Glossopedia of Pen Terms

(This page revised February 25, 2013)

[  Reference Info Index  ]

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B
baby	1  When capitalized (Baby or BABY), a nickname Waterman applied to its 121/2VS pen, illustrated below.  2  Collectors’ generic term for any very small pen, especially Waterman’s “World’s Smallest Pen.” See also Bantam, Peter Pan.
baby’s bottom	(also baby bottom and, less elegantly, butt cheeks) A condition in which the edges of the nib slit are too rounded where the slit meets the surface of the writing pad, so named for the resemblance of the nib’s tip to the profile of a baby’s posterior (see illustration to right). A nib with baby’s bottom will usually be remarkably smooth, but capillary action will hold the ink too far away from the paper instead of drawing it toward the paper as intended, and the nib will have trouble starting. See also sweet spot.
backhand	Term for writing that leans to the left, as shown below. Backhand writing is most common among left-handed underwriters. Esterbrook advertised its Nº 2442 Falcon fine stub nib as being particularly suited for backhand writing. See also underwriter.
Baird-North	(Baird-North Company) A mail-order jewelry house located in Providence, Rhode Island; founded in 1892 in Salem, Massachusetts, by William G. Hussey and moved to Providence in 1907 by Hussey and his son George R. Hussey. Beginning in c. 1900, the company sold fountain pens from various makers including Waterman, Parker, Conklin, Crocker, and Paul Wirt, as well as pens bearing the Baird-North name but made for them by other companies, including safety models made to Morris W. Moore‘s patent by the American Fountain Pen Company as well as assorted other designs, some of which may have been made by Byers & Hayes. By the 1920s, Baird-North branded pens were all lever fillers. The company continued in business until c. 1929, when it merged with the Jason Weiler Company to create Jason Weile Baird-North, Inc., of Boston. See also Byers & Hayes, non-leakable.
Bakelite	1  (also Catalin, Marblette) Trademarked name for a thermosetting plastic (phenolic resin, made using formaldehyde and phenol) discovered by Leo H. Baekland in 1907; used to make transparent pen bodies during a short period in the early 20th century. Bakelite barrels were made in amber and ruby red colors; shown below is a Dunn-Pen with a ruby Bakelite barrel. Bakelite is too brittle to be an ideal pen material unless reinforced by a fibrous filler such as asbestos or cotton; but the filler material makes the Bakelite opaque. In the end, the advent of celluloid eliminated the need for Bakelite in pens.  2  Any of several thermoplastics produced by Union Carbide after its 1939 acquisition of the Bakelite Corporation (e.g., Bakelite C-11, a styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) copolymer used for Sheaffer’s Snorkel). See also formaldehyde, phenol, polystyrene, thermoplastic, thermosetting.
Baker	Marlin S. Baker (1906-1982), a prolific designer/engineer who worked for Parker and was the principal creator of the Parker “51” in both the Vacumatic- and Aero-metric-filling versions. See also “51”, Parker.
Balance	The name Sheaffer gave to the torpedo-shaped pen model (shown below) that it introduced in 1929. As the first radically streamlined pen, the Balance triggered an industry-wide trend away from the blocky “flat-top” look of the preceding decades. Read a profile of the Balance here. See also Flat-Top, torpedo shaped.
ballpoint	(also biro) A pen that dispenses a viscous greasy ink (not water based) from a tubular reservoir with a captive ball at the writing end. As the ball rolls across the paper, it pulls ink around it from the reservoir to the paper, with the ink acting as a lubricant to reduce rolling friction. Contrast with ball point. See also biro, CA, gel pen, Rocket, rollerball.
ball point	A nib whose tip is hemispherical in shape so that it remains smooth and skip-free throughout a wide range of rotations and angles of elevation. The “Yellow” nib offered for Waterman’s Nº 7 and Nº 5 pens (from 1927) was a ball point, and Waterman advertised it as being especially suited to left-handed writers. Read a description of Waterman’s nib color code here.
banana shaped	Self-explanatory term; refers to a pen that has become deformed by heat and/or pressure, assuming a somewhat curved shape. Most common among third-tier celluloid pens but also seen in better pens, often localized to the area of the cap/barrel joint.
band	See cap band.
bandless	See cap band.
