(This page published July 1, 2023)
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The period spanning the years from about the end of World War I (1918) to the end of World War II (1945) is often called the Golden Age of the fountain pen. It was a time when a great many very beautiful pens emerged, and a surprising number of pens from those years are considered classics. Nostalgia is often a powerful force in the minds of collectors, and nowhere has it had more influence than in the world of fountain pens: dozens of classic pens have inspired tributes, or even reboots by the original manufacturers, and these latter-day “classics” have often done well in the market. Let’s sit back and look at a few of the greats.
It all started with the Parker Pen Company. Founded in 1888, the company introduced one of the all-time classics in 1921. The Parker Duofold changed the landscape by showing that black wasn’t the only color suitable for the pen of a businessman or a bank president. The Duofold was a smashing success, surviving essentially unchanged until 1938. But it lingered in the back of the company’s mind for another 50 years, coming to fruition with the 1988 introduction of the new Duofold Centennial. Initially, the new version was Chinese Red, the same color as the original, and it came in only one size. Both of those limitations soon disappeared; the Duofold Centennial and its smaller sibling, the Duofold International, have appeared in a wide variety of colors and, successively, in three versions, and they are still in production as of this writing. The initial release of the original Duofold had no cap band; shown here with the Duofold Centennial (lower) is a 1926 Duofold with a cap band (upper).
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Moving forward into what would soon become the Jet Age, Parker in 1941 introduced what is arguably the most revolutionary fountain pen ever built. Marketed as “The World’s Most Wanted Pen,” the Parker “51” embodied new designs and new materials that enabled it to use a remarkable ink that dried almost instantly. The dramatic look of the pen’s hooded nib was covered by U.S. Patent No D116,097, but that did not stop dozens of other companies from imitating it. (Parker successfully sued at least one imitator.) The “51” remained in the Parker catalog until 1972. In 2002, the company introduced the 51 SE, which looked outwardly like a double-jeweled original from the early 1940s but was internally built like the Parker 45. The 51 SE lasted only about a year. Almost two decades later, in 2021, Parker unveiled the 51 and 51 Deluxe, which resemble the single-jewel models produced beginning during World War II. Like the 2002 51 SE, these pens are internally different from the original model; they also have threaded caps instead of the clutch cap that was used for both the "51" and the 51 SE. Although the modern reboots are not the same internally as the original, they — and virtually all other modern fountain pens — embody technology adapted from their namesake. Shown here are a first-year “51”, a 51 SE, and a 51 Deluxe.
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In 1929, the W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company wowed the world with an exciting new pen model. The ergonomically shaped Balance (Oversize model shown below, upper) was a complete departure from the old-fashioned blocky flat-top shape that was virtually universal at the time. Light in weight for extended writing, it posted shorter than before, and its weight was more forward, sharply reducing the tendency to lean backward in the user’s hand. With small changes, the widely-imitated Balance lasted until mid-1942, when it bowed out in favor of the even more streamlined “TRIUMPH” model. Fifty-five years later, in 1997, Sheaffer revived the Balance in the form of a limited-edition lever-filler called the Balance II. A year later, cartridge/converter Balance II CLassic pens joined Sheaffer’s standard range, and in 1999 a second limited edition appeared. The Balance II line was short lived, lasting in Sheaffer’s catalog only until 2003. Shortly thereafter, it appeared briefly in the Levenger catalog as both GT (gold-plated furniture) and CT (chrome-plated furniture) versions (below, lower, Levenger GT Balance II).
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By 1929, L. E. Waterman was definitely behind the times, having clung desperately to hard rubber while everyone else was switching to celluloid. Waterman nonetheless introduced an impressive new premier model called the Patrician. Initially, the Patrician was offered in four colors, of which three were made of celluloid while the fourth, Jet (black), was still hard rubber. Waterman soon switched the Jet version to celluloid, however, and new colors were introduced in the early 1930s; but the aesthetic of the Patrician had been old fashioned on the pen’s introduction, and the model was gone from the catalog in 1936. With the fountain pen’s renascence of popularity in the 1990s, the Waterman Pen Company took its Le Man 100, introduced in 1983, as the foundation for a new Patrician that hit the market in 1992 but lasted only three years. Today, both Patricians, old and new, are desirable collectibles.
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The Self Fountain Pen Company began producing Roy Conklin’s Crescent-Filler in 1898, well before the Golden Age, but the design — clunky though it was — continued in production until about 1930, several years after Conklin itself had begun producing lever-fillers and only a year before the company introduced America’s first true piston-filler, the Nozac. Conklin’s stubborn adherence to the Crescent-Filler might have contributed to the company’s demise in 1938, when its assets were sold off to a Chicago syndicate, but the Conklin name and the Crescent-Filler pen were relaunched in 2005 by longtime collector Harold Rosenberg and his son Robert. In 2009 they sold Conklin to Yafa Brands, Inc. Yafa immediately made major improvements in quality, and Conklin has reassumed its rightful place among the true classics. Shown here are an original Conklin No 50 Crescent-Filler, a Rosenberg-era Crescent-Filler, and the new Conklin 125th Anniversary Crescent Filler Limited Edition.
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| 125th Anniversary photo © Yafa Brands, Inc. Used under 17 U.S.C. §107, Fair Use. |
In the latter part of the 1920s, both the Wahl Company and R. Esterbrook introduced interchangeable nibs. While Esterbrook nibs were user interchangeable, Wahl’s Personal-Point nibs were intended to be swapped only by dealers, allowing them to stock fewer pens while still offering instant gratification with a full range of nibs. The pens were still the selling point, though, and the Wahl Decoband was an elegantly salable pen, well made and set out in high Art Deco style with attractive colors like the Green and Bronze (“Brazil”) shown here. In about 1940, Wahl renamed itself to become Eversharp, Inc, and in 1957 it was bought by Parker, who wanted the technology that in 1960 appeared as the Parker 45. Fast-forward to 2013. Well-known Wahl-Eversharp collector Syd Saperstein partnered with Emmanuel Caltagirone to relaunch the Wahl-Eversharp brand, and in 2015 they released a Decoband for the 21st-century: larger and technologically updated.
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In 1993, collectors L. Michael Fultz, Howard Levy, and Steve VanDyke founded the Bexley Pen Company to make pens inspired by the Golden Age, using modern materials and technology. Until early 2020, when it was sold to Emmanuel Caltagirone, the company produced a broad variety of very high-quality vintage-inspired pens, some of its own design and some that were unmistakably tributes, several of the latter quite closely modeled on the originals. Shown here, along with the pens that inspired them, are three of Bexley’s best tribute pens.
Wahl Doric & Bexley Americana
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Conklin Endura & Bexley Demeter
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Moore L-96 & Bexley Monarch
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Bexley is only one of many companies that have at one time or another copied a classic — or, as illustrated here, rebooted a company to do something more concrete than just remembering the company and the classics it created. The original pens were great, and their follow-ons should be considered great, too, in their own right. The similarities between the two, and the differences, are interesting and could make for a great focused collection illustrating how influential the Golden Age has been on our modern sensibilities, as fountain pens return to the fore as serious writing instruments in addition to being collectible. Vintage or modern, they are all fascinating objects.
The information in this article is as accurate as possible, but you should not take it as absolutely authoritative or complete. If you have additions or corrections to this page, please consider sharing them with us to improve the accuracy of our information.
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