12-28T10:44:49.690-05:00A Waterman 412½VPSF with a surprise insideWaterman's first lever-fillers have been a longstanding focus here, but it is only recently that I have started to look into the chronology of the vest-pocket size ½V models. Paradoxically, collectors often take the most successful designs for granted.In the case of Waterman's small full-overlay ringtops, no one seems to have asked when these seemingly ubiquitous models were introduced -- Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-52330240997088134852022-12-12T23:39:00.004-05:002023-06-08T09:56:33.785-04:00A Moore sleeve-filler in safety disguiseMost collectors think of Moore as a rather staid company, especially in the hard rubber era. For the company's first couple of decades, it's pretty much only their classic safety pens, virtually all in black hard rubber. But there are exceptions -- rare, but all the more intriguing as a result.The pen shown above would seem to be yet another Moore safety. Upon closer examination, though, it turnsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-65112781838992212272022-10-25T11:37:00.004-04:002022-10-26T09:59:27.235-04:00Waterman PSF chronologyWhen did Waterman first offer lever-fillers for sale, and what are the likely dates for the various design changes in the first few years of production? This is very much still a work in progress, but we're far enough along that I'd like to assemble and share the evidence compiled to date.Though the first known appearance of lever-fillers in Waterman ads isn't until mid-March of 1915, the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-40242824723110204392022-10-23T19:35:00.004-04:002022-10-23T19:35:48.514-04:00More American Stationer volumes available online It has been a while since I last checked, but digging into some 1920s Waterman research I found to my surprise that several volumes of the American Stationer that had formerly been snippet-only at Google Books are now fully readable, including volumes 92 through 99. In addition, quite a few volumes that had formerly been available only through Google Books are now also available through Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-17757406692606395732022-10-21T00:21:00.003-04:002022-10-21T00:22:07.715-04:00Waterman and the Barnes lever-filler patentPen history has largely been written by collectors rather than trained academic historians, so one often has to scramble to find solid references for what has become accepted knowledge. An example which recently sent me scrambling for documentation is Waterman's acquisition of John Barnes's lever-filler patent. For future reference, I will share the material I found in this post.Firstly, let us Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-43049412217087891642022-09-08T11:42:00.000-04:002022-09-08T11:42:18.637-04:00Remembering W. M. & C. -- and not for Nott This lovely pencil arrived not long ago but to my frustration I could not recall what the letters "W. M & C" stood for. No luck with a Google search, nor checking Jon Veley's indispensible site. It was Jon who finally set me straight though, pointing me to . . . my own blog post here on Thomas Addison. Ouch.At least I remembered that the "W" was for "Wilmarth". That alone should have Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-58103368071705175242022-08-25T19:08:00.004-04:002023-07-15T21:24:17.794-04:00A gold pen from San Francisco Having grown up in California, I have a special interest in pens made there. Especially appealing are those dating back to the 19th century and the Gold Rush era. Not many writing instruments were made on the West Coast back then, as manufacturing was concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. So this dip pen was a lucky recent find with its gold nib marked "J. H./BAPTIS/S.F./5". John Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-90942204263386492732022-06-15T21:42:00.004-04:002022-06-20T15:58:42.698-04:00Improved plunger-filler packing seals We have been selling specially-sized O-rings for plunger-filler ("vacuum-filler") packing unit repair for quite a few years, but not any more. Instead, we will be offering a significantly superior alternative, shown above. Instead of a simple donut-shaped seal, these incorporate two sealing flanges on both the exterior surface and in the central bore. Two sealing points instead of one is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-81404992614855018002022-05-12T21:01:00.006-04:002022-05-16T10:59:47.073-04:00The Van Winkle Pen CompanyIt's not every day you see an early 20th-century taper-cap with a glass barrel. A patent application for this design was filed on October 24, 1910 and US patent 995307 was duly issued on June 13, 1911. The core part of the invention was the use of a metal tube between two barrel end pieces, over which either conventional pearl slabs could be mounted, or a glass tube allowing for insertion of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-299194865743702612022-03-23T11:48:00.003-04:002024-02-12T10:20:32.311-05:00John Holland and aluminum
One of the items in a recent eBay lot was the twist-pattern dip pen shown above. When it arrived, my initial reaction was disappointment: I had been hoping it would be silver, and possibly Gorham, given that maker's fondness for the twist. Instead, it was aluminum. It was even so marked.
Upon closer inspection, the holder end proved detachable -- one of those reversible plugs, allowing theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-86148227088547941792022-02-24T12:10:00.000-05:002022-02-24T12:10:23.482-05:00A Slender Maxima set: restoration choices and the preservation of historyThis Parker Vacumatic set came to us from an old collection, assembled in the old days when vintage pens could be found in the wild in such abundance that most collectors soon gave up on restoring every single new acquisition. And like many such items, it was no longer exactly as it was when it left the factory. Which raised the question of how to proceed: whether to put the set back to its Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-84297834937625935672021-12-10T20:33:00.003-05:002021-12-10T20:33:28.881-05:00A bronze-nibbed dip pen from 11th-century IrelandThere are not a lot of surviving medieval writing instruments, so this bronze-nibbed pen excavated last year at Caherconnell in County Clare is a big deal indeed. For the full story, I will refer you to the announcement from June 1, 2020 at the Caherconnell Stone Fort Facebook page, as well as a more recent article in the Independent of Ireland. There is also a video of a reproduction in use hereUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-25320237230241185032021-12-06T23:08:00.002-05:002021-12-06T23:08:44.223-05:00An appreciation of stubby pens Big pens may be the most highly valued, but there's much to be said for their slightly smaller stubby siblings. The full-length Senior may be the flagship of the Duofold line (whether in classic orange-red, or Mandarin Yellow as above), yet will it even fit in the average shirt pocket? For pocketability, give me a Duofold Junior: the perfect length, with a comfortable girth. No wonder that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2000975408141883421.post-38058774960956604612021-12-04T10:21:00.003-05:002021-12-16T09:04:33.646-05:00An unfinished Waterman nibUnfinished nibs don't turn up that often. This one is a 1940s Waterman nib for a Taperite, which has been shaped, imprinted, and tipped, but hasn't had its slit cut or tip ground.At first glance, it might seem that there is no tipping yet attached. The tip is visibly thicker, yet it seems to be all of the same 14K gold alloy as the rest of the nib, whether viewed from above or below. This, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2