President Taft's other pen

A while ago I wrote about a special Waterman made for presentation to President Taft. Inquiries about this pen to the William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Ohio went unanswered, so I'll try to contact them once again this coming week. In the meantime, here is a picture of a presentation pen that the Taft site definitely has in their collection. According to the description at the Ohio Memory site:

This gold quill pen was presented to William Howard Taft by Pope Leo XIII in 1903. The pen was used in signing the agreement between the Vatican and United States stating that the church-controlled land in the Philippines would be sold to the Philippines.

Sending an Eversharp home

Sometimes the sale is as interesting as the item. In this case, a fine silver-plated Eversharp pencil is now headed back to where it was manufactured -- as a gift to residents of the Roscoe Village Lofts, as the residential conversion of the former Wahl-Eversharp factory at 1800 Roscoe Street in Chicago is now known. The image below is from Wahl's 1928 catalog, available online through the PCA Reference Library.

Dissecting the Dictator

When this silver-overlaid Dictator fountain pen turned up at this year's Chicago Pen Show auction, a couple of thoughts went through my head. One was that this was a very well-made pen with a quirky design that few other bidders were likely to recognize: an ink-making sleeve-filler intended to be filled with water, with a powdered ink reservoir in the section. The other was that it had been many years since I had worked on a Dictator, and that while I did not remember the gory details, it had been an absolute beast to resac.

Nothing daunted, I brought the pen home and took it apart. And for good measure, I took apart two other Dictators I happened to have around the shop, photographing all three and taking notes. It was as beastly as I had remembered -- but now the details are recorded for posterity and future repairs should be much easier!

The picture above shows a plain black chased hard rubber Dictator that came apart nicely, albeit with lots of slow and gentle persuasion. You can see that the section consists of two parts that screw together, allowing access to the ink reservoir. What you can't see is that the barrel is fully lined with metal -- the sleeve-filler housing extends all the way through the barrel to its mouth -- and that the back half of the section is made of celluloid, and is especially thin-walled right where it gets the most stress during disassembly. Breakage here is extremely common, and since all other non-metal parts of these pens are conventional black hard rubber, it's all too easy to overdo it with the heat, further multiplying the chances of bad results. The picture below illustrates typical breakage, though in this example the broken part is hard rubber, not celluloid.

In order to make a repair with sufficient strength, a brass tubing liner was turned to fit and was epoxied inside. Luckily there was plenty of clearance between the inner walls of the ink-mixing chamber and the narrow ink reservoir tube inside. The inside of the brass tube was then given a protective coating of black-tinted epoxy to prevent direct contact between ink and metal. On reassembly, the inner walls of the barrel lining were cleaned and the mating surfaces lightly waxed to prevent them from seizing up.

But what about disassembly, you ask? Well, you may get lucky and succeed in wiggling out the section in the conventional manner. A bit of naphtha (lighter fluid) into the joint to loosen things up, heat applied to the metal of the filler housing, and a gentle patient touch. A safer approach, however, is to use a tube sized to fit over the sac nipple to apply pressure from the filler housing end, pushing the section out from the inside (unscrew and set aside the front section assembly first: this will prevent the ink reservoir from being damaged by being forced against the back of the feed). Indeed, this is the only approach that can be used if the section plug is already broken off inside the the barrel.

Even when pushing from the inside, however, naphtha and heat may not be enough to loosen things up. The pen with the gold filled overlay shown above had shellac all over its interior. In this case the broken-off plug was hard rubber, so I could soak the assembly in alcohol to free it up. More often, the plug is celluloid, so the best option is ammonia, which must be carefully kept off the exterior of a hard rubber barrel and away from the gold nib. Stand the barrel vertically, threads downwards, and drop the ammonia inside the filler housing so that it collects around the sac nipple, soaking the joint between liner and plug. Note that there is a threaded tubular plug that goes into the end of the sac nipple. It is reverse-threaded, and only needs to be removed if the powdered ink reservoir is to be replaced. This is a feature common to all Dictator pens.

The Dictator Pen Company was incorporated in New York City early in 1920 and then reorganized in August 1921 as a Delaware corporation (the company was always based in New York; the Delaware incorporation would have been for legal purposes). How any changes in the company's structure or ownership relate to production of their pens is not entirely clear, but a September 1921 advertisement states that the pen has "just been introduced, the first advertising appearing in New York July 14th." A note appearing in the February 11, 1922 issue of United States Investor gives more details about the company, including this:

The Dictator Company is using the plant of the Standard Vulcanite Pen Company of which (Dictator Vice-President John Douglas) Turner is president. It has been understood that the company is being merged with the Dictator Company. The Standard Vulcanite Pen Company has been in existence for some two years [in fact, it had been incorporated in 1913 - D.]. Opinions differ as to the merits of the Dictator Pen. Stock of the Dictator Company is being sold by Wheten and O'Dare Inc. Thousands of dollars must be expended in advertising a new article before any kind of a demand for it can be said to exist. Some money is being spent in advertising the Dictator pen but we believe that more attention is being given to the sale of stock at this time. In view of the fact that the merits of the pen must be proven over a period of time and a demand for it built up we cannot consider the stock of the company other than a doubtful speculation.

