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?

Founded in 1858 by John W. Carter, The Carter's Ink Company did very well with its ink products for decades, but in the 1920s it decided to venture into pen manufacture. Beginning in 1924, Carter produced fountain pens until about 1932, when the weight of the Depression brought home the business maxim “Don’t abandon your core competency” and the company abandoned pen production in favor of ink, which had built the company and was still Carter’s essential product. Carter’s pens, marketed initially as just The Carter’s Pen but later branded INX, were produced in several models at varying price points, and were all of very high quality. Carter also developed an innovative lever filler, based on a design by William P. DeWitt (U.S. Patent Nº 1,490,735), that included a secondary spring to assist in returning the lever to its closed position and keeping it there.

My blue celluloid Carter’s Pen is a flat-top, Model 5223. It’s a full-size pen, 5³/₃₂" capped and 6²³/₃₂" posted. I became interested in Carter’s pens because of their unique lever design, and when I found out how well made they are, things just got better. The clip turns out also to be interesting; it's a reliable and elegantly fitted spring-loaded design.

My later Carter’s, which I acquired first, is a streamlined Jade Green INX ringtop, not a large pen at 4²¹/₃₂" capped and 5²¹/₃₂" posted but quite nice in use with its firm fine nib. This pen also provided a great learning experience. When I purchased it, the trim band at the back end of the barrel was missing; and I had to figure out how to make and install a replacement.

Eversharp’s hot pen in the 1940s was the gloriously streamlined Skyline, but not every streamlined Eversharp was a Skyline. There were lesser models, pens with even less cachet than the Streamliner (a Skyline without a wrapover clip). One such “bottom feeder” was this pen, whose model name I don’t know. Featuring gold-plated furniture instead of the more costly gold-filled trim on the Skyline, this pen nevertheless worked identically where it counts, under the skin. My Dubonnet Red pen is 4²⁹/₃₂" capped and 6¹/₈" posted, and it has a very firm extra-fine nib of typical Eversharp quality. This is a top-line model in its line, with a large nib, a cap band, and an ink-view section. Lesser versions had smaller nibs and lacked the other luxuries that make this example a pretty nice pen.

King of the Rookery

Design Features

L. E. Waterman made a bundle selling helical-cam safety pens, but the design was the patented fruit of Francis C. Brown’s genius, and Brown was the first to put it on the market in his Caw’s “Safety” pen. Caw’s safeties began appearing in about 1895, and they were well made, sturdy pens. (Brown later licensed the technology to Waterman, so no theft of intellectual property was involved in the latter’s success.) Stubby and rather stout, Caw’s safeties look a little odd today; and the cap, with its nipple that posts into a recess in the retracting knob, doesn’t make things any more elegant in the modern person’s eye. But I like my Nº 327 a lot. Its nib lacked tipping when I acquired the pen, but that’s been remedied with a nice soft vintage-style stub. (The monumentally complicated feed works!) This little hunk of hard rubber is 4⁵/₈" capped and 5²⁵/₃₂" with the cap flipped around and posted.

Two for the Price of One!

Design Features

After Julius Schnell introduced his Penselpen combo in 1929, many other pen manufacturers jumped on his bandwagon with their own versions of the pen/pencil pairing. One of the prettiest, I think, was Conklin’s Ensemble. I have a nice Ensemble (c. 1933, I think) in Conklin’s lovely Leaf Green. This pen has particularly lovely color. It has a typical Conklin “smiley face” nib, and it writes quite nicely. As for size, it’s 5¹⁵/₁₆" capped and 6"posted.