Fountain pen: Encyclopedia II - Fountain pen

The earliest historical record of a reservoir pen dates to the 10th century but it is likely that attempts at a fountain pen go back much further into the past. The earliest surviving reservoir pens date to the 18th century. Progress in developing a reliable pen was slow, however, into the mid-19th century. That slow pace of progress was due to a very imperfect understanding of the role that air pressure played in the operation of the pens and because most inks were highly corrosive and full of sedimentary inclusions. Starting in the 1850's there was a steadily accelerating stream of fountain pen patents and pens in production. It was only after three key inventions were in place, however, that the fountain pen became a widely popular writing instrument. Those inventions were the iridium-tipped gold nib, hard rubber, and free-flowing ink.

The first fountain pens making use of all these key ingredients appeared in the 1850s. In the 1870s Duncan MacKinnon, a Canadian living in New York City, and Alonzo T. Cross of Providence, Rhode Island created stylographic pens with a hollow, tubular nib and a wire acting as a valve. Stylographic pens are now used mostly for drafting and technical drawing but were very popular in the decade beginning in 1875. it was in the 1880s that the era of the mass-produced fountain pen finally began. The dominant American producers in this pioneer era were Waterman and Wirt, based in New York City and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, respectively. Waterman soon outstripped Wirt, along with the many companies that sprang up to fill the new and growing fountain pen market, and remained the market leader up until the early 1920s.

At this time fountain pens were almost all filled by unscrewing a portion of the hollow barrel or holder and inserting the ink by means of an eyedropper. This was a slow and messy system. Additionally, fountain pens tended to leak inside their caps and at the joint where the barrel opened for filling. Now that the materials problems had been overcome and the flow of ink while writing had been regulated, the next problems to be solved were the creation of a simple, convenient self-filler and the problem of leakage. Self-fillers began to come into their own around the turn of the century; the most successful of these was probably the Conklin crescent-filler, followed by A. A. Waterman's twist-filler. The tipping point, however, was the runaway success of Walter A. Sheaffer's lever-filler, introduced in 1912, paralleled by Parker's roughly contemporary button-filler.

Meanwhile many inventors turned their attention to the problem of leakage. Some of the earliest solutions to this problem came in the form of a "safety" pen with a retractable point that allowed the ink reservoir to be stoppered like a bottle. The most successful of these came from F.C. Brown of the Caw's Pen and Ink Co. and from Morris W. Moore of Boston. In 1907 Waterman began marketing a safety pen of its own that soon became the most widely distributed such pen. For pens with nonretractible nibs, the adoption of screw-on caps with inner caps that sealed around the nib by bearing against the front of the section effectively solved the leakage problem (such pens were also marketed as "safety pens", as with the Parker Jack Knife Safety and the Swan Safety Screw-Cap).

In Europe, German Günther Wagner's office supplies house (started in 1871), introduced the Pelikan pen in 1929, based upon the acquisition of patents for solid-ink fountain pens from the factory of Slavoljub Penkala from Croatia (patented 1907, in mass production since 1911), and the patent of the Hungarian Theodor Kovacs for the modern piston filler by 1925.

The decades that followed saw many technological innovations in the manufacture of fountain pens. Celluloid gradually replaced hard rubber, which enabled production in a much wider range of colors and designs. At the same time, manufacturers experimented with new filling systems. The inter-war period saw the introduction of some of the most notable models, such as the Parker Duofold and Vacumatic, Sheaffer's Lifetime Balance series, and the Pelikan 100.

During the 1940s and 1950s, fountain pens retained their dominance: early ballpoint pens were expensive, prone to leaks and had irregular inkflow, while the fountain pen continued to benefit from the combination of mass production and craftsmanship. This period saw the launch of innovative models such as the Parker 51, the Sheaffer Snorkel and the Eversharp Skyline, while the Esterbrook J series of lever-fill models with interchangeable steel nibs offered inexpensive reliability to the masses.

By the 1960s, refinements in ballpoint pen production gradually ensured its dominance over the fountain pen for casual use. Although cartridge-filler fountain pens are still in common use in France and Germany, particularly among schoolchildren, modern manufacturers (especially Montblanc) now market the fountain pen as a collectible or a status symbol, rather than an everyday writer.

Current fountain pen manufacturers include Cross, Montblanc, Parker, Pelikan, Namiki/Pilot, Caran d'Ache, Rotring, Sheaffer, Hero (from China) and Waterman. Practically all fountain pen companies offer ink alongside their pens, but companies exclusively producing inks (mostly for fountain pens) exist, including Private Reserve, Nathan Tardif's Noodler's Ink, Diamine and J. Herbin. Sometimes a manufacturer of fountain pens sells another manufacturer's ink under their brand name - for example the fountain pen ink of A.T. Cross is actually made by Pelikan, Bexley's by Private Reserve and Yard-o-Led's by Diamine. Pilot is one of only a few companies making disposable fountain pens (under model name Varsity and Vpen). Pilot also makes higher-end pens under brand name Namiki, including the "Vanishing Point", where the nib retracts like a that of a ballpoint.