Please 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 Europe. You don't see antiques called "continental" as much nowadays; the trade is more sophisticated and less insular, greatly reducing the need for catchall categories of this sort ("oriental" or "Asian" is another, much less used now with increased ability to differentiate between antiques from China, Japan, Korea, etc). And yet "continental" persists among pen collectors, even though English-speaking collectors have known for at least thirty years now that these fancy overlays are distinctively Italian and not generically European at all. This may largely be force of habit among older collectors, with the continuing influence of classic reference books a factor as well.

Let us finally retire "Continental" -- it is misleading and obsolete. Let us give credit where credit is due and call these pens what they are, which is Italian. No other country had so many independent workshops making such a variety of overlays, nor can the characteristic style and elaboration of these Italian overlays be mistaken for the product of any other European country. Not that French and German overlays aren't also distinct in design and style -- which is all the more reason not to lump them all together under the same catchall name.

Making safety pens yet safer

A 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, like the soap solution across a bubble-blowing wand.

My customer's issue was something a bit different, though. It seems it was a matter of ink sticking to the plug inside the cap. When the cap is tightened the plug is pressed firmly against the barrel mouth, as can be seen in the photos above and below. Yet as the closeup below shows, any ink that ends up sticking to the face of the plug is going to drip into the threads once the cap is removed and set on its side. And from the cap threads it will soon enough end up on the barrel threads and thence on the writer's fingers.

I've never seen any discussion of how to deal with this issue -- neither in original instructions and repair manuals, nor by modern-day collectors or repairmen. So here is a solution I came up with: 

Moisten a cotton swab with a little alcohol and clean off the face of the plug, then once it is dry use another swab to give it a thin coat of wax. This should greatly reduce the ability of ink to stick to the plug, and is similar to how ink bottle caps are typically equipped with a sealing disk of ink-shedding plastic.

For anyone contemplating making new safety pens, I would suggest making the plug out of a modern material that is inherently ink-shedding. Teflon immediately comes to mind, though acetals such as Delrin are also quite hydrophobic and much easier to machine.

Research 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 describe what I've opened up. It turns out that a lot of what has been repeated for decades about the first safeties simply doesn't add up. Nor is it proving any easier to figure out what actually did happen. Clearly there are huge missing pieces to this particular puzzle, which is why I am putting this post out here in the hopes that others may have information that I might have overlooked -- though I suspect the answers I'm seeking are not to be found in any online records currently available, as I've been quite diligent in searching all the standard databases, free and paid.

Here are some of the more interesting issues I've identified to date:

