Lewis
Waterman patented the first practical
fountain pen in 1884. Writing
instruments designed to carry their own
supply of ink had existed in principle
for over one hundred years before
Waterman's patent. For example, the
oldest known fountain pen that has
survived today was designed by a
Frenchmen named M. Bion and dated 1702.
Peregrin Williamson, a Baltimore
shoemaker, received the first American
patent for a pen in 1809. John Scheffer
received a British patent in 1819 for
his half quill, half metal pen that he
attempted to mass manufacture. John
Jacob Parker patented the first
self-filling fountain pen in 1831.
However, early fountain pen models were
plagued by ink spills and other failures
that left them impractical and hard to
sell.
The
fountain pen's design came after a
thousand years of using quill-pens.
Early inventors observed the apparent
natural ink reserve found in the hollow
channel of a bird's feather and tried to
produce a similar effect, with a
man-made pen that would hold more ink
and not require constant dipping into
the ink well. However, a feather is not
a pen, only a natural object modified to
suit man's needs. Filling a long thin
reservoir made of hard rubber with ink
and sticking a metal 'nib' at the bottom
was not enough to produce a smooth
writing instrument. Lewis Waterman, an
insurance salesman, was inspired to
improve the early fountain pen designs
after destroying a valuable sales
contract with leaky-pen ink. Lewis
Waterman's idea was to add an air hole
in the nib and three grooves inside the
feed mechanism.
A
mechanism is composed of three main
parts. The nib, which has the contact
with the paper. The feed or black part
under the nib controls the ink flow from
the reservoir to the nib. The round
barrel that holds the nib and feed on
the writing end protects the ink
reservoir internally (this is the part
that you grip while writing).
All
pens contain an internal reservoir for
ink. The different ways that reservoirs
filled proved to be one of the most
competitive areas in the pen industry.
The earliest 19th century pens used an
eyedropper; by 1915, most pens had
switched to having a self-filling soft
and flexible rubber sac as an ink
reservoir. To refill these pens, the
reservoirs were squeezed flat by an
internal plate, then the pen's nib was
inserted into a bottle of ink and the
pressure on the internal plate was
released so that the ink sac would fill
up drawing in a fresh supply of ink.
Several different patents issued for the
self-filling fountain pen design:
-
The Button Filler: Patented in
1905 and first offered by the Parker
Pen Co. in 1913 as an alternative to
the eyedropper method. An external
button connected to the internal
pressure plate that flattened the
ink sac when pressed.
-
Lever Filler: Walter Sheaffer
patented the lever filler in 1908.
The W.A. Sheaffer Pen Company of
Fort Madison, Iowa introduced it in
1912. An external lever depressed
the flexible ink sac. The lever
fitted flush with the barrel of the
pen when it was not in use. The
lever filler became the winning
design for the next forty years, the
button filler coming in second.
-
Click Filler: First called the
crescent filler, Roy Conklin of
Toledo commercially produced the
first one. A later design by Parker
Pen Co. used the name click filler.
When two protruding tabs on the
outside of the pen pressed, the ink
sac deflated. The tabs would make a
clicking sound when the sac was full.
-
Matchstick Filler: Introduced
around 1910 by the Weidlich Company.
A small rod mounted on the pen or a
common matchstick depressed the
internal pressure plate through a
hole in the side of the barrel.
-
Coin Filler: Developed by Lewis
Waterman in an attempt to compete
with the winning lever filler patent
belonging to Sheaffer. A slot in the
barrel of the pen enabled a coin to
deflate the internal pressure plate,
a similar idea to the matchstick
filler.
There are
nine standard nib-sizes, with three
different nib-tip cuts: straight,
oblique and italic. The early inks
caused steel nibs to quickly corrode and
gold nibs held up to the corrosion.
Iridium used on the very tip of the nib
replaced gold because gold was too soft.
Most owners had their initials engraved
on the clip. It took about four months
to break in a new writing instrument
since the nib was designed to flex as
pressure was put on it (allowing the
writer to vary the width of the writing
lines) each nib wore down accommodating
to each owner's own writing style.
People did not tend to loan their
fountain pens to anyone for that reason.
The
ink cartridge introduced around 1950 was
a disposable, pre-filled plastic or
glass cartridges designed for clean and
easy insertion. They were an immediate
success. The introduction of the
ballpoints, however, overshadowed the
invention of the cartridge and dried up
business for the fountain pen industry.
Fountain pens sell today as a classic
writing instrument and the original pens
have become very hot collectibles.
Continue
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The Battle of the Ballpoints
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