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?

In 1934, after having finished its conversion from hard rubber to celluloid, Waterman needed something really new to punch up its image. “New,” did I say? Well, sort of. The old reliable Postal (bulb) filler, tarted up with a compound lever arrangement that would have made old Rube proud, appeared on a dramatic new line of Art Deco-styled pens called Waterman’s Ink-Vue. These babies, given the model number 84, came in striking colors that had appeared a year earlier on the Nº 7, called Silver Ray and Emerald Ray. Later Jet joined the Ink-Vue line, and later yet came Copper Ray, which I consider the prettiest of all. My Copper Ray is a nearly perfect specimen, marred only by the usual ambering of its barrel celluloid. Its Red Nº 7 nib writes marvelously. At 5³/₃₂" capped, 6²¹/₃₂" posted, it’s a pen that fits comfortably in the pocket and is “typically Waterman” in the way it posts very long for its size.

A couple of years after the Ink-Vue appeared, Waterman reengineered it to reduce the cost. The redesign, given the model number 5116, brought with it a new set of celluloid patterns; gone were the Ray colors in favor of an elegant pinstriped pattern in silver or brown that featured a small ink-view window instead of transparent rays along the barrel. This new Type 2 Ink-Vue has turned out to be a virtual nightmare for modern repairers trying to replace the sac. I tried to repair several of these pens using Frank Dubiel’s technique as outlined in Da Book, with a grand total of zero successes. An epiphany in February 2010 led to the easy and 100% reliable restoration of this pen. It’s 5¹/₈" capped and 6²³/₃₂" posted, and it’s fitted with a lovely fine Waterman Nº 5 flexie.

Waterman began its conversion from hard rubber to celluloid in 1929 with the introduction of the Patrician, an oversize pen of classic Art Deco design. A year later, the diminutive Lady Patricia joined her larger brother, and in 1932 Waterman added to its offering the gorgeous Moss-Agate color worn by my Lady Patricia. (Byt the Lady Patricia didn’t appear in Moss-Agate until 1934.) At 4²¹/₃₂" capped and 5¹/₈" posted, this really is a lady’s pen — but it also features a very good “military” clip. Its semiflexible fine nib is smooth and reliable.

Stir together the Lady Patricia and the Ink-Vue (above), and what you get is a charming little pen with one of the prettiest transparency patterns ever used. My Ink-Vue Lady Patricia pen, in the lovely pearlescent red that Waterman called Sunset, is 4⁹/₁₆" capped and 5⁵/₈" posted. The matching pencil is 4⁷/₁₆" long. The pen is fitted with a semiflexible extra fine nib, and I’m not having any trouble with the small size. (This is one of the few pens I post.)

Look, Ma, No Sac!

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Pelikan introduced a reliable screw-knob piston-filling pen in 1929, and many European manufacturers — especially in Germany — followed suit. But piston fillers didn’t catch on in the United States. Back in the day, the only successful U.S.-made piston filler was the Conklin Nozac (“no sac”), which made its appearance in 1931.

Back in the day, a demonstrator was a pen made for shop assistants to use in showing the pen’s features to prospective purchasers. Conklin made Nozac demonstrators and also offered clear pens to consumers. I stumbled over an opportunity to own this clear Nozac that was sold at retail; and although there are a few stress cracks in the barrel such that I don't think it’s safe to use, I went ahead and bought it anyway. It’s been restored, and it’s a wonderful educational device. At 5⁷/₃₂" capped and 6³/₃₂" posted, it’s about as standard as it can get for a Nozac. The redder part of the barrel is the ink reservoir, showing pretty clearly how ink can discolor celluloid by oxidation. (The color pervades the entire thickness of the barrel in the darker area; it’s not simply staining.)

At some point relatively early in the Nozac’s product life, Conklin tried a version with a two-piece barrel, allowing a completely clear reservoir with an opaque area to concel the piston mechanism. This design was also less costly to manufacture. My two-piece Nozac 5⁹/₃₂" capped and 6³/₁₆" posted.

Like others among the Big Four, Conklin (which had actually been supplanted in that rarefied group by Eversharp) produced pens for other retailers. I rather enjoy “third party” pens like that, and when this Conklin-made R.H. Macy pen came my way I offered its owner a very nice faceted 5-M Word Gauge for it. I really hope the trade was equally pleasing in both directions. This pen, 5¹/₄" capped and 6⁷/₃₂" posted, is a very comfortable writer with its fine nib.

Interestingly, Conklin didn’t restrict the Nozac sobriquet to the excellent piston fillers for which the name was created. Sometime in the middle of the 1930s, almost certainly after Sheaffer did it, Conklin came out with a plunger filler called the Nozac Q.F. (Quick Filling). Outwardly almost identical to its piston-filling sibling, it nonetheless bears a few giveaway markers. The blind cap is more smoothly bullet-like in shape, and the Word Gauge makes clear that this pen has a much greater capacity than the piston version (8M on this pen’s barrel vs. 5M on the barrel of the same-sized piston pen above). With a nice smooth — but otherwise ordinary — fine nib, my Q.F. is 5¹/₄" capped and 6¹⁷/₆₄" posted.

Everyone knows Tiffany. But not everyone knows who actually makes Tiffany’s products. At different times, different pen manufacturers have provided writing instruments for Tiffany; in the 1920s, New York’s W. S. Hicks & Sons made quite a few. My Hicks Tiffany is solid 14K gold, but it’s not heavy -- instead, it’s very nice repoussé work on a relatively thin metal body. At 3²⁵/₃₂" uncapped and 4¹/₃₂" capped, it’s a small pen. I don’t know how long it would be posted because I’m not willing to risk scoring the gold barrel. The nib is a WARRANTED medium that writes smoothly.