Bankers	(Bankers Pen Company) A pen manufacturing company located in New York City. Founded probably c. 1905 to produce high-quality hard rubber coin fillers, the company is generally thought to have failed before the end of 1920. The company’s most collectible model is the Master Pen, introduced c. 1915. Julius Schnell was at that time associated with Bankers, and the Master Pen featured his patented slide filler. Because the Schnell filler can be operated by a push of the thumbnail, Bankers advertised that the Master Pen could be filled with one hand. (Do not confuse Bankers pens with “Banker” pens; the names Banker and New Banker were later used for third-tier pens.) See also Master Pen, Schnell.
Bantam	Wahl-Eversharp’s name for its series of very small bulb-filling pens (approximately 33/4" capped). Introduced in about 1932, the Bantam continued in production until about 1940. Bantams are easy to collect because there exist myriad color variations as well as versions with one, two, or three cap bands. Shown below is a faceted Bantam from about 1933, bearing a Century of Progress imprint. Read a profile of the Bantam here. See also Century of Progress, midget, Peter Pan.
bark	See écorce.
Barleycorn	A decorative surface treatment created by engraving closely spaced zig-zag grooves, usually used on metal pen bodies. The Barleycorn surface treatment on the Waterman C/F illustrated here (below, upper) is shown more clearly in the enlarged view of the pen’s barrel surface. See also engraved.
barrel	The “body” of the pen, generally cylindrical in shape; contains the ink reservoir (and filling system).
Barnett	One of the largest U.S. manufacturing jobbers of fountain pens during the decades immediately around the turn of the 20th century. Ira Barnett set up in business in New York City c. 1885 and remained in business probably until the 1920s. Barnett billed himself as the “King of Popular Priced Fountain Pens” and claimed to be the “largest manufacturer of fountain pens in the world for premium users, publishers, mail order and auction houses, export trade, jobbers, stationers, jewelers, department stores, demonstrators, agents and druggists.”
Barrett	(C. E. Barrett & Company) A manufacturer of gold pens (dip nibs) and holders, fountain pens, and fountain pen parts, located in Chicago, Illinois; founded before 1908 by Clarence E. Barrett. The major portion of the company’s production from the 1920s to its demise in the 1950s was parts for pens assembled and sold by the National Pen Products Company, also of Chicago. (There has been suggestion that Barrett himself may have owned National Pen Products, but it was a separate company, not a subsidiary or division of C. E. Barrett & Company.) When the A. A. Waterman company relocated to Chicago, possibly having been bought out by National Pen Products, Clarence Barrett became its president.
base	(also heel, tail) The end of a nib opposite the tip; the portion that is concealed within the section. See illustration at nib.
baseline	An imaginary line representing the base on which ordinary letters stand in writing (see illustration at x-height). Of interest primarily to calligraphers. See also head line, majuscule, minuscule, x-height.
base stamp	An imprint at the base of a nib, e.g., the star Parker used on some Vacumatic nibs to indicate a lifetime warranty.
Batarde	A subclass of Blackletter scripts used most commonly for the German language prior to the middle of the 20th century. Batarde scripts are generally more rounded and humanistic than Fraktur or Quadratra scripts. Shown below is a style called Givry. See also Blackletter, calligraphy, chancery, Fraktur, Quadrata.
