Skills For "Living The Era"

[St. Louis]

Does anyone know how to fill a fountain pen? I only own the kind that takes cartridges but would love to find a nice one from the 1930s that fills up with ink.

Would anyone know how to tell whether a particular pen works, short of trying it out? Thanks!

 

[Shangas]

I know a lot about fountain pens. Fire away.

 

[jamespowers]

Does anyone know how to fill a fountain pen? I only own the kind that takes cartridges but would love to find a nice one from the 1930s that fills up with ink.

Would anyone know how to tell whether a particular pen works, short of trying it out? Thanks!

There are several different types to deal with but this should just about cover them all:
http://www.levenger.com/fill-a-fountain-pen-887.aspx

 

[Shangas]

I think in the history of the fountain pen, there's something like two or three dozen different filling-mechanisms. You can find a full list of them at www.richardspens.com (the fountain pen bible, that website is).

The main ones are:

Button
Lever
Crescent
Piston
Plunger
C/C (cartridge/converter).
Eyedropper.
Squeeze.
Vacumatic.

As far as vintage pens are concerned (up to about 1960/1970), the main ones were button, lever, plunger, squeeze and vacumatic. Crescent-fillers were common from about 1900-1925. Some companies have revived the crescent-filler (Aurora is one, I believe. I think Visconti, as well).

Knowing IF A PEN WORKS is very easy. But this should be done with CAUTION.

If it's a lever-pen, then lift the filling-lever (take the pen-cap off, first!).

If the lever pops up, and then snaps down firmly, that means the sac inside *should* be pliable and soft and springy.

Or, it might mean that it's all gunky and soft and useless. You'll know which one, depending on how fast the lever snaps back to the closed position (a good sac will spring back and snap the lever down).

Alternatively, the lever might not move at all (or move very little).

This means that the sac has been ossified (hardened). DO NOT FORCE THE LEVER. You'll break the pin, or bend the lever and break the pressure-bar inside. You'll have to get this pen re-sacced (there are people out there who do this. Most of them are in the U.S.A.).

A button-filler pen works by pressing a button down, which flexes a pressure-bar, flattens the sac, then releasing the button relaxes tension on the bar, which creates the suction in the sac to draw up the ink. If the button does not depress, then the sac is ossified, and like the lever-filler, it should NOT be forced. A bit more pressure than what you would use with a modern click-pen is necessary, but if you find yourself really pressing down hard...and it ain't budging...then it's stuffed. And must be re-sacced.

Most pen companies manufactured lever-fill pens. Parker didn't (at least I don't think it did), and it mostly manufactured squeeze-fillers, or button-fillers.

Another way of knowing whether the sac of the pen is good, is to try and fill it up (with water, just in case!).

Put the pen in a glass of water and try to fill it. Look at all the bubbles.

You should have a few, nice, big bubbles.

If you have lots of little bubbles, then there's a leak in the sac. Or it's gone soft and doesn't work.

Once you've filled the pen, take it out and empty it into the glass again. A working pen will squirt out a long jet of water in a steady stream. A non-functional pen will dribble the water out in drops, spray it out, or just not eject any water at all.

 

[John in Covina]

Does anyone know how to fill a fountain pen? I only own the kind that takes cartridges but would love to find a nice one from the 1930s that fills up with ink. Would anyone know how to tell whether a particular pen works, short of trying it out? Thanks!

There are a number of filling systems used in the vintage era for fountain pens.

As such there are systems that are much more difficult to get repaired. Plunger systems can be tough. many pens used a rubber sack as the resorvior and were filled using a lever. Those are the most simple to have repaired usually, if the lever system has not been damaged. parker used a blind cap wth a push button in many pens, some are more simple than others. one type that is used today is piston fill where the body of the pen is the reservoir and the end cap is twisted to fill, see pelikan and montblanc. Cartridge pens often can use a converter with is similar to the piston fill but in a seperate device like the cartridge.


Knowing if a pen works or not without trying it is called ESP. If you are going to buy a vintage pen it is best to deal with a collector that can telll you if it has been refurbished to work. there may be a pen club in your area or you might try to find collectors or a pen show of an old pen shop. If they can do repairs on site for fountain pens they will often have vintage to sell.

For 1930's pens you can look for Parker, Shaeffer, Waterman, Wahl-Eversharp, Chilton, le beuf, and many brands that are now extinct.

Check with your relatives and see if anyone has Granpa's pen or uncle so and so's pen. If they aren't badly damaged a refurbishing by a repair guy or a collector that does repairs will be less expensive that buyng something.

If you feel like hopping on a Jet the LA pen show is in about 12 days Sunday at the Marriott in Manhattan Beach tons of pens there. If you're wanting to do toe dipping pen buy an Esterbrook that's been refurbished for $35-50. Great pens the nib and feed screws out and they made about 3 dozen different ones for different writing styles.

