Richard’s Pen Collection : Vintage American Fountain Pens

Writing instruments on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. Click the magnifying-glass symbol () next to any pen to view a zoomed image for more detail.

What pens am I carrying today?

X Marks the Spot

Profile

In 1956, Parker introduced the radical capillary-filling 61, a pen that actually does fill itself without user assistance. Very few of the competition decided to follow Parker along the capillary road, but one that did was Waterman. Then in its death throes in the U.S.A., the company looked to JiF Waterman, its French licensee, and the result in 1957 was the X-Pen. The filling system of the X-pen is amazingly simple and economical; althought Waterman rang a couple of changes along the way, the basics of the system rely on a piece of gauze or muslin rolled into a cigarette shape in the barrel and, instead of an ordinary feed, a strip of material resenbling blotter paper to convey the ink to the nib. The barrel is not removable; to fill the pen, you immerse the nib. The major disadvantage of this filler is that you can’t allow an X-Pen to dry out; you must ensure that you keep the pen filled “forever.”

The original X-Pen, represented by the pens here, bears a strong resemblance to the Taperite, with the same reliable “military’” clip that had made its first appearance on the Hundred Year Pen in the 1930s. At 5¹/₈" capped and 5⁹/₁₆" posted, my first X-Pen is black with a gold-filled cap, and if features a remarkably smooth fine 14K gold nib. The logo shown to the left is the imprint that Waterman used on the clips of early X-Pens, as you can see on the pen shown here.

As it had done with many models for decades, Waterman designed versions of the X-Pen at various price levels and in several sizes. The X-Pen Junior is a little thinner and a little lighter than its larger sibling, with a steel nib and a ribbed anodized aluminum cap. My brown Junior is 5⁷/₃₂" capped and 5⁵/₈" posted, and its F steel nib is very nice.

Things were changing at the end of the 1930s, most especially styles. Wahl-Eversharp found the Art Deco elegance of its Coronet, Doric, and Pacemaker models suddenly going out of fashion, and as the company scrambled to produce pens that the public wanted, it came up with this inexpensive Gold Seal model, whose name I don’t know. The barrel imprint reads only EVERSHARP MADE IN U. S. A. Priced at $5.00, this pen is not known to have been produced in colors other than the burgundy that Wash-Eversharp called Dubonnet Red. This is the last of the Gold Seal pens; its successor was the best-selling Eversharp Skyline.

With a fine manifold nib that is very typical of the good writers for which Wahl-Eversharp was known, this pen is 5⁵/₃₂" capped and 6⁵/₁₆" posted. Its fit and finish are not typical of the high quality for which the Gold Seal had come to stand, however, and it may be just as well that the symbol had reached the end of its run.

Safety First

Design Features

The L. E. Waterman Company débuted its twist-knob retractable safety pen in 1907 or 1908, and the design proved quite popular. Waterman itself continued making retractables, possibly as late as the 1930s, and imitators both domestic and foreign jumped into the game. (My guess is that Francis C. Brown, who held the patent, made a bundle on royalties!) The little knob at the back of the barrel would seem a bit small for most people to grasp comfortably, but the idea was that you would post the cap and then use the whole cap as a knob. It works very, very well.

My Waterman safety, a BHR pen made in 1916 or 1917, is an Ideal Nº 15S that is fitted with a delightful moderately soft fine stub Nº 5 nib. Capped, the pen is 5¹¹/₃₂"; posted, it’s 6⁵/₈".

Sheaffer’s Stylist premièred in 1964. Apparently taking styling cues from Parker’s successful 45, the Stylist has a distinct barrel shape, tapered at both ends. Unlike Parker’s ubiquitous washer clip, however, the clip of the Stylist retains Sheaffer’s spring-loaded pivot design to give a firm grip with no risk of springing of the other sort. What makes the Stylist particularly cool is its two-sided nib, a spear clamped between the feed and a reinforcing projection that looks like a mirror image of the feed. This reversible design anticipates that of the Parker 180 by more than a decade.

As was typical of pen manufacture until the widespread appearance of stock nib units used by many makers, a given company’s uniquely engineered chassis (in this case the Stylist) appeared in a broad range of trims and at several price levels. At 5⁷/₁₆" capped, 5⁵/₈" posted, my first Stylist shows the low end of the range with a chrome-plated cap and a sea-green body. This pen has an F/XF nib.

Later, Sheaffer also sold Stylists with small “Triumph” points, the same as were used on the Skripserts of the late 1950s. My next Stylist is a high-line model in Brushed Chrome, with gold-plated furniture. (No, it’s not a Flighter. It’s not made of stainless steel, and Parker didn’t make it.) This pen is fitted with a stub “Triumph” point, and it stretches 5¹/₂" capped and 5⁷/₈" posted.