• The Caw's safety was introduced in 1895. Ads and imprints reference patent US533942 of 2/12/1895. No one seems to have remarked that the only claim in that patent is for the nib and feed arrangement. In fact, the pen shown is a sliding-action safety of the sort described in Moore's patent of 1896! 
• The key patent for a safety with a turning internal helix was Peck & O'Meara's US523234 of 7/17/1894. And in 1895 the Horton Pen Company was just getting started after having acquired Peck & O'Meara's entire manufacturing operation -- including, it would appear, their patents. How could Caw's have gotten away with such a brazen infringement? The more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. Surely F. C. Brown was a licensee, though no mention of the Peck & O'Meara patent appears in Caw's ads, catalogs, or imprints. Seeing how Brown didn't lose an opportunity to trumpet all the patents he had (on later Caw's safeties the patent imprints run almost all the way around the barrel, headed by "F. C. BROWN PATENTS") I can only surmise that the flip side of this was an aversion to acknowledging any patents other than his own. [UPDATE: Upon closer examination, I can now see how Brown might have been able to evade the Peck & O'Meara patent at least in part by using a single-slot mechanism and a separate internal sleeve to carry that slot]
• It has been claimed that Caw's bought up all the assets of the Horton Pen Company after it failed. I can find no evidence of any such failure. Horton appears in New Haven city directories all the way through 1901, after which it was acquired -- but by Frazer & Geyer, not Brown. There are plenty of retailer ads for Horton pens through 1899 at least as well as other mentions indicating production overlapping with that of Caw's for several years.
• If Caw's was a licensee of Horton, as the notes above suggest, was Horton also supplying pens or pen parts to Caw's? Caw's was already producing the Dashaway so did not necessarily need a new subcontractor. On the other hand, making the safety spirals was something new. It may be significant that the interior structure of Caw's and Horton safety barrels is different, the straight tracks being cut directly into the barrel interior for the Horton, but cut into an inserted sleeve for the Caw's. 
• Whether or not Horton was doing any manufacturing for Caw's, it does appear to have been doing so for Morris W. Moore during his short-lived effort at independent pen production, prior to selling out to Cushman. The evidence for this is just one pen: the unmarked safety that I shared in a private Facebook group a while back that is virtually identical to what is shown and claimed in Moore's first 1896 patent. There are a couple of construction details that differ from the patent diagrams but which correspond to peculiarities of early Hortons, including near-interchangeable caps.
• The one patent date that appears on Caw's safeties that doesn't reference one of Brown's inventions is Sep 8, 1896 -- the date of the two Moore patents assigned in part to F. C. Brown. It is likely the second that was actually used, which claims a tapered rather than a cylindrical barrel mouth bore. This raises the question of what relationship Brown had with Moore at the time that the 1896 patent-style pen was made (which could have been as early as late 1894). Did Brown provide any sort of assistance to Moore? Or was it nothing more than Brown paying Moore for patent rights?
• It has also been claimed that Waterman acquired or licensed patents belonging to F. C. Brown for their own safeties. I can find no evidence for this, and it is noteworthy that no such patents are referenced in Waterman safety imprints where one would expect them.
• It has been claimed that Caw's patent US612013 of 1898 was for the helical retraction mechanism, and that this patent was sold to Waterman. Except that's not what the patent claims: it is solely for an improvement to such mechanisms, where the driving peg is equipped with a rolling bearing to reduce wear.
• The Nichols patent of 1903, referenced on the caps of older Waterman safety pens, doesn't seem to contain much that is novel aside from the inner cap plug closure.
• Possible missing-link or offshoot models that I don't own but would like to be able to acquire or examine: Phelps Safety; Lincoln Safety; Atlantis.

A Moore sleeve-filler in safety disguise

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.

The Onoto tool and other spanners for threaded washers

The Onoto tool is a clever device that is not widely known in the pen repair community, especially outside of the UK. Its main purpose is to allow servicing of an Onoto plunger-filler's packing unit with the shaft still in place, allowing one to avoid having to remove the filler knob.

The two prongs are pressed firmly into the face of the hard rubber closure washer at the back of the packing compartment, allowing the washer to be unscrewed and the packing replaced (the procedure entails slitting the replacement cork seals, wrapping them around the shaft, and pushing them into place, stacking them so that the slits of the seals do not line up).

Not all pens with packing units with threaded closure washers have end knobs that are as much of a pain to remove as is the case with Onotos and their fiddly crosspins. In such cases it is best to get the shaft out of the way, allowing use of the ever-handy triangular scraper for turning the closure washer.

Below you can see the scraper being used to unscrew the closure washer of a Moore safety pen. Below that the scraper is being used to unscrew the closure washer of a Japanese Jumbo pen, where access is from the inside of the barrel rather than from the back.

Since the cross section of the scraper's blade is an equilateral triangle, the application of force to the closure washer is neatly balanced -- much better than with other kinds of blades. A triangular scraper can be used on even very thin washers, where the central hole is only slightly smaller than the washer's outside diameter.

For washers with different proportions, however, a more specialized tool is called for. The closure washers of Eversharp Doric plunger-fillers, for example, are comparatively large and have a very small central hole (they are also left-hand thread, though this does not affect the tool design). Because the hole is so small, there is very little leverage to be had using a scraper or any other tool working against the hole's periphery. It is all too easy to end up scraping away material without getting the washer to turn. Doric washers have two little indents on their face on either side of the center hole, which indicate that the original service tool relied on two matching points to apply the requisite turning force. I haven't yet made myself one, but a basic design would consist of a round rod long enough to reach through the barrel, its face with a center hole drilled to accommodate a pilot peg sized to fit the washer's center hole, and two holes drilled on either side to accommodate inserts of sharpened steel that would protrude just enough to bite into the surface of the closure washer.

