Carry It Point Up

In the appendix to an 1883–84 legal directory, Lewis Edson Waterman offered a fountain pen on trial. It would become the purchaser’s “Ideal Pen” within thirty days, or the money would be refunded. One filling, the advertisement promised, would sustain ten to twenty-five hours of continuous writing, depending on the size of the holder. A customer who already had a favourite nib could send it in to be fitted.

The offer sat below an advertisement for a revolving bookcase. Above that was another fountain pen, Mabie, Todd & Bard’s Calli-graphic. Lawyers and businessmen reading the directory were being offered competing ways to keep writing without repeatedly reaching for an ink bottle. Waterman’s address was 136 Fulton Street, New York.

A reservoir in the handle made that promise possible. It also put a supply of liquid in the writer’s hand and pocket. The pen had to deliver enough ink while someone wrote quickly, stop it arriving in drops, and remain manageable after it was capped, turned over and carried away.

The holder and the nib

The buyer could keep a familiar writing point.

In the language of Waterman’s early trade, the metal nib was itself the pen. The ink-carrying body was the holder. Offering to fit a customer’s own nib let the new reservoir work with an established preference for the shape and feel of a writing point. It was a more personal transaction than simply buying a sealed instrument off a shelf.

A very early surviving Waterman, examined by pen historian David Nishimura, still has its box but has lost its nib. Its barrel says a patent has been applied for, placing it in the first period of production, before the February 1884 grant. The missing part need not have carried Waterman’s name: early holders could accept other makers’ nibs, including ordinary steel ones.

Waterman’s entry into this trade later acquired a more dramatic explanation. An insurance contract was supposedly ruined by an ink blot; a rival took the business, and the disappointed salesman invented a better pen. Nishimura found no such incident in the early company histories he examined. His earliest located telling dates from 1921, twenty years after Waterman’s death. The later story gives no secure account of why the first feed was made.

The patents describe a practical problem already occupying other makers.

Under the writing point

Frank Holland, a maker in Manchester, Connecticut, described two familiar failures in 1881. An overfed nib could drop ink onto the page. Restrict the opening too much, and it could fail to supply someone writing rapidly. His proposed pen used a springing needle, moved by the nib, to help regulate delivery.

In another patent, granted in May 1883, Holland addressed bubbles. Air had to rise through the passage to replace the ink being used. Bubbles that clung inside could obstruct its descent. A small tongue moving with the writing action was intended to keep the passage clear.

The hollow handle therefore needed two movements at once. Ink went towards the paper; air returned to the space it left behind. Without replacement air, pressure inside the reservoir would fall and the supply would stall. An unrestricted passage, however, would make it too easy for the contents to escape.

Waterman’s patent, granted on 12 February 1884, proposed a comparatively simple rubber bar beneath the nib. A groove ran along it, becoming shallower towards the writing end. Narrow fissures extended deeper into the bar from the groove. These small wettable passages used capillary attraction to conduct ink, while the broader channel also allowed air to return.

The dimensions and arrangement of the passages mattered. Ink had to reach the slit in the nib and replenish what writing removed, while incoming air could not be allowed to block its route. Waterman discussed the movement of the nib against the feed as well as the action of the channels.

There was no separate valve for the owner to open before each line. The feed was intended to regulate delivery during writing. Making that arrangement work still required the nib and bar to be fitted together properly.

Instructions for a pocket

Waterman’s directions of 1885 began with the way to carry the instrument: keep the point upwards. When laying it down, raise the point an inch or more. Remove and replace the cap with the point up, too.

Even the warmth of a hand could matter.

The directions warned that warming the air inside the holder could expel extra ink. Repeatedly picking the pen up and laying it down could therefore bring an overflow. Keeping it filled was the maker’s advice. A pen that began writing unusually freely as it approached empty was giving its owner a warning to refill it.

Filling meant unscrewing the barrel and using a glass dropper to bring the ink nearly to the top. The end had to be wiped before the parts were closed. Fluid ink was recommended; gummy or muddy ink was to be avoided. For cleaning, the rubber bulb could be removed from the dropper and fitted over the threads to flush water through the feed.

The owner was allowed to clean the instrument but discouraged from adjusting its working parts. Waterman said the flow could be increased or reduced at the workshop without charge. Customers should send back the complete pen and holder with an explanation, their name on the package, and twelve cents for registration and postage.

The accompanying circular, dated 5 February 1885, admitted that some pens were unsatisfactory. The company offered to remove the difficulty without charge if the fault was its own, or refund the money. The printed testimonials came from enthusiastic users; the instructions made room for the customer whose pen needed another visit to the maker.

After the cap went on

George S. Parker’s 1898 patent described a nuisance that could appear after writing had stopped. When a pen was inverted and capped, ink could collect around the outside of its nozzle. The next person to remove the cap and grasp the pen got it on their fingers.

Parker curved the inner end of his feed towards the reservoir wall. Narrow capillary passages supplied ink to the nib; a deeper part near the writing end held a small reserve for heavy strokes. When the instrument was turned over, a slit was intended to drain surplus back into the barrel. The same patent complained of bubbles blocking older feeds so badly that users jerked the pen to get it going.

Other designs made a more substantial change between writing and carrying. A safety pen drew the nib back inside its barrel, allowing the cap to close the mouth of the ink vessel. Waterman entered this market in 1908, after other makers had offered retracting-nib pens. Its mechanism changed in response to other firms’ patents.

A closer look · 13:42 · English · automatic English captions

The nib goes back inside

Play film

The cap and rear seal now had an essential role in keeping the contents enclosed. Those seals could deteriorate. Restorers examining surviving Waterman safeties encounter worn corks and fragile parts, including thin early turning knobs that can break during servicing. The promise of safe carrying depended on the condition of the whole instrument.

Back to the bottle

Carrying the ink did not dispose of the bottle. In February 1905, a Canadian stationery trade journal described the Imperial Fountain Pen Filler, a rubber attachment for an ordinary ink bottle. One squeeze, it promised, would fill a fountain pen without spilt ink or dirty fingers. Clean replenishment had become a selling opportunity of its own.

An internal filling mechanism could put that operation inside the holder. In a lever-filler, raising the lever pressed a bar against a flexible ink sac. With the nib immersed in ink, lowering the lever released the pressure; the sac expanded and drew liquid in. The owner no longer had to open the reservoir and transfer ink with a separate dropper. The decorated Waterman pictured near the beginning has a lever in its barrel, a later solution to this part of ownership.

The finished pen still had to write properly.

By the 1920s, Waterman was publishing photographs of the workers who assembled and inspected its pens at Newark, New Jersey. Its production booklet described the nib and rubber feed being brought into adjustment together, followed by an examination for blemishes and a test of writing smoothness.

The inspectors were skilled men and women who could correct small faults themselves. If they could not put a pen right, it was rejected and sent back to the department where the error had occurred.