The Crescent-Filler, Then … and Now

(Revised February 24, 2012)

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In 1897, Roy Conklin, founder and secretary/treasurer of the Self Fountain Pen Company, invented the first commercially successful self-filling fountain pen. This was not his first venture into pen design — his earliest patent is dated 1891 — but this was the one that eventually paid off. As implemented in actual pens, Conklin’s filling system combined the simplicity of a rubber sac compressed by a pressure bar with a clever but somewhat bulky external mechanism consisting of a crescent-shaped “button” for the user to push and a rotating lock ring to keep the crescent from being pushed inadvertently.

The use of a sac and a pressure bar was not new with Conklin. In 1891, John Oliphant had patented a system featuring a pivoting lever that the user pushed inward to compress a sac ( U.S. Patent No. 448,360). But Conklin’s design, because it prevented inadvertent actuation and because its pressure bar compressed the sac fully along its entire length, was decidedly superior to Oliphant’s; and in 1901, the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded U.S. Patent No. 685,258 to Conklin.

To prevent competitors from immediately developing systems based on his concept, Conklin included in his patent application two additional variations of the design. These both used a solid blade, notched at the ends, coupled with lock rings having notches that engaged the notched ends of the blade in much the same fashion as the notches at the ends of flaps on a small paperboard box such as many pen companies use to protect their pens’ display cases during shipment. Shown here is one of these alternate implementations as drawn in the patent papers.

In the same year, he and his co-investor C. B. Gundy changed their company’s name to the Conklin Pen Manufacturing Co., with Conklin as president. In 1902 they incorporated their business and began advertising in the national press. Their pen, aided by an endorsement from Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain, seen here in a 1904 Conklin adver­tise­ment), was a tremendous success; in esssence, it sounded the eventual death knell for the clumsy and messy eyedropper system. (During his lifetime, Clemens owned several different pens; from 1904 to 1907, according to Dr. Ron Dutcher, Conklin’s Crescent-Filler, Model S, was his constant companion.)

Early Conklin’s Self-Filling Pen Nº S-3, Conklin’s Crescent-Filler Nº 50

(If there is a magnifying-glass symbol () next to an image, click the magnifying glass to view a zoomed version for more detail.)

The second Conklin pen shown above, a Nº 50, was probably made in the early 1920s. Although it introduced the lever-filling Duragraph in 1923, Conklin continued production of the Crescent-Filler at least into 1925. (The company appears to have been unwilling to give up on the design that had made it a success, and the truth is that despite its bulk, the Crescent-Filler was mechanically superior to the lever fillers of the day.) Similarly, the company continued to offer clipless pens after 1916, when it patented a spring-loaded pocket clip (second pen).

In 1923, styles changed; Conklin’s pens lost their rounded ends. Shown below is a Crescent-Filler No. 24S, probably made in about 1925:

Conklin’s Crescent-Filler Nº 24S

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery?

Until Sheaffer’s 1908 invention of the lever filler , the Crescent-Filler held sway as the only really practical self-filling pen. But ingenuity often prevails where patents prevent copying a successful design, and in 1906, William A. Welty patented a similar filling system using a cam and locking ring (U.S. Patent Nº 834,542). Known as the Wawco, this design formed the basis of the Welty Fountain Pen. Welty set up his company in his home town, Waterloo, Iowa. Here is a Welty pen, showing the Wawco filler:

This Welty pen, made in Waterloo, Iowa, used William Welty’s patented Wawco filling system.

Welty himself attracted the notice of Conklin, which sued him for patent infringement, but the court ruled in Welty’s favor. That suit encouraged Welty to change his design, and in 1917 he patented a unique “backward-operating” lever-type filler, called the Servo (U.S. Patent Nº 1,212,297). In 1915, Welty’s company changed its name to Evans Dollar Pen Company (in recognition of Patrick H. Evans, who had provided an infusion of cash after Welty won the lawsuit brought by Conklin). The company’s new mission was to produce a pen of acceptable quality for $1.00, less than half the usual price, and it did so by taking less care with exterior finish and by making other slight changes such as substituting less costly 10K nibs for the 14K that Welty had used earlier. Evans pens were certainly not the equal of their Welty-imprinted predecessors, but they did work well, and they filled a definite market need.

About a decade after the Welty contretemps, the Jaxon Pen Company took another, safer, approach. Rather than try to create a crescentlike design that skirted Conklin’s patent, Jaxon bought Conklinette pens from Conklin, imprinting them with Jaxon’s name. In the Conklinette and the Jaxon Pen, a small button replaces the crescent; the metal lock ring has a keyhole-shaped opening through which the button protrudes. The button is grooved so that when the ring is rotated one way, the narrow part of the keyhole engages the groove to keep the button from being depressed. When the ring is rotated the other way, the wider part of the keyhole encircles the button without engaging it, and the button can be depressed.

