Fountain Pens

It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between custom, traditional or collectible fountain pens in terms of quality and appearance. Vintage pens are also customizable and hence can add to a collection whereas collectable pens categorize in traditional or vintage customizable pens.

Therefore, any fountain pen whether a modern or vintage, customized or mass-produced, it can always appeal a pen collector as long as the demand and choice meet. If asked to a pen lover, there is no limit to the demands of pen styling or quality yet the uniqueness builds the urge to buy and collect any fountain pen that tags with any price.

New or modern pens are easier to collect after being easily available through local markets however antique or vintage pens are more like hunting a prey. Fountain pen collectors are both buyers and sellers who meet in the Estate sales and flea markets. It is not a decided profession therefore; many a stationers and old jewelers also come up with collectible fountain pens.

The best way to look for collectible fountain pens is through pen shows where a huge collection from hobbyists and pen lovers trade for a night and even days. Initially, these shows held for swapping pens but now they organize with all preparations of advertisements, auctions and sales. If you feel a hassle or costly attending these shows, you do have a convenience clicking through internet e-stores.

As discussed above, finding collectible fountain pens through online auction stores serves you the best deal by searching with your internet speed. Online auctions are quick and hence chances of winning the bid may be tougher since the allotted time for each auction could be your sleeping hours. Anyone, from any part of the world who can access the auction can win the product in the last minute.

In addition, sometimes the online auctions misrepresent the feature list of a product and when you are unable to test before buying, the sellers swindle you.

Writing has been a practice thousands of years back since the human civilization began. Archeologists in the recent years discovered drawings and writings in the caves that gives a clear understanding of knowledge through writing. Mankind preserved his thoughts by engraving on the stones, cave walls, palm leaves and hieroglyph inscriptions through sharp stones, reeds, quills and metals.

Ink when invented, replaced the act of scratching and engraving to writing by dipping the quills in the inkpots. It later became difficult to write for long hours with a thin quill. Therefore, after catching the idea of hollow channel in the feather that could store ink, the early inventors created a fountain pen in its raw form.

It traces that the first fountain pen was owned by an Egyptian, Hassan El Mamoud in 969 AD, whose manuscript from Fatimid dynasty was translated by an Egyptian Scholar that read about his pen without any dipping in the ink. Another incident evidences about a pen made of gold with its own ink tank, which presented to a Caliph. It leaked the ink since its mechanism did not cover all aspects therefore it was reordered. On modification, the ink leakage problem fixed however, the pen wrote fluidly on the paper and the ink disappeared as soon as the pen lifted away from the paper.

Later on, no such improvements were found for quite a long time until in 1702, a Frenchman; M. Bion designed a fountain pen that proves to be the first complete fountain pen. Then in early 1800’s, fountain pens were produced massively especially by a British, John Scheffer who introduced half-quill and half-metal pens. Initially, the sheep’s gut stored ink while all other methods of ink storage were a hassle to manage.

From the start of the world to the present, man is always in need of an invention. Supporting the famous saying “Necessity is the mother of invention”, Lewis Waterman after years of practice, knowledge from M. Bion and modifications on the pen finally, came up to the first man who patented the fountain pen in year 1884. The 18th century introduced the mass selling of a fountain pen.

In the present world, countless people write everyday. However, no matter how sophisticated any other pen may be, mature writers prefer a fountain pen. In earlier productions of fountain pen, it was expensive to buy a fountain pen until the competitive market made a fountain pen easily affordable.

In fact, the makers have out the excuse of not using a fountain pen. Although, there are some expensive brands yet people buy them to presenting gifts.

If you are looking to buy a fountain pen, you need to consider a few things that can prove a buying guide suiting your needs completely. If you are a normal fountain pen user, you must notice that the first thing you ask the salesperson is about the price. If you are a regular and rough user of a pen, you can afford fine quality fountain pens in the modern era of mass production. Of these affordable pens, you can easily access cartridge pens and hence easing yourself by further refilling.

Moreover, if you are looking to presenting a fountain pen, obviously a little more spending will do. Before spending, please try looking for pens that either have a gold plated nib, as they surely expose an elegant and rich style. If you are a wealthy person, take the chance to find branded fountain pens since they guarantee durability, leisure, and excitement to the one who you gift.