 

[Shangas]

Please spell it correctly.

SHEAFFER.

In the 1920s-1950s, the big pen companies were Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, and Wahl-Eversharp. They were called the "Big Four".

Models of the 1930s included things like the Parker Duofold & Vacumatic lines, the Sheaffer Balance line, and into the 1940s, the Eversharp Skyline.

Just keep in mind that during the 20s and 30s, a fountain pen was a luxury item. A Parker Duofold cost $7.00 in an age when a meal and drink cost about 10c.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Indeed. A lot more people used dollar Esterbrooks from the drugstore, which is why those pens are still very easy to find today, and why the higher-end pens are so valuable.

Most people made do with a plain steel dip pen clipped into a wooden "penholder." Writing with one of these requires a certain knack, as to knowing just how much ink you want to pick up at a dip, but it's an easy skill to pick up with practice.

 

[Wally_Hood]

I still write and use checks regularly. Sometimes you need that lag between writing the check, when it's deposited, and when it clears, if you know what I mean. That's a very very vintage skill. Instantaneous payments are not the friend of the little people.

A strategy I have used for years.

 

[John in Covina]

If you are interested in foutain pens Paul Erano's book has some great pictures and has extensive list of the vintage era foutain pen manufacturers.

http://www.amazon.com/Fountain-Pens-Past-Present-Erano/dp/1574323857

 

[Shangas]

Indeed. A lot more people used dollar Esterbrooks from the drugstore, which is why those pens are still very easy to find today, and why the higher-end pens are so valuable.

Most people made do with a plain steel dip pen clipped into a wooden "penholder." Writing with one of these requires a certain knack, as to knowing just how much ink you want to pick up at a dip, but it's an easy skill to pick up with practice.

I never understood why, up well into the 1930s and 40s, and in some places, even the 50s, students were forced to write in school with dip-pens. It was only after I studied the history of fountain pens that I really understood why dip pens lasted for so long into the 20th century. My dad, I think, grew up writing in school with dip-pens. That was back in the 50s.

 

[dnjan]

The desks in my grade school still had the ink-wells.

 

[John in Covina]

Just keep in mind that during the 20s and 30s, a fountain pen was a luxury item. A Parker Duofold cost $7.00 in an age when a meal and drink cost about 10c.

Many manufacturers did make less expensive pens during the depression era like the Parker Parkette. There were high end pens but many were made in a variety of levels of cost usually based on the trim no gold, gold washed, gold plated, sold gold. The thing people today don't realize is that a foutain pen isn't / wasn't a disposable item but considered a lifetime purchase.

Sheaffer is my least favorite of the big four, that's why I rarely spell it right.

 

[John in Covina]

The desks in my grade school still had the ink-wells.

They were there but we did not use them.

 

[dnjan]

They were there but we did not use them.

We didn't use them either, but we knew what they were. So it couldn't have been in the too-distant past ...

 

[jamespowers]

The desks in my grade school still had the ink-wells.

Right next to the hammer and chisel?

 

[Shangas]

Did you bring your own slabs of marble to school or were they provided free of charge? Or did P.E. class involve quarrying new writing-surfaces?

 

[jamespowers]

Did you bring your own slabs of marble to school or were they provided free of charge? Or did P.E. class involve quarrying new writing-surfaces?

:rofl:
Ok, now realistically, my mother and father bothy used dip pens in school---until graduation. I still have them somewhere around here---not that I would be able to write with them. I can write with a nib pen but I can't go that far back.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I never understood why, up well into the 1930s and 40s, and in some places, even the 50s, students were forced to write in school with dip-pens. It was only after I studied the history of fountain pens that I really understood why dip pens lasted for so long into the 20th century. My dad, I think, grew up writing in school with dip-pens. That was back in the 50s.

"Public" pens in hotels, banks and post offices were still dip pens well into the middle of the century -- ballpoints came out after the war, but it was years before they were as reliable or as cost-effective as dip pens and inkwells. It wasn't until 1956 that the U. S. Post Office Department authorized the use of ballpoints.

 

[Shangas]

BP pens came under a lot of fire when they came out. They were leaky, expensive, and unreliable.

Just like fountain pens were.

In fact, I think it was Grahame Greene who once said that the ballpoint pen was only good for filling out immigration forms on the airplane ('cause the pen didn't leak at altitude), and for absolutely nothing else at all!!

"public pens" were indeed common. You'd find them at hotels, railway stations, post-offices and so-forth. They're mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and also in the book "Stuart Little", if memory serves.

I recall a part in the book where Stuart is lowered head-first into a public inkwell by his tail, so that he can fill his tiny fountain pen at the post-office!

 

[LizzieMaine]

John Updike wrote a lovely piece for the New Yorker lamenting the end of the post office dip pen:

"We liked the old pens... True, they were splayed, split,and encrusted, but seeing a herd of scrawny cattle we do not curse their suffering..."

Full piece here.