Bay State	1  (Bay State Pen Company) A pen manufacturer located in Mansfield, Massachusetts; founded at some time before 1893 by Philip S. Walker, William Wagner, and Paul W. Johnson, and dissolved by mutual consent of the partners in 1907. The company produced gold pens (dip nibs) and at least one fountain pen, an overfeed design called the Reporter’s Fountain Pen, which was written up in the February 1893 issue of The Shorthand Review.  2  (Bay State Gold Pen Company) A manufacturer of gold nibs for many New England pen makers, including Chilton, Crocker, Latremore’s Fountain Pen Exchange, Sterling, Superite/De Witt-La France, Walker-Davison, and possibly Ayer, Carter’s, John Hancock, LeBeouf, Moore, and Samuel Ward’s. The company was located in Boston, Massachusetts; it was founded by Paul W. Johnson after the dissolution of the Bay State Pen Company and remained in business until 1951, although it became reduced as pen companies failed during the late 1930s.
bbl	A common abbreviation for barrel.
BCHR	Black Chased Hard Rubber. The Conklin’s Crescent-Filler illustrated here is made of BCHR. See also chased, hard rubber.
Beaumel	(D. W. Beaumel & Co., Inc.) A pen manufacturing company located in New York City. Founded in 1901 by David W. Beaumel, the company made high-quality fountain pens and nibs under several brand names including Beaumel, Champion, Falcon, Graphic, Raven, and Rival. Shown below is a Beaumel-branded eyedropper-filling pen typical of the company’s production. (Do not confuse Beaumel’s patented sleeve-filling Rival pen with the overfeed eyedropper-filling Rival made by D. W. Lapham in the 1890s; although Beaumel also held the actual patent on Lapham’s pen, the two pens were entirely different.) Beaumel held several patents for fountain or stylographic pens. He had been associated with Francis C. Brown (Caw’s) during the 19th century, and one of his patents was shared with Brown. The company also jobbed pens to other companies for sale under their own names. The Great Depression appears to have killed the Beaumel company; it went under in about 1930. Among the products of its last decade was a series of oversize celluloid flat-tops named Durabilt. See also Caw’s, Lapham.
Belmont	A “house brand” used for pens sold by Rexall drugstores. Belmont pens were made for Rexall by several companies, probably including the National Pen Products Company. Shown below is a Belmont from about 1928. See also Monogram, Rexall.
Berolzheimer	See Eagle.
Betzler & Wilson	(Betzler & Wilson Fountain Pen Company) A pen manufacturing company located in Akron, Ohio; founded in 1892 by Joseph F. Betzler and W. E. Wilson. Initially producing high-quality eyedropper fillers branded “The Betzler Pen” for the trade only, the company had by 1906 added a self-filling pen to the line and was selling pens to the public. The self-filler, possibly the only U.S.-made accordion type (U.S. Patent Nº 799,297), was operated by a barrel-end plunger concealed beneath a blind cap, not by the lockring-like slider shown in Joseph Betzler’s patent. In 1914, Betzler & Wilson purchased the Cincinnati factory of Weidlich and moved its entire contents to Akron to expand the former’s operations. The company remained in business at least into 1917. See also Weidlich.
BF	See button.
B&H	See Byers & Hayes.
BHR	Black Hard Rubber. See also hard rubber.
BiC	(Société BiC) A pen manufacturing company founded in 1945 by Marcel Louis Michel Antoine Bich and Edouard Buffard to make parts for mechanical pencils. In 1950, BiC purchased László Bíró’s 1938 patent and began producing ballpoint pens, and is now almost entirely a manufacturer of ballpoints. As of this writing, BiC is the owner of Sheaffer. See also biro, Sheaffer.
Big Four	Term applied to the four most prominent U.S. pen makers: Conklin, Parker, Sheaffer, and L. E. Waterman. In about 1927, Wahl-Eversharp replaced Conklin as a member of the Big Four. See also first tier.
