It'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 printed advertising. This was the brainchild of Ralph F. Van Winkle, of Erie, Pennsylvania.
The patent date is imprinted at the end of barrel, next to the trim band. You'll also notice that there is a hole at the end of the barrel. Yes, this taper-cap is also a blow-filler.
Another Van Winkle product was the No-Dip Penholder, another blow-filling design -- basically a fountain pen for use at the desk, utilizing ordinary dip pen nibs.
This ad appeared in Commercial America, vol. 10, no. 1 (July 1913), p. 31. By this time the Van Winkle Pen Company had moved to Franklin, Pennsylvania, which is also the location indicated on our taper-cap pen at top. Unfortunately the company was out of business shortly thereafter. A brief entry in Geyer's Stationer of October 14, 1915, p. 11 reports the demise the previous week of R. F. Van Winkle of Franklin, PA from a brain tumor, noting that he had been in "poor health for more than two years, and because of this was forced to relinquish his business interests and retire to private life. The Van Winkle Co. was then disbanded."
No comments:
Post a Comment