Most 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 turns out to be something completely different: a sleeve-filler, and one of notably distinctive design.
The sleeve that covers the barrel opening doesn't slide. Rather, it is retracted by being turned: it is threaded onto the end of the barrel. Other aspects of the pen's construction are similar to what is seen in Moore's safeties.
The sprung pressure bar is stamped "LICENSED UNDER/PATENT 781.649" -- Robert A. Hamilton's US patent of 1905. So far I have not found any mention of other pens made under this patent, nor indeed any mention of this particular model in Moore catalogs or advertising (noting for accuracy's sake that the company was still called the American Fountain Pen Company at the time of its manufacture). There is an old thread at the FPN website discussing thumb-fillers of various kinds, where this patent was noted without any actual examples being identified.
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