Big Red	1  Common name for the “ flat-top” Parker Duofold Senior made from 1921 to 1928; the pen is orange with black end caps, but Parker referred to its color variously as Chinese Red or Lacquer Red and said that it “rivals the beauty of the scarlet tanager.” The hard rubber Duofold illustrated here (upper) was made in 1924, shortly before Parker converted its production to Permanite.  2  The “official” name Parker gave to its nostalgic 1970s recreation of the original Duofold. This later pen was offered as a ballpoint or with a soft felt-type tip. To play on the nostalgic theme, Parker offered the Big Red both with a clip (illustrated here, lower) and as a ringtop, advertising the latter with a “Sheik and Sheba” illustration drawn in the style of John Held, Jr. See also Chinese Red, Duofold, Permanite, ringtop.
Binde	A German word (pronounced BIN-duh, plural Binden) meaning bandage, used to denote the (usually colored celluloid) wrapper fitted around the barrel of a vintage Pelikan or similar pen. The Pelikan 100 shown here has a marbled green Binde.
biocide	See fungicide.
biro	(principally European; usually pronounced BYE-ro in the U.K., BEE-ro on the Continent) Another word for a ballpoint pen, taken from the name of Hungarian journalist László Bíró, who patented the first modern ballpoint in 1938 (U.S. Patent Nº 2,390,636, issued in 1945). See also ballpoint.
Black and Pearl	See Pearl and Black.
Black Band “51”	See “51”, Red Band “51”.
Black Bird	See Blair.
Black Giant	A huge eyedropper-filling pen featuring a Nº 12 nib, produced by Parker in the early 20th century. Now rare and highly desirable. Illustrated below is a Black Giant, with a Duofold Senior (“Big Red”) for comparison. See also giant, Red Giant.
Blackletter	(also Gothic script or Gothic minuscule) A group of script styles used throughout Western Europe c. 1170-1500. Originally written with a reed or quill cut to have an oblique italic tip, Blackletter scripts are notable for the equal widths of their horizontal and vertical strokes and for their sometimes elaborate ornamentation (applied primarily to majuscules and usually executed with a ”crow quill” nib). Johann Gutenberg’s Bible is printed in a Blackletter style called Quadrata (shown below, upper). Although elsewhere it gave way to humanist and roman styles, Blackletter continued in use for the German language, often as a Batarde or Fraktur style, until roughly the middle of the 20th century, and it is still commonly used for formal documents such as diplomas. See also Batarde, calligraphy, chancery, crow quill, Fraktur, italic, oblique, Quadrata. ¶ Blackletter scripts are frequently — and erroneously — lumped together under the “Old English” name. Shown below (lower) is the Blackletter style that is customarily referred to by calligraphers and printers as Old English.
bladder	See sac.
Blair	(Blair’s Fountain Pen Company) A fountain pen manufacturer located in New York City; founded in 1885 by John Blair and closed down c. 1915 after Blair’s 1914 death. Based on Blair’s patents, his company made eyedropper fillers (Blair’s Popular Fountain Pen, U.S. Patent Nº 426,021), self-filling pens (Blair’s Fountain Pen, probably some sort of syringe filler, described variously as Nosak and Nosack), and stylographic pens (Blair’s Red Robin and Black Bird Ink Pencils, U.S. Patent Nº 734,116). There was also a stylographic pen (Blair’s Fountain Pencil) fitted to accept either ink or cartridges that made ink when the pen was filled with water (U.S. Patent Nº 620,216); one cartridge was claimed to last for a year. It is likely that Blair contracted with jobbing manufacturers for his parts and actually only assembled the finished pens. Among Blair’s trademarks were Black Bird, John Hancock (dip pen holders), Record Security, and Red Robin.
bleeding	Excessive absorption of ink into the fibers of the paper, sometimes to the extent that marks are visible on the reverse side of the paper. Pens adjusted to write extremely wet are more prone than dry writers to produce bleeding; other causes can be paper with long, loosely packed fibers, ink with an excessive amount of surfactant, or a nib that is so sharp it catches and tears the paper fibers. Compare with feathering; bleeding is essentially feathering in the third dimension.