Brands are always careful and value their customers. They create extra ordinary pens keeping in mind how their customers use their fountain pens. They also produce cartridge pens for those who find trouble refilling from an inkpot. Therefore, if you wish to wrap your gift with more than just a pen and its case, buy some extra cartridges to make your gift helpful for the one who receives.

If you have been shopping online and can access reliable online sellers, you can search, compare and finally decide which pen you would like to buy. You can also directly send a gift through the gifting and shipping services. However, please be careful of the internet scam that can steal your credit card information and hence you end up failing to gift.

Writers around the world have different styles of writing and most of them prefer sophisticated fountain pens. When a writer orders for a pen suiting his handling needs, favorite colors and material, it calls for a custom fountain pen. These customized fountain pens are fantastic creations by mixture of talents and ideas from the makers and customers respectively.

They are usually composed of wood, glass, heavy metal, celluloid, hard rubber and hard plastic. The quantities and placement of these materials depend mainly on customer’s requirements.

While producing and manufacturing customized fountain pens, deer antler is the most difficult one to design.

The pen designers have even tried to add their creativity from ivory, leather and displaying a stony wearing on a fountain pen. Pen lovers over the centuries favor platinum, gold and silver and most of them personalize their pens by engraving their names and loved words. In fact, prices here do not prevent a customer from buying their desired fountain pens.

There are a few more techniques for customizing a fountain pen such as adjusting the nib to write obliquely left, right, italic, regular, straight right and other possible angles. The tip of these nibs can set narrower or wider, stub or round to have your favorite font and satisfaction on the page when you write.

As customized fountain pens are preordered, most producers make profits by offering in bulk while a few risk in taking orders accurately to the quantity demanded. Many a fountain pen-manufactures located a new way to promote their pens through gifting to businesses.

The other way round, most corporate offices gift customized pens to their clients and employees with company logos or names on the clips, nibs, barrels and caps.

It is an everlasting trend of gifting a custom fountain pen until the schools have become digital with students tech-savvy preferring typing than just writing.

In the early years of writing, pens were as much as feather sticks or quills. The word ‘pen’ derives from a Latin word ‘Penna’ that defines a feather. The basic idea of a pen is to be able to store ink and utilize it on the paper taking the same direction and movements as the writer wants. After the invention of the pen, many other kinds were produced such as felt pens, cross-pens, ballpoints, quill pens, reed pens, etc.  Adding to the types, different colors as red, green, blue and black made a diverse combination.

The very first problem a writer faced was the dipping of the quill in the ink many times that exhausted and disturbed the mind while writing. Therefore, the first invention was a quill pen that covered the problem of dipping by creating ink storage within the pen.  The next problem arose was the extra flowing of the ink from the nib.

After years of testing and modifications on the fountain pen problems, Lewis Waterman in 1884, refined all the technicalities and produced a complete fountain pen with zero errors. He patented the fountain pen and hence became the pioneer of the writing source.

These days, fountain pens come with all sorts of accessories. They come in about nine different sizes with varying writing styles like straight, italic or oblique. For the ink, they use herb extracts and inks made using chemical fusion. Ink reservoirs have also many kinds for different professions. Corporate offices prefer cartridges while other writers prefer piston fillers and some even do with the pouches.

Modern fountain pens after years of research and development now practice the combination of capillary action (the liquid movement in thin tubes) and gravity. This makes the pens write soft without exerting extra pressure.

There are various ways of refilling a fountain pen. In USA, several methods such as Button, Lever, Matchstick, Coin and Click patented for refilling. All these methods allowed the ink to flow in and out through letting down the internal plate. Traditional fountain pens usually require eyedropper fillers. The pouch in the back of the pen, when pressed or squeezed, pushes the air out and upon lifting, vacuums the ink to fill in.

In the later stages, the use of cartridge proved quick and less of a hassle. People called it international cartridges since many a European Companies used them for their fountain pens. The basic purpose behind ink cartridges was to prevent from ink strains and quick refilling by just a plug out plug in.

As the cartridges were expensive than a normal inkpot, the inventors brought in a new idea of a piston filler. The piston inside the barrel drives up and down just by spinning the knob. The physics remain the same as pouches to throw out the air and vacuuming the ink in. After observing the demand, most of the pens were designed with a converter that could use both the cartridge and piston filler.