Unbranded pens: a French case study

The number of companies that made pens was considerably smaller than the number of companies that sold them. Many pen retailers did no manufacturing at all, relying instead upon contract manufacture. This is neatly illustrated by the group of French safety pens from the 1920s shown above, all but four unimprinted. The imprints all differ, though the pens themselves are otherwise identical.

Only one pen in the lot retains its original warranted 18K nib. It is an unmarked pen, shown below. Who was the actual maker? I don't know -- but I do know that it will be interesting to see what pen history sleuths will be able to find out in the years ahead about all the behind-the-scenes arrangements between makers and sellers. 

Unusual Moores

I've been collecting Moores in my typically unsystematic way for quite a few years, putting away pre-lever-filler examples that catch my attention as interesting and unusual (OK, so it isn't as unsystematic as all that). This week two such pens turned up, shown above.

The top pen is doubly unusual, in that it is an eyedropper-filling stylographic. Many fountain pen makers also offered stylos, which are typically far less common than nibbed pens. Moore stylographics are rare indeed, with most made in the form of safety pens, the stylo tip retracting into the barrel in the same manner as in Moore's regular safeties (photo here).

A distinguishing feature of Moore stylographic safety pens is the orange dome on their caps -- just as is seen on the second recently-received pen. In this case, however, the pen is neither a stylo nor converted from one, for inside the cap there is the central safety post -- a feature lacking in Moore stylos, for obvious reasons. Aside from the orange dome, the pen is a normal Midget safety from the late 'teens or early 1920s, with a Moore rather than an American Fountain Pen Co. nib.

Nonproduction Watermans

Over the years I've seen several groups of unusual Watermans come to market from the estates of former Waterman executives and employees. The items shown above have such a provenance, though I bought them only recently, from an older collector. In many respects they resemble a group disbursed by the late Peter Stanton some twenty years ago, which included a number of clipless pencils with nonstandard features, as well as some interesting slender desk pens and a red and black Ripple 94 with a #7-style color band on the cap (which I still have, and need to photograph). Indeed, they may well have come from the same source.

From right to left, the items include: a completely unmarked 42-size safety, with Aikin Lambert-style feed and warranted nib; a slender smooth pencil, clipless; two clipless and unmarked Patrician pencils in black hard rubber; a 14 PSF cutaway demonstrator; and a truly odd pencil, whose oddness only became apparent once I opened it up.

Yes, this is a safety pencil! The mechanism is adapted from a small Waterman safety. It's all hard rubber -- no metal parts at all, and no imprints. The nose cone unscrews from the barrel, and when I opened it up I found a couple of extra pieces of lead inside. There's not really any lead magazine -- they were just floating around inside. The method by which the lead is held is also rather improvised, the propelling shaft being drilled and slotted at its end to hold and grip the lead.

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And a bit more on the other items . . . 

The safety has a #2 New York nib, not a warranted as I first wrote. Initially I was under the impression that the packing unit housing had some distortion, as if it had been heated and then clamped, but upon looking more closely it seems the two flat spots may be intentional (when heated, the hard rubber did not spring back as it would if this were the result of pressure and heat).

Perhaps this was an experiment to see how rounded flats would look and feel, and if they would help provide more purchase for disassembly. Also worth noting is the surface of the pen, which looks as if it has a thin coat of opaque black lacquer. There are several spots where it seems to have worn away, allowing the hard rubber beneath to brown slightly.

The cutaway demonstrator is a 14 PSF. It's not all that early, as it has the flat barrel threads; the hardened sac is still in place, so I can't tell if the pressure bar is the later one-piece type -- though odds are it is. An interesting feature is the red-filled barrel imprint, which is likely original. Most standard production pens did not have their imprints filled, but one does sometimes find less common models with infill -- Signagraph pens being one example.