blind cap	A small cap, usually screw-threaded, that covers the actuator in such filling systems as button (illustrated here by a Parker Duofold Geometric) or Vacumatic. See also filler.
blobbing	See flooding.
blotter	Absorbent material, such as unglazed ceramic or (more usually) a special paper, used as shown here to remove excess ink from paper in order to avoid smearing when insufficient time is available to allow the ink to dry naturally. Blotters are made in several forms for use in differing situations; see also advertising blotter, desk blotter, rocker blotter.
bloom	See Radite (definition 2).
Bloser, Elmer W.	See Zaner-Bloser.
blotting	See flooding.
blow	A type of filling system; operates by pneumatic ink-sac compression. Blowing air into the pen through a hole at the end of the barrel squeezes the sac. View filling instructions here.
Blue and Black	Modern misnomer for the color illustrated to the right, used in 1932 on non-Lifetime Balance pens by Sheaffer. The color, as produced, actually contains no true black, and Sheaffer’s name for it was simply Blue. The areas that appear black are a very dark blue, whose color can be observed where one of these areas lies adjacent to a white streak such that the white is subducted under the blue. This material is prone to discolor, however, and when it discolors the dark blue areas almost always fade to a hue that looks black even under bright light.
blue-black	An ink color originating with iron gall ink, whose blue component (indigo) fades to leave black as the ink’s iron salts oxidize. Modern fountain pen inks are colored with aniline dyes; since there is no true black aniline dye, these inks usually assume a greenish hue as the blue dye fades. See also iron gall ink.
Blue Cedar	(also Cedar Blue) One of the more collectible high-cachet colors used for the Vacumatic-filling version of the Parker “51”; shown to the right. The color initially appeared in Parker advertising as Blue Cedar; some later advertising shows it as Cedar Blue. Blue Cedar seems to have been particularly subject to color variation between manufacturing lots; some pens have a noticeable greenish cast while others are distinctly blue. See also Buckskin Beige, Nassau Green, Yellowstone.
Blue Diamond	A trademarked identification device applied to certain Parker pens from 1939 to 1948. The Blue Diamond was initially applied to pens priced at $8.75 or higher; it indicated a lifetime warranty until the U.S. Federal Trade Commission prohibited the offering of a warranty if a fee was charged unless the fee was decribed in type the same size as, and in close proximity to, the warranty statement itself. On pocket pens, the Blue Diamond is located on the shoulder of the clip, near the end attached to the cap; on desk pens, it is on the barrel or on the band encircling the barrel (shown here on a 1941 Striped Duofold desk pen).
blue-green ripple	See ripple.
Blue Streak	The model name that L. E. Waterman assigned in 1939 to its Type 2 Ink-Vue pen, Model 5116. The design featured a body pattern with a pearlescent ground divided by longitudinal pinstripes of a paler color; the pinstripes are bordered by narrower stripes of an intermittent blue, giving the pattern its name. See also Ink-Vue.
Bolles	(Wm. Bolles Pen Company) A pen manufacturing company located in Toledo, Ohio; founded in 1903 as the Standard Self-Filling Pen Company by William Bolles, had been renamed by 1906. It remained in business as late as 1926, by which time it had been renamed the Wm. Bolles Dollar Pen Company but was probably no longer in the hands of Bolles himself. The company began by offering a sliding-barrel “sleeve filler” called the Wm. Bolles Standard Self-Filling Self-Cleaning Fountain Pen (U.S. Patent Nº 737,697). In this design, the barrel was to be slid completely off the back of the sac so that the user could squeeze the sac by pressing on lengthwise metal bars attached around its circumference. By 1907, Bolles had come up with a slightly better design, the Wm. Bolles Self-Filling Non-Leaking Fountain Pen. In 1923, the company was named in a lawsuit alleging fraudulent manufacture of pens intended to resemble those of other makers (probably Conklin); the defendants denied operating as the Bolles company while admitting to the use of several other company names.
