Highlights and a brief history of fountain pen for people in a hurry
Quills have been used for at least 14 centuries and were the most common form of writing instrument in the Western World until the end of the 19thCentury – the reed pen and brush were most popular in Far East and Asia. Both cut and uncut quills were sold by stationers. Geese were the most common source of quill, but feathers from swans, crows, turkeys, and other birds were also frequently used. Most scribes and clerks cut or sharpened their own quills, and quills were still used by the underwriters Lloyds of London until the 1980s.
In 1690 Nicholas Bion (1656-1733), instrument maker to Louis XIV of France designed his first pen with a simple tubular metal reservoir connecting to a quill nib. Nicholas Bion made no claim to be an inventor, nor held any relevant patent documentation.
In 1663 Samuel Pepys, (1633-1703) refers to a metal pen carrying ink. Samuel Pepys FRS was an English diarist, naval administrator and Member of Parliament most famous for the diary he kept for a decade.
In 1809 the first English fountain pen patent was granted to Frederick Fölsch.
In 1809 four months after Frederick Fölsch, another patent was granted to Joseph Bramah in regards to his own feed invention.
In 1819 English inventor John Scheffer (not related to Sheaffer brand) received a patent for his Penographic fountain pen, the first design to establish some evidence of commercial success.
In 1827 French government patent granted on May 25th to the Romanian mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor Petrache Poenaru (1799-1875) of a fountain pen with a barrel made from a large swan quill. the French Ministry of the Interior registered Poenaru’s invention with the patent number 3208 and incorporated
the following description “plume portable sans fin, qui s’alimente elle-meme avec de l’ancre” (“never-ending portable pen, which recharges itself with ink”).
In 1828 Josiah Mason (1795-1891) improved a low cost and efficient steel slip-in nib in Birmingham UK. His pens band nibs being marketed through James Perry, founder of Perry & Co., the London stationer company.
In 1830 William Joseph Gillott, William Mitchell, and James Stephen Perry devised a way to mass manufacture of reliable robust and low-cost steel pen nibs (Perry & Co).
In 1832 John Jacob Parker an American filed a patent that allowed fountain pens to “self-fill”.
In 1837 Thomas de la Rue (1793-1866) who was a printer from Guernsey, founded De La Rue, a printing company.
In 1832 young chemist Carl Hornemann founded his own ink factory in Hanover, Germany.
In 1840s Mabie Todd entered business of writing instruments, tracing its roots to the gold nib and pencil manufacture. The company proper was established in 1860 in New York City. Swan pens were introduced in 1887, with UK production beginning in around 1905.
In 1846 A.T. Cross Company, LLC. an American manufacturing company of writing implements, based in Providence, Rhode Island was founded. Many years later in 2014 the company also owned Sheaffer, another American pen manufacturer. In August 2022 the Sheaffer brand was sold to the William Penn company.
In 1858 the Birmingham “pen industry” in the UK manufactured more than half of the steel-nib pens in the world, also soon followed by the invention and perfection of the iridium-tipped gold nib. What followed was the Goodyear patent for making vulcanised hard rubber known as “Vulcanite“.
In 1870s-1880s the first fountain pens become commercially successful and started to be mass produced. Soon 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”.
In 1875 stylographic pens become used mostly for drafting and technical design drawings.
In 1880s the mass-produced reasonably reliable fountain pen finally arrived.
In 1881 Thomas Hearson was granted a patent No. 1419 for “an ingenious form of pocket pen”- The Anti Stylograph Pen (Hearson’s Patent).
In 1882-1884 volume produced pens by Burge Warren and Ridgely in the UK, Shipmans (1883), Mabie Todd and Bard (1883) and Lewis Watermans (1884) in the USA who designed a pen that used capillary action to regulate the flow of ink to the nib, which prevents it from the common problem of spilling or smudging.
Self-filling pens began to arrive around the turn of the century including De La Rue, Onoto branded plunger filler, the Post Syringe filler produced by BWR and Shand in the UK, and the Conklin crescent-filler and A. A. Waterman’s “twist-filler”.
In 1884 the Waterman Pen Company was established in New York City by Lewis Waterman, being still 123 years later one of the few remaining first-generation fountain pen brands, known as “Waterman S.A.“
In 1888 the Parker Pen Company was founded by George Safford Parker in Janesville, Wisconsin, United States.
In 1889 the first gold nibbed fountain pens were produced by De La Rue company.
In 1904 the first Onotos featured Evelyn de la Rue’s patent No. 15140.
In 1905 Conway Stewart was established by Jarvis and Garner who had previously worked for the De La Rue Company. They started their own business, initially reselling fountain pens manufactured by other companies. The name “Conway Stewart” was apparently derived from a popular music hall act of the time.
In 1906 the Montblanc origins began when a designer from Berlin called August Eberstein, in partnership with a Hamburg banker, Alfred Nehemias, developed a range of simple-to-use and very popular fountain pens.
In c1905-c1914 Onoto Patent Self-Filling Pens short “O” Types were produced.
