rolly
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Around the same time Leica introduced the M3 Parker Pen company brought out the Parker Jotter, a ballpoint pen that actually worked. Although it revolutionized the pen business, the Jotter was the culmination of a two decades old race to replace fountain pens with a “better” kind of writing “technology,” that is, dry ink, a “delivery system” that could be retracted, yet which would write in permanent ink. Ironically, the development of a “new” medium like ballpoint ink ruined more than a few companies whose expertise was laregly in the older, classical technology of wet ink– Wahl Eversharp, which made some of the most wonderful fountain pens ever, in trying to switch from wet to dry ink pretty much killed itself with ballpoints that didn’t work and had to be taken back under warranties. On the other hand, Parker pulled it off by not being the first company to bring a ballpoint to market– instead they brought out a killer product– the Jotter in 1954 and the T-ball Jotter in 1957– and for a long time the company survived. But in the end, there was just too much change– too many disposable pens, a shrinking market, AT Cross’s classier pen, and market forces and mergers with Waterman.
The history of the fountain pen rather parallels the history of film and the application of specialized gear to a mass market of consumers. Ironically, both fountain pens and film cameras had a common manufacturing ingredient– celluloid, the first man-made plastic, invented by the Hyatt brothers of Albany in 1871. Celluloid was going to be a revolutionary product, replacing ivory (save the elephants goes back that far) in billiard balls and piano keys. But billiards as a fad waned, and until Kodak came along, celluloid was a miracle innovation with few applications. Sure, there were some kinks to iron out– that pesky combustibility for instance, in the first consumer films, but if an idea is a marketable one, you can adapt as need be. Kodak improved on celluloid and created safety film. Around the time Leica began to make cameras the fountain pen industry moved from hard rubber pens to plastic– a move that was not driven by improvements in the fountain pen itself, but by a need to find new ways to make the fountain pen look “new.” In the 1920's, in the pen business, “new” began to look like celluloid.
For the twenty years of its use, celluloid made some beautiful pens, pens with glorious plastic patterns you won’t find today. Coincidentally, there began a great consolidation of the myriad small and large pen makers into a few mega-pen makers: Waterman, Parker, Wahl, Sheaffer. Interesting companies like Conklin and Le Boeuf went under. And a few interesting improvements in pen filling technology went on, along with tweakings of the nib– Parker came up with its Vacumatic, Wahl created an adjustable nib.
But, by the end of WW2, the public was tired of wet ink pens, beautiful and as innovative as they might have been. Although there were tens and tens and tens of millions of mass produced fountain pens in service by 1950, in less than a decade the ballpoint had eroded fountain pen sales by 50%, and by 1990, less than 5% of pens sold were fountain pens.
At the turn of the century there were over 150 pen makers in the NYC area alone– there was that level of excitement over this new writing technology that LE Waterman revolutionized in 1884 with the grooved pen section. In 1894, George Parker patented the Lucky Curve Feed. In ‘99, he patented a jointless pen, in 1904 the lever filler-pen. Conklin, Sheaffer, Le Boeuf– along with many now forgotten designers, all added to the perfection of an idea that seemed like it would never run out of ink.
The history of the fountain pen rather parallels the history of film and the application of specialized gear to a mass market of consumers. Ironically, both fountain pens and film cameras had a common manufacturing ingredient– celluloid, the first man-made plastic, invented by the Hyatt brothers of Albany in 1871. Celluloid was going to be a revolutionary product, replacing ivory (save the elephants goes back that far) in billiard balls and piano keys. But billiards as a fad waned, and until Kodak came along, celluloid was a miracle innovation with few applications. Sure, there were some kinks to iron out– that pesky combustibility for instance, in the first consumer films, but if an idea is a marketable one, you can adapt as need be. Kodak improved on celluloid and created safety film. Around the time Leica began to make cameras the fountain pen industry moved from hard rubber pens to plastic– a move that was not driven by improvements in the fountain pen itself, but by a need to find new ways to make the fountain pen look “new.” In the 1920's, in the pen business, “new” began to look like celluloid.
For the twenty years of its use, celluloid made some beautiful pens, pens with glorious plastic patterns you won’t find today. Coincidentally, there began a great consolidation of the myriad small and large pen makers into a few mega-pen makers: Waterman, Parker, Wahl, Sheaffer. Interesting companies like Conklin and Le Boeuf went under. And a few interesting improvements in pen filling technology went on, along with tweakings of the nib– Parker came up with its Vacumatic, Wahl created an adjustable nib.
But, by the end of WW2, the public was tired of wet ink pens, beautiful and as innovative as they might have been. Although there were tens and tens and tens of millions of mass produced fountain pens in service by 1950, in less than a decade the ballpoint had eroded fountain pen sales by 50%, and by 1990, less than 5% of pens sold were fountain pens.
At the turn of the century there were over 150 pen makers in the NYC area alone– there was that level of excitement over this new writing technology that LE Waterman revolutionized in 1884 with the grooved pen section. In 1894, George Parker patented the Lucky Curve Feed. In ‘99, he patented a jointless pen, in 1904 the lever filler-pen. Conklin, Sheaffer, Le Boeuf– along with many now forgotten designers, all added to the perfection of an idea that seemed like it would never run out of ink.