A fine silver filigree safety

For those who study and collect Waterman pens, Aikin Lambert products have a special appeal. Following Waterman's takeover, many Aikin models shared essential design elements with their Waterman counterparts. The differences, however, are often striking, with some Aikin pens resembling Waterman pens from an alternate universe.

The pen shown here is a fine (silver) example of this. It is in essence an unmarked Waterman 12½ VS safety, with an Aikin Lambert #2 nib and a narrow rectangular Aikin Lambert feed. The turning knob is not threaded, and the nib does not twist as it is extended and retracted, indicating a date no earlier than 1912. The overlay, however, is electroformed fine silver, in a filigree pattern familiar from earlier Waterman pens but no longer offered by c. 1908 -- let alone 1912.

The photo above is yet another good illustration of the telltale signs of electrodeposition. The silver deposited over the cap lip groove is characteristically lumpy. Likely a thin line of resist was painted on halfway through the process, and the nodules are the result of lifting or porosity of the resist. The vertical line from the cap lip which appears at first sight to be a scratch is in fact the surface echo of a nick cut into the underlying hard rubber to improve adhesion of the deposit layer.

Chapmans vs Waterman: Safety pen patents

One of the disputes brought out in the Chapmans vs Waterman case (background here) was over claimed infringements by Waterman of safety pen patents held by A. A. Waterman/Modern Pen. The main discussion appears in a letter from Waterman dated May 21, 1908, addressed to Alexander S. Bacon, Modern Pen's lawyer, and entered into evidence as Plaintiff's Exhibit 25 (pp. 496ff). The letter recounts Waterman's negotiations to purchase Modern Pen, including its patents (though in the trial, the focus seems to have been put on Waterman's attempts from 1907-08 to buy the A. A. Waterman trade name; p. 122-24). According to the Waterman letter, the sale of Modern was a done deal, awaiting only "formal corporate authorization". Counting on this pending acquisition of the Modern patents, Waterman "began the manufacture of a safety fountain pen which is the one of which we assume you complain." When this manufacture began is a bit unclear. Bacon had sent letters on April 29 and May 19, 1908 protesting the infringement, but how long did it take for Modern to learn of the new safeties and to respond? The Waterman letter states that the expected sale of Modern was still pending when Bacon's letter of April 29 was received, but the deal afterwards fell through. The letter then avows (p. 497):

As soon as we learned that these negotiations of sale had been broken off, we forthwith entirely discontinued the manufacture and sale of the safety fountain pen as then constructed and of which we assume you complain. Of the safety fountain pens of which we assume you complain only a few have been sold, probably less than a dozen.

Considering the letter's purpose, this improbably low number should be taken with a grain of salt. Admitting no fault, the letter goes on in good legal style to name and deny the validity of the patents allegedly infringed (523234 Peck and O'Meara, July 17, 1894; 551895 Horton and Peck, December 25, 1895; 700909 Frazer, May 27, 1902), and to state that Waterman's abandonment of this original safety design was "merely to avoid litigation and the trouble and expense incident thereto." The letter then concludes:

We are now using for our safety fountain pen a construction or structure which our predecessors in business used more than twenty years ago, and which has been commonly and continuously used for pencils and fountain pens since 1852, and of which we assume you claim no monopoly, If you desire, we would be pleased to submit to you a sample of the safety fountain pen as we are now making and selling the same. We wish to repeat that we have entirely discontinued making and selling fountain pens of the structure of which we assume you complain, and that we do this merely to avoid litigation and not because we recognize the validity of the patents you claim to be infringed, or that the pen as made by us did actually infringe any of these patents.

The generally accepted chronology for Waterman safeties posits that the earliest examples were those in which the nib turned as it extended and retracted, the tracks cut into the interior of the barrel being helical, rather than straight. Later safeties used a straight track and a helically-slotted driving tube (for illustrations, see our Waterman Safeties Pen Profile). The arrangement of the earlier safeties would have been to get around the Peck and O'Meara patent. The Waterman letter adds another twist to the story, so to speak. The helical-track safeties were not Waterman's first, after all. For while the standard straight-track pens did follow the helical-track pens, it seems they also -- albeit briefly -- preceded them.