The company does not appear to have survived for much beyond this. In the Schenectady Gazette of January 11, 1927, the business section published a reader's inquiry: "I should like to have you tell me something about Dictator Fountain Pen stock of which I bought in 1922". The response: "The stocks are worthless . . . Dictator Fountain Pen was a hopeless promotion and never made a scratch on the surface of Wall Street."

A number of US patents relate to the Dictator -- 1433325, 1443515, and 1450398, in particular -- but oddly enough it is British patent 178406 that most closely describes the pen as actually manufactured. Aside from the components relating to the powdered ink reservoir, Dictator pens are nearly identical in construction to the sleeve-fillers produced by the Standard Vulcanite Pen Company.

The inventor and main promoter of the Dictator pen was Arthur Winter. Dictator production did not last long, but Winter kept on inventing, receiving patents for other items as late as 1957. There appears to be no connection between the American Dictator pen company and the British-made Dictator button-fillers.

Dating a Vacumatic pencil

While some pens and pencils can be dated precisely by date codes or hallmarks, most can only be dated approximately. Nonetheless, some items can be dated much more closely than others, which unfortunately isn't usually explicitly noted in our catalog listings. The pencil above, for example, we listed as circa 1933. It is strongly imprinted, but lacks the date code that Parker started using in 1934. The same basic pencil was test-marketed in 1932 as a Golden Arrow, but since this pencil bears a standard generic Parker imprint, the odds are overwhelming that it was produced in 1933 -- a good thing, since its purchaser was looking for an item produced in just that year!

A rotten tube

Today was Parker 51 day at the repair bench. Opened up a mid-1950s Aerometric, first pulling off the filler housing and then the sac, revealing the sterling silver breather tube. At first glance the tube looked as if it might still be serviceable, but its floppiness called for a closer look. Click on the image above and you'll see what I saw. Rather spectacularly corroded (the right side is the one originally stuck into the feed), so it was promptly replaced with a new stainless steel unit.

Unusual Parker 51 caps

Just for fun, here are a couple of rather special 51 caps. The one above is silver, though unmarked; there is an indicia for engraving, typical of early-production caps, and a very widely spaced pattern of alternating straight and squiggly lines. This cap came from the wild, and I've never seen another example.

The next cap is a bit rough, which shows that its construction is rather out of the ordinary. Neither stainless steel ("Lustraloy") nor silver, it appears to be brass or cupronickel plated with either rhodium or chrome. Yes, the clip is a bit unusual, too: the pen is Canadian, with the characteristic square side profile to the clip and the high-placed Blue Diamond. The barrel imprint doesn't have a legible date code, but the nib is dated 1947.

Silicone ink sacs: additional notes

We've been selling (and using) silicone pen sacs for several months now. Here are a few notes on what we've learned from the resulting in-the-field experience:

• Although we started out using and recommending the traditional standby, shellac, for attaching these sacs, we have found that a stronger and more reliable seal is provided by a silicone sealant such as Devcon Silicone Adhesive 12045 (Loctite 908570 is another brand successfully used by customers). It should be noted that these silicone adhesives give off acetic acid as they cure, and most contain some petroleum distillates. Sac nipples of hard rubber will not be affected, nor are hard plastics such as acrylic and polycarbonate likely to be vulnerable. Celluloid could be affected, but this is more a theoretical than a practical concern given the very small quantity of sealant required for sac attachment. In practice, I have had no problems to date using silicone adhesive to attach silicone sacs to celluloid sections (noting that the solvent in shellac, alcohol, is also a solvent for celluloid, which would seem much more problematical in comparison).
• The traditional sac sizing scale is always explained as representing the outside diameter of the sac in 64ths of an inch. Conventional latex sacs, all of which are now made by dip-molding, vary significantly in wall thickness and hence in outside diameter, but even the largest in a batch of conventional #18 sacs are going to be well under 18/64". Why is this? As far as I can tell, the sac size number in fact represents the inside diameter of the smallest barrel a given sac will fit -- a measurement necessarily  slightly greater than the outside diameter of the sac. Our first size of silicone sacs measures a true 18/64", slightly larger in diameter than conventional latex #18 sacs. Future sizes will be adjusted to bring them into line with extant sac size charts; we are considering re-labeling our #18 sacs as #18 1/2 for the same reason.
• Silicone rubber offers a number of advantages over latex, but there are areas where latex is superior. Gas permeability is one: air and water vapor will diffuse through silicone much faster than through other rubbers and plastics -- around 26 times faster than through PVC, according to one source. Knowing this, we put our first silicone sacs through extensive real-world tests. Our main concern was that ink might thicken due to evaporation, but in actual use we ended up refilling the test pens well before any noticeable thickening occurred. Recently, however, we have become aware of another way in which silicone's permeability can be an issue, albeit an easily managed one. It seems that if a pen with a silicone sac is left lying horizontally, after a couple of days the feed will become saturated and will drop ink into the cap. The solution is simple: if you aren't going to use a pen for a while, store it with the nib elevated. In fact, this was standard advice from all the old-time pen companies, and is a practice that is second nature to vintage pen enthusiasts. The pen doesn't have to be stood on end -- resting on a slant is quite enough.

