The Waterman POC

I've been meaning for some time to do a write-up on Waterman's Chatelaine series -- the company's first screw-cap pens, which appear almost as an afterthought in the big 1908 catalog but which were advertised at least as early as 1905. The recent appearance of a possibly unique factory-made man's screw-cap (8-size, with clip and without suspension ring) using Chatelaine components, however,  has raised the question of exactly when Waterman began offering screw-cap pens for pocket carry -- so here is a quick post about the introduction of the POC line.

After a bit of searching, I found the blurb shown above, which ran in the American Stationer of March 29, 1913 (vol. 73), p. 34. No mention of the line appears in earlier issues, and indeed mention is sporadic in following years as well. The standard tag line in Waterman advertisements remains "Regular, Safety and Self-Filling Types", with "Pocket" only occasionally included -- as in the ad below from Geyer's Stationer, February 18, 1915, p. 27.

The POC line was short-lived, at least under that name. With the 1917 change in Waterman's model numbering system, the "POC" suffix was dropped and "7" was added in the tens place. The 12 POC became the 72, the 15 POC became the 75, and so on. 

Although the POC suffix was always imprinted all in capital letters on the pens, in advertising it was typically rendered as "Poc." as shown above. Interestingly enough, the most common POC model shown in ads was the 412 POC with silver filigree overlay.

POC models haven't attracted a great deal of collector interest, yet they mark a turning point in the evolution of Waterman pen design. All subsequent Waterman pocket pen designs, no matter the filling system, followed the POC template, with a screw cap, inner cap, and flared section, while the older slip-cap models gradually disappeared from the lineup.