If that "construction or structure which our predecessors in business used more than twenty years ago, and which has been commonly and continuously used for pencils and fountain pens since 1852" is to be identified with the straight-track safeties, how is that particular passage to be read? The reference to "our predecessors in business" is particularly opaque, implying as it does that Waterman itself used this mechanism in its earlier days -- and inasmuch as Waterman evidently didn't, must be interpreted as a deliberately misleading way of saying that other, earlier, and unrelated companies did. The reference to 1852 appears to invoke the mechanism described in John Mabie's US patent 11762, application date unknown, but issued in 1854. Others had long used a basic retracting or propelling mechanism consisting of a carrier riding in a longitudinally-slotted tube, riding in turn inside a helically-slotted tube, the carrier having a pin engaging both slots, by which the carrier was driven when one tube was twisted and the other held fixed. Mabie's patent added two improvements: a pin that went all the way through, engaging the outer tube's track on both sides; and helical slots in both tubes, cut in opposite directions. The Waterman letter undoubtedly refers to the first improvement, applied to the older form of retracting mechanism, rather than to the second, which is unknown in Waterman safeties of any era. Waterman's claim that this mechanism had been in use for decades for fountain pens appears to be a complete fabrication.

The limitations of advertisements as evidence are once again highlighted here. Previously, our earliest notice of Waterman safety production came in advertisements and trade journal mentions at the end of July 1908. We now know that Waterman began making safeties no later than April, and had switched to a non-infringing design in May.

ADDENDUM: In case you were wondering how A. A. Waterman/Modern Pen ended up with all the key retracting-nib safety pen patents, see Geyer's Stationer, vol. 31, Apr 4, 1901, p. 35, which reports on Frazer & Geyer's purchase of the Horton Pen Company's plant, machinery, and patents.

UPDATE: More details about the correspondence between Modern's counsel, Alexander Bacon, and Waterman is to be found here. There is a slight inconsistency in that the first letter from Bacon is there dated April 20 rather than April 29. What is more significant is that the contents of this letter and Bacon's followup letter of May 19 are reproduced, both noting advertisements for Waterman's safety in Cosmopolitan. Searching online copies from March to May 1908 has so far been unsuccessful, as available versions all seem to lack all or part of their advertising sections.

Chapmans vs Waterman: Ferris' testimony

Perhaps the most revelatory testimony in the Chapmans vs Waterman case (background here) is that of William I. Ferris (pp. 176ff, 267ff). Ferris had been with Waterman from very early on -- 1885, by his testimony, when the company consisted of but L. E. Waterman himself and his secretary (p. 177-78). Nearly all of Waterman's key patents after 1884 were Ferris's. Nor was he a closeted inventor, as he was also in charge of Waterman's manufacturing -- though he wore other hats within the organization as well.

Ferris on early Waterman advertising:
"In the first few years the advertising was limited to a few magazines. As the business went on and grew the advertising increased from magazines into newspapers and car cards [interruption] and other display matter, and this increased gradually through the 90's . . ." (pp. 178-79)

Ferris on Waterman sales volume:
"The first three or four years [from c. 1885, presumably] we sold in the neighborhood of 10,000 pens a year. From 1890 to 1900, it increased every year. About that time we sold in the neighborhood of 150,000 to 200,000 pens a year, but from early, 1901 to 1905, or for the last ten years, the sales have been upward of a million pens a year." (p. 179)

Ferris on the first Waterman overlay ("mounted") pens:
"in the early 90's, 1891, 1892 or 1893." (p. 180)

Ferris on the first Waterman self-filler (syringe-filler):
"The first self filler we made in about 1891 or 1892." (p. 184)
"We made a piston operating pen, which we made about 1891 or 1892." (p. 188)
[This is the first and only contemporary reference to this extraordinarily rare pen that has been found to date. Only two surviving examples are known, both with cone-caps, suggesting manufacture no earlier than 1894.]