More sac sizes will be on their way in the next few months, starting with the 14 to 17 range. Getting the molds adjusted properly takes some trial and error, but better to get the sacs right even if it takes a bit more time and expense up front.

Greek nib followup

A couple of months back I posted a request for information about an American-made nib with a Greek imprint. I can now reveal that the nib (shown again above) was found on the pen shown below, which came directly from a family house on a Greek island.

Perhaps more useful in tracking down the origin of these nibs, however, is the pen shown below: an eyedropper with an Aikin Lambert nib, and to all appearances of Aikin Lambert manufacture, but with a Greek barrel imprint and a wide band at the top of the cap with a portrait of King Constantine in enamel.

Constantine I reigned from 1913 to 1917, and again from 1920 to 1927. The design of the pen, the presence of a V. V. clip in particular, suggests that it was made to commemorate the accession of 1913.

The barrel imprint is shown above. Between two Greek flags, it reads: "ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΜΕΛΑΝΟΦΟΡΟΣ ΠΕΝΑ/ΑΔΕΛΦWΝ ΚΡΗΤΙΚΑΚΗ NEW YORK" (Greek black-clad [correction: "ink-holding"] pen/of the Brothers Kretikaki, New York). There can be no doubt that the "A. K." on the mystery nib stands for Αδελφων Κρητικακη -- the Kretikaki (or Kritikaki) Brothers.

The same barrel imprint is also found on a pen recently sold on eBay which also bears a fancy enameled band at the top of the cap, this one with the Greek flag. The nib bears the same ΩPAIA/EΛΛAΣ imprint as the snake pen, with the "A. K." below.

To add one more example to the series, yet another nib is shown below. Its imprint is slightly different: the Greek flag is not present, nor is the article "H" in front of "ΩPAIA".

There are no other imprints on the pen that bears this nib, which is shown above. Like the other pens in this group, it once had a V. V. clip (the mounting holes in the cap are distinctive), and while it is of excellent quality, it clearly was made by one of the smaller penmakers: possible candidates would include Aikin Lambert, A. A. Waterman, Carey, Eagle, and Wirt.

As yet I have not been able to find any trace of any Kretikaki or Kritikaki brothers in New York, excepting a record of an 11-year-old Autigony Kritikaki passing through Ellis Island in 1908. There is a Kritikaki Brothers company in Greece that is currently active in tile and other construction materials, and perhaps it would be worth contacting them to inquire about the history of their company.

ADDENDUM: Yet another report of a fancy pen with the same nib, this one a Heath silver filigree over red hard rubber. Although our sample size is still very small, the great variety of pens is striking. No two are alike, and the main commonality is that they are all flashy, of excellent quality, and made using components that were generally available in the greater New York City fountain pen industry. This suggests that the Kritikaki Brothers were not aiming to sell large quantities of a limited selection of designs, but rather to offer a broad range of distinct individual items to a boutique clientele. I would further speculate that this business came to a crashing halt with the start of WW1 -- first with the curtailment of shipping, then with the split of Greece into the Kingdom of Greece and New Greece in 1916 -- and that the pens found to date in the United States were inventory stranded and eventually sold off in New York (there is an interesting report from the US Consul in Thessaloniki, published in February of 1917, about the market for fountain pens in New Greece, but if one looks at contemporary reports from New York, availability of shipping to Greece could not be counted upon).

UPDATE: After seven years, the answer is at hand! Read all about it here.

Mystery pencil

 

For collectors of pens and pencils, there's always something new. In this case, that something is a bit of a mystery. Vulcanite and Goodyear's patent are all clear enough, but what on Earth is a "percussion pencil"?!

The leads seem conventional enough (no, they don't explode). Any suggestions?

A very unusual Waterman lever-filler

 

Early Waterman lever-fillers have long been an interest of mine. The pen shown above is one of the rarest, though at first glance it seems normal enough. If you can't guess what makes it special, take a look at the end of the barrel.

Yes, it predates Waterman's adoption of the 5X numbering for lever-fillers -- and the pressure bar is the early two-piece sprung version, with the J-spring toggled into the bar. But it's not a PSF: it's an SF.