In c1909-c1914 Onoto Patent Self-Filling Pens short “O” Types in Stirling silver were produced.
In 1910 Montblanc’s trademark was registered inspired by the highest European mountain.
In 1912 the major success of Sheaffer’s lever-filler, patented in the same year, and Parker’s slightly later patented his button-filler, which created the real mass market for fountain pens. Sheaffer invented a lever-filling system made the process of filling ink in a pen easier. This system became a standard feature in many other fountain pens.
In the inter-war period celluloid material gradually replaced hard rubber, enabling a much wider range of colours and designs to be manufactured. The inter-war period saw the introduction of some of the most important designs such as the Parker Duofold & Vacumatic, followed by the Swan Leverless. Following the end of the first world war and the expiry of Sheaffers patent, several pen companies started to produce lever filling pens for the masses with many millions of lever fillers made around the world.
In 1918 the first PILOT pens were created in Japan in. Ryosuke Namiki, mechanical engineer and acting professor at the Tokyo Merchant Marine School, created a high-quality pen prototype. After teaming up with one of his colleagues, Masao Wada, he founded the Namiki Manufacturing Company.
In 1919 Mentmore Manufacturing Company started life and was named after its first premises in Mentmore Terrace in Hackney, London. The company was an innovator, it invented amongst other things the spy pens in 1939.
In 1919 Aurora manufacturer of fountain pens was established in Turin in Italy.
In 1920s the success of Conklin’s crescent fill pens had established the firm’s reputation as one of the leading American pen makers. The crescent filler was replaced by a simple lever filler around 1922.
In 1920 De La Rue announced the introduction of the new Streamline Onoto Pen.
In 1924 the Meisterstück pen was launched and the “149” Montblanc fountain pen model soon became a style icon at that time and continues to this day.
In 1925 Armando Simoni set up in Bologna in Italy OMAS (Officina Meccanica Armando Simoni). During the 1930s he designed the “Doctor’s Pen” fitted with a tiny clinical thermometer in the body of the pen.
In 1929 the Pelikan fountain pen was born. It was well known for its trademark Green barrel, with the technically innovative ink flow and transparent ink window.
In 1934 the Pelikan fountain pen always known as “model 100” was released, in today’s money, its cost apparently was around £30.
In 1940s-1950s fountain pens retained their popularity and usage as early ballpoint pens were unreliable, expensive, and were prone to leaks. Fountain pens continued to benefit from the combination of high-volume production based on a quality design work and craftsmanship.
The most innovative models e.g., the Parker 51 Aerometric, the Parker 61 Capillary filler and the Sheaffer Snorkel sold millions of pieces worldwide. Parker’s “51” was a revolutionary pen incorporating a hooded nib, a streamlined barrel, and a cap that clicked on and off. This is one was the most popular fountain pen and used worldwide.
In 1955 The new but last K Series of Onoto Thomas De La Rue Pens went on sale.
In 1958 the manufacturing of Onoto Pens was discontinued.
In 1960 the Pelikan school fountain pen the “Pelikano” was introduced, developed with the help and assistance of handwriting educators and expertise of fountain pen specialist designers.
The 1960s-1970s saw a massive reduction in fountain pen production with many old and established companies closing down or going into voluntary liquidation.
in 1960 Josef Lamy proposed a cartridge system that made refilling easy without having any eyedropper or other filling mechanism.
In 1977 Montblanc was acquired by Alfred Dunhill Ltd, and it formed a substantive part of the Richemont group
In 1988 Visconti Pen Company was founded in Florence by Dante Del Vecchio and Luigi Poli, who were collectors of fountain pens. The first collection launched by Visconti was the “Classic“, a pen made of celluloid, which would be used for several collections in successive years.
In 1988 Jinhao Pen company was established by the Shanghai Qiangu Stationery Co. ltd in China. Established as claimed as a brand which combines Chinese culture and Western elements.
In 1994, the Montblanc Meisterstück Solitaire Royal became the world’s most expensive fountain pen decorated with the 4,810 diamonds individually set by human hand.
In 2005 Onoto pen Company was re-established. In May 2005 a new company named “The Onoto Pen Company Limited” launched itself at an event held at the London Stock Exchange and attended by the late Dante Del Vecchio and Luigi Poli, then Chairman of De La Rue plc. Based in Norwich, it restarted this historic brand making the first new Onoto pens for 46 years.
In 2011 the Parker Pen factory at Newhaven, East Sussex, England, was closed, and its production transferred to Nantes in France.
As of the last c20-30 years the fountain pen “limited edition market” continues as a commercial success by companies such Montblanc, Parker/Waterman and others experiencing strong sales performance.
In 2020 the ONOTO Pen Company Limited, as a suitable tribute to one of the finest and most iconic machines, the Supermarine Spitfire, manufactured as a special edition, the ONOTO Spitfire VIII fountain pen made from Spitfire IIa P7350 Duraluminum . The polished Duraluminum is very tactile to the touch, with a comforting warm feel. The provenance of this fountain pen is both unique and unusual, but at the end of the day it is superb writing instrument.