Ferris on the Waterman pump-filler:
"We make what we call the pump pen; that was made about 1895, and it was put out more generally about 1900. We experimented and sold a few of them." (p. 184)
"We made a . . . pump filling pen, which we made in 1898, and 1900 they came out more extensively." (p. 188)
[Followup query: "You soon abandoned those, didn't you?" Ferris: "We still make them; some people won't have anything else." Goading queries follow: "The pump filling pen keeps pumping after you stop pumping and pumps the ink all over your fingers, doesn't it?" and "You have to have a college education to use one?"]
Upon further questioning about the pump-filler being abandoned or currently sold in only small numbers, Ferris stated that pump-filler sales were still running at 15,000-20,000 per year. (p. 267)
[Full introduction of the pump-filler only several years after an initial trial release is consistent with the evidence of advertising, patents, and surviving specimens. Note too that Robert C. Liddell, manager of Waterman's retail department, testified that the pump-filler had been made for about ten or twelve years. (p. 340). One wonders if Ferris was exaggerating pump-filler sales, but even so, 15-20,000 was a pretty small share of a total annual pen production of over a million.]

Ferris on the Waterman coin-filler:
"We make what we call the sleeve pen which has a rubber sack in, and a coin slot pen which -- [interrupted] And a pen with a lever attachment." (p. 184)
Q. What is this coin slot pen? A. That is a pen with a slot in the side of the barrel that you use a coin or knife blade or edge that will go in and compress the sack and fill it.
Q. How long have you been manufacturing them? A. About two to three years.
Q. Since the beginning of this action in 1910? A. Yes. (p. 189)
Cross-examination:
Coin-filler included in a Waterman salesman's sample case assortment introduced as evidence. (pp. 265-66)
Q. How long have you sold those with the coin apparatus for filling? A. About four years.
Q. Since about the beginning of this suit? A. About that time. (p. 267)
[Waterman coin-fillers have been dated to around 1913, since their only known appearance in advertising was in that year. Their rarity has been taken to indicate a short period of production, but this testimony suggests that they were produced from c. 1910-15 at least, though probably not much later than that.]

Ferris on the Waterman lever-filler:
Mentioned last in a chronological account of Waterman's self-fillers (see under coin-filler above, p. 184)
Lever-fillers introduced "last year, about a year ago" (p. 188), "last year." (p. 267)
Liddell, when asked how long the lever-filler had been sold, responded "The last month or so." (p. 340)
[These dates are not necessarily entirely inconsistent, given that both Ferris and Liddell testified on February 16, 1915, and the likelihood that Ferris may well have overseen test releases some time prior to what Liddell would have seen overseeing the retail department. In any event, the trial record shows that Waterman produced its first PSF-series lever-fillers some months prior to their first appearance in advertisements in mid-March 1915.]


Ferris on the relative popularity of various Waterman pens:
Estimate that eyedroppers ("regulars") were about 50% by number of pens sold. (p. 187)
Reiterated on cross-examination. (p. 266)
Same figure provided by Liddell. (p. 339)
Q. In the beginning, at the beginning of this action in 1910, what proportion of your pens were the old fashioned kind that you filled with a dropper? A. Probably fifty or fifty-five per cent. (p. 267)
Estimate that safeties were around 15-20% of pens sold. (p. 267)

Ferris on Waterman and Aikin Lambert:
In response to questioning about the consolidation of Aikin Lambert and Waterman nib production, date of consolidation given as "1910, about." (p. 196)
Same date given on cross-examination, noting Waterman was buying small quantities of nibs from Aikin Lambert in the years prior. (pp. 274-75)
Q. When did the Waterman people first get control of Aiken-Lambert Company? [objection, overruled]
A. About 1907. (pp. 196-97)
[The timing of the takeover was discussed here; Ferris's testimony indicates that it took place quickly, despite the public denials of the parties involved at the time.]