It’s flattering, but not technically imitation, when a manufacturer licenses a design from a competitor, and that is what L. E. Waterman did with the Crescent-Filler. The rarest of all Waterman’s pens, known from what may be a single remaining specimen, is a screw-cap Crescent-Filler labeled 14PSF. The filler differs from one of Conklin’s own manufacture only in that the face of the crescent that was usually imprinted CONKLIN is blank.

In the half-century period that came to an abrupt halt with the Second World War, cheap Japanese merchandise of all kinds flooded the U.S.A. Several importers brought in pens made even more cheaply than the bottom feeders among the American third tier; after the advent of celluloid, these pens took on bright and very appealing colors but did not improve in quality. One of the best known of those importers was Frank Spors, of Le Sueur Center, Minnesota. Spors, disabled and unable to work in most of the jobs available in the 1920s, earned his living by importing cheap merchandise of all types from eastern Asia. Spors pens were truly cheap, with thin celluloid and wooden inner caps. (In 1926, he was jobbing them for 67¢ each, to retail for $1.25.) The best thing about them is the reliable glass nib, which is well made and, if not chipped, very smooth, and wet:

This Spors pen has been fully restored, even to a replacement for its missing wooden inner cap.

… And Now

During the 1930s, the Crescent-Filler, in all its guises, ceased to be produced because pens were tools, not luxury items or collectibles, and the filler design, despite its being one of the most efficient and reliable ever invented, was, in a word, “clunky.” Levers, Vacumatic pumps, bulbs, piston mechanisms, and even some designs worthy of Rube Goldberg, all fit within the body of the pen, leaving nothing to hang out and get in the user’s way. In the 1950s cartridges came into use; converters became popular in the 1960s, and fountain pens gradually fell out of use, supplanted by ballpoints and their kin. For about 60 years, then, the venerable “grandfather” of the modern self-filling pen languished. But it was not lost and gone forever, and with the growth of the modern collecting hobby it has returned with a vengeance.

In 1996, Visconti of Italy created a “triple” Limited Edition called the Copernicus, producing 999 fountain pens each in horizontally striated red, blue, and green celluloids reminiscent of the celluloids Parker used in the 1930s and 1940s for the Vacumatic. The Copernicus is a crescent-filling pen, large and with solid heft but surprisingly good in the hand when used unposted. It posts over 7" long, and with its heavy clip some writers find it unbalanced when posted.

Green Copernicus (from the collection of Burt Janz)

The Visconti Millennium Arc

Taking the Crescent-Filler concept a step further, Visconti honored the new millennium by issuing in 2000 another triple Limited Edition, the Millennium Arc. Featuring matching crescent and clip in sweeping arcs, the pen is quite striking. The edition consisted of 1000 pens each in red (Millennium I), green (Millennium II), and blue (Millennium III) transparent acrylic infused with ribbons of opaque celluloid. This technique, pioneered by Visconti, yields a remarkably beautiful finish that the company has also used brilliantly on pens such as the Kaleido Voyager. To further enhance the transparency of the Millennium Arc pens, Visconti’s design used a clear sac to create almost a “demostrator” aspect.

The Millennium III (from the collection of Jeffrey Saltzer)

The Stipula Saturno

In late 2000, another Italian company, Stipula, joined Visconti in issuing Crescent-Filler pens. The Stipula Novecento Saturno LE harks back mors strongly to the origins of its filler design, as it is made of hard rubber. As Conklin experimented with several colors of hard rubber, including solid red and red/black mottled, so Stipula chose not to use only plain black. Colors of the Saturno include green/black; yellow/black; and, for Fountain Pen Hospital, an exclusive blue/black veined ebonite. The Saturno’s lock ring, like the pen’s furniture, is sterling silver.

Green/black Saturno (from the collection of Burt Janz)

Conklin Mark Twain Crescent-Filler

In 2001, the revived Conklin Pen Company issued a 100th Anniversary commemorative version of the original Conklin pen. Made in black celluloid and overlaid with sterling silver in a pattern reminiscent of a vintage overlay, the pen was produced in an edition of 388 pens. Other Crescent-Fillers soon followed, both in limited editions and as standard production, and the current catalog (as of 2005) includes a Mark Twain Crescent-Filler in black chased or blue marbled acrylic with sterling furniture and a distinctive yellow-filled imprint.

Black chased Mark Twain Crescent-Filler (from the collection of Burt Janz)

Conclusion

Will there be more Crescent-Fillers? Doubtless there will. It’s a catchy design, perhaps a little kitschy, but nonetheless a classic — historic and fascinating as well. Vintage or modern, the Crescent-Filler is, like Waterman’s channelled feed, the “grand-daddy of them all.”

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