Bock	(Peter Bock AG) A nib manufacturer located in Heidelberg, Germany; founded in 1939 by Peter Bock. The company, managed as of this writing by Otto and Wolfgang Bock, also produces feeds and threaded housings to create complete screw-in nib units with both gold and steel nibs. The Bock logo, seen to the right as copied from a nib, is a leaping buck antelope on a mountain background, within a circle. See also JoWo, Schmidt.
Bonded	See Postal.
Boston	1  (Boston Fountain Pen Company) A pen manufacturing company located in Boston, Massachusetts; founded in 1904 by Charles Brandt on assets acquired from the Colonial Pen Company. Brandt’s sons Charles E. and George F. were also involved in the business. The elder Brandt held seven pen patents, five shared with August Eberstein (later a founding member of the Simplo Filler Pen Company, which became Montblanc), one shared with his son George, and one shared with David J. LaFrance. ¶ Boston Fountain Pen called an early pen model the Boston Safety Fountain Pen because of the pen’s “non-leakable” design, which featured Eberstein’s patented fixed inner cap (U.S. Patent Nº 764,227). Note that the word “Safety” was never included in the company’s own name. ¶ According to the most authoritative sources, Boston Fountain Pen was acquired in 1917 by the Wahl Adding Machine Company (subsequently renamed the Wahl Company), although a few of Boston’s people — including George Brandt — appear to have gone over to the American Fountain Pen Company (subsequently renamed the Moore Pen Company). The acquisition of Boston Fountain Pen brought valuable design features to Wahl; pens built using Eberstein’s inner cap and comb feed (U.S. Patent Nº 750,271) — but not the Brandt/LaFrance lever filler — became the foundation of Wahl’s Tempoint line. Boston’s lever design also influenced the later Wahl lever; shown below is a Boston sterling silver overlay ringtop. See also Colonial (definition 2), comb feed, non-leakable, Wahl-Eversharp.  2  (Boston Pen Company) A pen manufacturing company located in Boston, Massachusetts; founded in 1894 by a group of investors. Boston Pen produced the Victor Pen; but before the end of 1896 manufacture of the Victor Pen had moved to the New York factory of Lapham & Bogart.
bowl	See trumpet.
boxed lever	See lever box.
BP	See ballpoint.
Brain	See Niagara.
brass	A yellow alloy of copper and zinc, containing at least 50% copper. Specific brass alloys contain admixtures of other metals (e.g., tin, lead, or aluminum) to adjust mechanical properties or corrosion resistance. Electroplated brass is commonly used for metal pen parts such as trim rings and barrel ferrules, and it was formerly used by manufacturers of cheap nibs (see illustration at WARRANTED).
brassing	(adjectival form brassed, as in “a brassed clip’) The wearing away of a filled or plated metal surface to expose the base metal beneath (usually brass, hence the term). Illustrated below is the brassed lever of an Eversharp Skyline. Brassing should not be confused with corrosion, which results from chemical action. See also corrosion.
breather hole	1  (also vent hole) A hole, frequently made in a decorative shape such as a heart or a crescent, that pierces a nib at the end of the slit, ostensibly to improve air flow but also to relieve stresses that tend to crack nibs at the relatively highly stressed area around the base of the slit. Breather holes are sometimes dispensed with on firm nibs, which are stiff enough to resist the bending forces imposed during use. See illustration at nib.  2  A hole in the side of the cap, placed between the inner cap and the cap lip, whose purpose is to prevent the formation of a partial vacuum that would draw ink out of the pen into the cap during the brief time when the cap is being removed. See also inner cap.
breather tube	A small tube that is inserted into a hole in the back end of the feed and extends from the section into the ink reservoir; permits complete filling in pens that require multiple operations of the filling mechanism (Aero-metric, Vacumatic, etc.). Also allows controlled transfer of air within the barrel, to reduce or eliminate the tendency to leak at high altitude. The feed and breather tube of a Parker Vacumatic are illustrated here.