Ferris on Waterman manufacturing:
As of 1915, the Days' hard rubber plant in Seymour, Connecticut was still independent, though nearly all of its output was for Waterman, and Waterman managers had the run of the plant. (p. 185)

Waterman's own nib factory started in 1900. (p. 185)
Previously, all nibs outsourced:  Q: In 1898 . . . you bought your pen points and your holders both, didn't you? A. We did. (p. 186)
Waterman continued to buy nibs from outside suppliers for years after starting own nib production. (p. 197)
Ferris evasive on buying nibs from other makers: "We have bought a few in the earlier years, but in the last eight or ten years we have made them all that we have used under the name Waterman." (pp. 185-86)
Q. When did you last buy any pen points from outsiders? A. Any pens with the Waterman name on, I should say it is seven or eight years. (p. 187)
[Ferris and others also testified about the process of hard rubber chasing, which I have put into another post. It is interesting that Ferris stated that nearly all Waterman pens were chased (p. 275), as that is borne out by the relative rarity of smooth hard rubber models from that era.]

Ferris on Waterman sub-brands:
Q. What other pens do you manufacture? A. We manufacture the pen under the name of Remex, Edson, Pen An Ink (sic). (p. 187) Q. You have a self filler Remex, don't you? A. We did. (p. 188)
[The Remex self-filler was a sleeve-filler with a rotating rather than a sliding sleeve, introduced around 1905; Ferris's answer suggests that it was no longer in production by 1915.]

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There are a few inconsistencies in Ferris's testimony, reminding us that no source can be used uncritically. Ferris was repeatedly asked how many different sizes of pens Waterman made, and repeatedly stated that there were seven, from size 2 to size 8 (p. 183, pp. 268) -- forgetting entirely to mention the biggest of all, the 10-size pens (a #10 nib is shown on p. 54 of Waterman's 1908 catalog, and the sale of a 10-size self-filler is recounted here). In the same exchange, Ferris also responded that Waterman sold pens with plain holders, chased holders, and mottled holders, forgetting to mention red (Cardinal) holders, which were standard catalogued items by this time. Asked when safety pen manufacture began, Ferris responded "about ten years" (p. 188), even though other evidence places it firmly in 1908, not 1905. Perhaps by this time Ferris was a "big picture" manager; the Waterman 20 (and at the other extreme, the "World's Smallest" No. 000) he might not have considered a regular production item -- present rarity likely reflecting past rarity, given that the survival rate of standout items is typically much greater than for the run of the mill. 

Chapmans vs Waterman: A pen history trove

Trial transcripts offer some of the richest repositories of behind-the-scenes historical information about the pen industry. The dispute itself is often of secondary interest, in comparison to what gets brought out in the testimony. This is very much the case with a volume I recently discovered on Google Books, which records the appeal by Isaac E. and William L. Chapman against the L. E. Waterman Company, heard in 1915 in the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division. This was the penultimate action in the long-running legal battle between Waterman and A. A. Waterman that was finally settled once and for all in 1917 -- a battle already treated at great length by George Kovalenko, to whom I will leave the task of analyzing the new material and incorporating it into the Waterman vs Waterman story.

What I intend to do instead, is to highlight some of the tangential information brought out in the testimony. This will take the form of multiple posts, so as to maintain a degree of organization by topic. Much of the new information has to do with Waterman, but covering everything from specific designs and models to manufacturing techniques to operational procedures in the repair departments -- plus the odd intriguing anecdote. The post topics are: Ferris' testimony; Safety pen patents; Notable pens; Chasing machines; and Miscellaneous.

Stylomine 303 self-filling safety

After an absence of too many years, I was back in Europe last week for the Hamburg and London pen shows. Travel is broadening when it comes to collecting, too. Had I never left the USA, I would probably never have learned about the pen featured here -- nor, finally, have had the opportunity to acquire one.

