Writing instruments on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale.
Filled in a Jiffy
Today’s French Waterman company, which grew out of Jif-Waterman when Waterman closed its doors in the U.S.A., has not been slow to “keep up with the Joneses,” if the Joneses were the competition. From the C/F of the 1950s, the company developed a varied selection of pens that used the original C/F cartridge and later, with new models such as the Lady, C/F-compatible converters. The Lady converter also fit a close sibling of the pen shown here, called the Flash, but this pen is Waterman’s Jif Matic. Its cartridge well is filled with a sac and a sac protector. On the side of the sac protector, instead of a squeeze bar, is a flag-like “door” that you lift away from the sac protector. This action operates a pressure bar to squeeze the sac; it’s really an adaptation of William Welty’s vintage Servo filler. And it‘s a nice pen, too, with a delicious No 3 fine nib. The pen is 5" capped and 5" posted, a nice size for people with average hands.
|
Sheaffer discontinued the very successful Connaisseur line in 1995, but the Connaisseur turned out to be the pen that wasn’t ready to die. It resurfaced three years later, rebadged with the Levenger marque. Unchanged mechanically even to the presence of Sheaffer’s famous White Dot, the pen became the Seas Collection, and Levenger offered it in six jewel-like colors that were named for various bodies of water around the globe:
All are transparent except the yellow Caribbean, which is cloudy translucent. At 5" capped and 6" posted, the Seas pens are typical of modern medium-sized pens, and they handle as well as their less colorful forebear. With Levenger-branded 14K nibs instead of the usual 18K Sheaffer nibs, they write quite nicely. My Seas have an assortment of nibs ranging from XF to stub. The Tasman Sea pen is quite rare, and I’m thrilled to have acquired this one to complete the set.
|
|
|
|
|
|
One of the more interesting pen companies in the 1920s was the Postal Pen Company. Postal pens were bulb fillers, and they were sold only by mail. They were good pens, but with their transparent celluloid barrels most have become rather fragile. Now, the Gate City Pen Company (that’s me) has brought this classic back! The New Postal Reservoir Pen uses the original Postal design, bulb filler and all, but it’s acrylic, and fragile it ain’t. What it is, though, is wicked cool. I have a Ruby-barreled Senior, which is 5" capped and 7" posted. The nib is stock, an excellent JoWo steel fine.
|
In 1904, Alfred B. Davis patented a filling system that, even today, remains the quickest and most positive self-filler ever invented. Davis’ syringe filler made its commercial appearance on pens branded POST, and for this reason it is sometimes referred to as the Post filler. The Belmont Pen takes its name from one of the brands sold during the Golden Age by the famous Rexall chain of drug stores, but Rexall’s Belmont never used this simple filling system. At 5" capped and 6" posted, the Belmont is a full-sized pen (but not oversize). My Belmont, in the amazing Kilauea color, is fitted with a stock JoWo steel fine nib (tuned, of course).
|
Charles Dunn invented a remarkable pump filler in 1920, and in 1921 the Dunn-Pen Company (in which he wasn’t involved) began making pens that used his system. To make their pen readily identifiable, they colored the pump knob bright red The New Dunn Pen works the same way as the original, even to the trademark “Little Red Pump-Handle,” and it’s about the same size as an original Dunn-Pen Camel. It’s 5" capped, 7" posted, and my New Dunn has a smooth fine steel nib. Interestingly, Dunn’s ingenious breather tube design was also used in the original Postal Pen. Other pens used it, too, including the Parker Vacumatic, but they were made after Dunn’s patent expired and so don’t bear his patent date in their imprints.
|
|
Ohio‘s pen industry got a new start in 1993 with Bexley, and now there’s Edison. Brian Gray produces an excellent line of pens, well made and attractive. Each model’s name has some relationship to Thomas Edison, and the company logo is pretty cool, I think. Among Brian’s pens I particularly like the Beaumont; it’s the right size for me, and it's almost — but not quite — a flat-top. (There’s just enough curvature to make it interesting.) In Edison’s "Production" range, handled by selected retailers, is a cartridge/converter Beaumont; and there’s an amazingly good pneumatic version in the “Signature” range, which Edison sells directly to the purchaser. My purple pneumatic pen came to me as a thank-you gift for my having consulted in the design of its filling system. is 5" capped and 6" posted. The nib is stock, an excellent JoWo steel fine.
|
|
|
