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?

More BCHR shines on this nameless cone-cap pen from the 1910s. I’m judging the date from the combination of the cone cap and the lever filler, two features whose decline and ascendancy, respectively, intersected during that decade; but the lack of a name I’m sure of, as it extends even to the blank imprint panel on the cap. (That panel implies that this is a jobber’s pen that was probably not sold, and the pen’s overall condition — including its very good original color — reinforces this surmise.) The lever is made of nickel silver, so it seemed fitting that I should find a nickel silver accommodation clip to go with it. The overall look is quite elegant, and the WARRANTED nib is possessed of a delightful flex and a remarkably smooth tip. A longish pen but not really a big one, this baby is 5¹⁷/₃₂" capped, 6⁴⁹/₆₄" posted. Oh, by the way, this pen — except for the clip — is identical to an imprinted J. Harris pen in a friend’s collection, so maybe it’s not entirely anonymous after all.

Check Your Mailbox!

Profile

In about 1925, the Postal Pen Company began selling pens by mail order. The Postal Pen, of which there were only two models (one for men and one for women), was a bulb filler with a clear celluloid barrel. With a pretty nice 14K nib and a price of only $2.50, these pens were a real bargain back in the day. My men”s Postal Pen is 5³/₄" capped, 7¹/₃₂" posted, and its nib is nicely flexible. The only problem with Postal pens was the barrel; it turns out that transparent celluloid can become terribly brittle with age; most of the hundreds of thousands the company churned out have died when their barrels cracked or shattered. Those that are left, however, are wicked cool. And they’re also relatively hard to find, which makes them that much more fun to chase down!

The “other” Postal was the ladies’ model. My first ladies’ Postal is black, the second — a relative rarity — is in Jade. They’re typically ladies’ size; the black one is 5³/₆₄" capped and 6⁵/₃₂" posted, and the Jade one 4³/₄" capped and 5³¹/₃₂" posted.

In what was probably an effort to boost sales, the company also offered pens under the Bonded brand, the only apparent difference being the cap imprint. (The funky circular area on the cap is where someone attempted repair by filling a hole with glue.) At 5³/₄" capped and 7¹/₃₂" posted, these men’s pens were good sized.

My conjecture about the provenance of the BCHR no-name pen at the top of this page, i.e., that J. Harris made it, led me to learn more about J. Harris — which in turn led me to acquire this virtually perfect J. Harris & Son Nº 39 matchstick filler. I’m always a sucker for exotic (translation: next thing to antediluvian) filling systems, anyway, and even if the pen weren’t in such spectacular condition, I’d still have had to have it. This pen is as black as night, with molten chasing so sharp and clean you could almost cut yourself on it and not a hint of discoloration. At first glance, you might mistake it for a Conklin’s Crescent-Filler; but the “lockring” actually turns only about 1/4 turn to reveal or conceal the hole through which you push your matchstick to fill the pen. (Under the hole is a pressure bar, spring mounted to a clip that holds it inside the barrel.) This pen has a lovely J.Harris & Son-imprinted flexible stub nib, and it’s 5³/₈" capped and 6⁵/₈" posted, just about the ideal size for my taste. For me, it’s one of the best in-the-hand pen I own. Now I’m wondering if it came with a “key” to fill it, as some matchstick fillers did.

At some point, J. Harris changed its name to Majestic. It was definitely in the third tier, but Majestic pens ranged from models of remarkably high quality to models on which the company would have been wiser to omit its name. The amber marble pen shown here, a model whose name I do not know, is a very good pen; it features a nice 14K nib, and its celluloid body is as well made as those of much more respected pens. At 4⁵/₃₂" capped, 5⁵/₁₆" posted, it‘s a very small pen, but I like it for its looks and because a client gave it to me.

Harris was not alone in making matchstick fillers; the type was actually fairly common for a few years. I picked up this Charles A. Keene matchstick filler after the Washington, D.C., show in 2011, and I think it’s particularly cool because of the interest of its filling system. The lock ring has a slot cut in it, and a pin through the slot is mounted into the barrel; it is this mechanism that keeps the lock ring from spinning freely around. (The upper photo here shows the lock ring turned to give access to the pressure bar.) At 4¹³/₁₆" capped, 5⁷/₁₆" posted, this was probably intended to be a vest-pocket pen. Its WARRANTED nib is a boring but decent writer. Keene, who set up in business in New York in 1881, was actually a jeweler specializing in watches and diamonds, not a pen maker, so the identify of this pen’s manufacturer is presently a puzzle.

In 1919, John and George Kritikson founded the Securograph Pen Company in Terre Haute, Indiana. By 1923, the company had moved to Chicago and changed its name to the Security Pen Corporation, and it was happily producing pens that featured a special device for preventing check fraud, called a check protector. Concealed under the top of the cap, the device consists of a small toothed roller that runs in a pad of red ink; rolling it over the writing on a check cuts tiny slits in the paper, impregnating the fibers with the red ink. Security pens also bore an elegant spring-loaded clip, and they were twist fillers — but not the ordinary sac-wringing twister. The twist knob operates a ballcrank to push a pressure bar into the sac, squeezing it in much the same manner as a spoon filler. My Security Nº 300 is a slender pen measuring 5³/₄" capped and 6⁵/₈" posted, and it’s a sweet writer with a (somewhat uncommon) Security-imprinted Nº 3 nib. The upper view here shows the pen with its filler knob screwed out and its cap crown removed to expose the check protector. I’ve rotated it so you can see the clip’s funky shape.