While to all outward appearances a normal black hard rubber French safety, it is nothing but. Instead of a turning knob at the end of the barrel, there is a blind cap. Turn it counterclockwise -- the opposite direction the end knob of a safety is turned -- and the nib extends from the barrel. Keep turning, and the blind cap comes off, revealing a rubber bulb. No eyedropper required: this safety can be filled from a bottle by itself. Note that the barrel threads are set back from the barrel mouth more than is usual, allowing the mouth to be dipped into ink for filling without getting ink into the threads.

As far as I know, these pens were sold almost entirely in France, yet they are very rare even there. A solution in search of a problem, perhaps -- but a wonderful bit of gadgetry! Coincidentally, a European pen friend was able to acquire another example just a couple of weeks ago, in mottled hard rubber with a gold filled overlay.

Waterman's year of innovation: 1908

Of all the Waterman catalogs from the company's Golden Age, the 1908 catalog is a standout. Richly produced and printed, it listed some of the most interesting, beautiful, and desirable pens ever made. Stationery trade journals fill out the picture, highlighting how many of Waterman's most notable innovations date to this time.

At the beginning of 1908, for example, Waterman introduced its "Baby" (not to be confused with the so-called "Doll" pen, aka "World's Smallest") and the "Check Book" pen. The illustrations above appeared on the front page of the January 11 issue of The American Stationer. On June 27, the same periodical's front page announced Waterman's introduction of a full-length slender model, called a "Secretary Pen", but now more commonly known to collectors by its model number, 12 1/2.

Just a month later, it was Waterman's first retracting-nib safety pen being introduced, initially offered in just three sizes (12VS, 14VS, 15VS, each in just one standard length) with the option of gold filled barrel bands and the choice of smooth or chased black hard rubber, or "Cardinal" red hard rubber.

And at the beginning of October, to bring our short survey full circle, the front-page news was Waterman's lavish new 1908 catalog, produced at a claimed cost of $25,000. Followup stories about the catalog and its impending distribution appeared on October 10 and October 17. It is unusual that we can now date the 1908 catalog so precisely -- and this isn't purely of academic interest. For example, there was recently a discussion about the marking of Waterman silver "Filigree" pattern pens, in particular when the "4" in the hundreds place began to be imprinted on the barrel end. I will probably end up summarizing the conclusions in a future post here, but a key bit of evidence is that the 1908 catalog is the first occasion on which it is explicitly stated that the full model code will be stamped on the butt end of each pen. For various reasons, this wouldn't square so well with the evidence of surviving pens if the catalog had been released at the beginning of 1908; it is entirely consistent, however, with an autumn publication date.

PS Perhaps not in the same category, yet significant nonetheless: Waterman's Canadian factory started producing pens towards the end of that very busy year, 1908.

Caw's trade card

The heyday of trade cards was the last couple of decades of the 19th century, so examples advertising fountain pens are rare. This one is a die-cut, but the "Caw's" seems to have been cut off!

For more on die-cut trade cards, see Burt Purmell's article here. Since this card lists the Caw's safety, it must have been printed no earlier than 1896.

Seals for Waterman safeties and Conklin Nozacs

We've been experimenting with substitutes for traditional seal materials for some time. In many cases, cork seals can be replaced with O-rings -- though finding the correct and almost always special-order sizes can take some doing.

After considerable trial-and-error, we've found what we believe to be the perfect seals for Waterman safety repair. The pen itself requires no modification, and the seals can be installed with minimal effort (cork seals in this case have to be cut very thin, with a high discard rate in both cutting and installation). The seals are listed here (scroll down), with a link to illustrated installation instructions.

Coming up very shortly are sets of seals for Conklin Nozacs. The Nozac is not like most piston-fillers, in that the Nozac piston does not come apart to allow a new washer-type seal to be slid into place. Replacement seals either have to be stretched over the piston head, or -- if made of cork -- sliced and glued around it. We will shortly be listing kits of O-rings that can be installed in pairs to provide a better-than-original seal with minimal effort and cost. Since Nozacs come in different sizes and with some variation in internal dimensions, our kits include four sizes of O-rings that should fit all Nozacs from 5000 to 7000-word size.