Brown, Francis C.	See Caw’s.
Buckskin Beige	(sometimes colloquially “Tan”) One of the more collectible high-cachet colors used for the Vacumatic-filling version of the Parker “51”; shown to the right. Buckskin Beige is rather fragile, and the repair of Buckskin Beige pens calls for great care. See also Blue Cedar, Nassau Green, Yellowstone.
buffer	A device designed to counteract or minimize the effects of change. When applied to fountain pens, the term usually refers to features of a feed, such as fins, that provide an enlarged capillary surface to hold or release ink as needed to even out irregularities of flow.
bug	See hallmark.
bulb	A type of filling system; operates by mechanical squeeze of bulb at end of barrel. View filling instructions here. See also Postal.
bullet-bottom	Collectors’ slang for a single-jewel Parker “51”, whose barrel end is smoothly tapered to a shape that resembles a bullet. Because Aero-metric “51”s are all single-jewel pens, “bullet-bottom” implies a Vacumatic-filling pen. See also single jewel.
bullet pen	1  A pen made in the shape of, and roughly the same size as, a rifle cartridge; primarily a hard rubber eyedropper filler produced during World War I, such as the Salz “Army & Navy” pen shown below. These pens were sold to civilians as reminders of the troops Over There and also as gifts to be sent to men serving in the military.  2  A term applied to the Fisher Space Pen, a pressurized ballpoint, in reference to its streamlined shape.
bulletproof	1  An adjective describing a pen so well built that it can withstand hard use bordering on a complete disregard for the pen’s well-being, e.g., the Parker 45 and Sheaffer No Nonsense.  2  An adjective describing an ink that becomes utterly ineradicable when applied to paper. To be truly bulletproof, an ink must be formulated so that its coloring agent (dye) bonds chemically with the fibers of the paper and cannot be bleached out.
bullseye	Having the appearance of a target with concentric rings, like the iris and pupil of an eye; e.g., the conical “jewel” on the blind cap of a Parker Speedline Vacumatic (as illustrated here), which is fashioned from the material of the cap instead of a separate piece. Sometimes difficult to distinguish. See also jewel.
Burma	One of the “exotic” celluloid colors (Burma, Cathay, Jet Black, Kashmir, and Morocco) offered on the first generation of the Wahl-Eversharp Doric. Burma is chunks of gray streaked with silver, as shown to the right. See also Cathay, Doric, Kashmir, Morocco.
Burp Pen	See Ventura.
butanone	See methyl ethyl ketone.
butt cheeks	See baby’s bottom.
butterfly nib	A cheap nib design used for third-tier pens, primarily in the first half of the 20th century. A butterfly nib is made of steel without iridium tipping; the tips of the tines are shaped somewhat like halves of a lollipop and folded down to provide a rounded writing pad, as illustrated below. See also rolled-under nib, spoon nib.
button	(also stud, chiefly British usage) A type of filling system; operates by mechanical ink-sac squeeze. A button at the end of the barrel bends a spring-metal pressure bar to squeeze the sac laterally. View filling instructions here.
Byers & Hayes	(Byers & Hayes Company, Inc., also B&H) A fountain pen and pencil manufacturing company located in New York City; founded in 1916 by John E. Hayes, formerly manager at Aikin Lambert, and George T. Byers, a New York manufacturer of fountain pens and pencils. Products included gold and silver pencils, eyedropper-filling and self-filling fountain pens, clips, and a variety of novelties such as toothpicks. Pen models included a rifle cartridge-styled pen (similar to the Salz Army-Navy pen shown at bullet pen). The company also jobbed pens and parts, with or without custom imprinting, and did chasing work for other manufacturers. The company appears to have survived into the 1930s.

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