Talking about the capacity, the eyedropper fillers like pouches carry the maximum space for the ink while piston fillers do the least of it. The piston normally takes more space in the barrel and thereby leaves lesser space for the ink. Some people have a psychology that they prefer lesser ink if it takes less time to refill. Therefore, the eyedropper filler idea is nearly vanished from the pens.

International Cartridges are compatible with most fountain pens that accept a cartridge while some branded fountain pens have their personalized cartridges. Some of these branded pens do not even allow a converter. If you find a shortage of cartridge, you can only refill it through a syringe by inserting any ink you like or have.

A regular fountain pen user always stores refills before running out of ink. Some people find fun refilling their cartridges through syringe even if it is time taking.

Fountain pens have not only been beautiful alone but they are close to gorgeous when kept in their mother cases. The pen cases are useful for protecting pens’ shine, color, or any damage that may occur by falling down or mishandling.

Being a home for a pen, every case has a room for a pen making it more comfortably settled and assuring a tightly packed space so that the pen does not freely move inside the case while closed. It is essential to keep a pen case when your belonging is a vintage fountain pen.

You will find various shapes of pen cases such as easel, cheerot box-like, upright-standing frames, cups and some with transparent glass covers. Of the two basic genres, open cases and closed cases both, serve different purposes. Closed ones preserve the pens from dust and scratches while open cases have to be elegant and stylish to attract the beauty of the pen. Some trendy varieties include the triangular boxes with smoked plastic covers. Japanese manufacturers have been using wood and Wajima Urushi Lacquer for pen pillows.

In the regular designs, wood, leather, metal and glass use to create pen cases while the designer pen cases have a huge effort of colors integration and styling aesthetics to shape a case that deserves its pen.

Some people like to make their own pen cases or stands with coke cans but a pen lover never makes a mistake keeping his valuable pen in a less worthy case or a stand. He would instead find gems, leather or precious metals to enhance the look of his pen case.

Other than the purpose of display and preserving, fountain pen cases verily need before presenting or making a pen gift to anyone with endless possibilities of occasions such as Birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, and many more.

A fountain pen is just like any other mechanical instrument. It requires a repair after a prolonged or faulty use. It is mentionable that all parts of a fountain pen are repairable. A nonprofessional can repair some parts at home while otherwise, you may need an expert’s touch. It is always advisable to seek an expert’s help as amateur enthusiasts often spoil their pens knowing little about the technicalities.

Vintage pens are mostly delicate therefore messing around on your own can further damage your pen if you are not an expert. However, old fountain pen collectors and users have comparatively more knowledge than a normal user therefore they make the fixing as long as they are capable. Otherwise, they also seek specialist assistance.

For a nib, iridium is used that does not wear down in the pen’s lifetime however, the tines may become uneven and produce a rough writing. In this case, the experts take a microscopic study to examine if the tines have bent backward or forward and then adjust them with detailed care to bring it to its genuine position. Even the exerted pressure is calculated to prevent the tines from breaking.

Another tip for uneven ink flow in your fountain pen is to check through the gap between the tines and cleaning with the razor blade. If you have not used your fountain pen for a long time, some dust particles may accumulate or the ink clogging within the nib. Thereby washing it in water for sometime can clean the nib inside out.

Fountain pens that contain eyedropper fillers or sacs can puncture while the cap or barrel may produce cracks. Experts undoubtedly handle these problems. Talking about their domain of work, the repairers also reform the nibs to italic, stub and oblique depending on user needs.

Have you ever liked to write with a fountain pen? Have you found it affectionate? And have you ever wished to have it through your life?  To answer all these questions, the first thing you need is to be a fountain pen user. Secondly, it is not possible to be obsessed by your pen if it has not given you quality, satisfaction and above all, durability.

Before you leave home to a fountain pen shop, or open your browser to shop online, please go through the following tips to consider.

1. Beauty & Size - If you may have observed, the first thing you would find in the pen will be beauty. Pick and hold the pen you like and check if that is easy and comfortable to grip and use. If the pen is quite longer than your hand, try looking for a one with a smaller barrel.

2. Weight – While holding the pen, if it feels heavier than the pen you normally work with, try considering another. This is because such pens when writing can create stress while your hand is on standby.

3. Nib – It is undoubtedly the most important part of the pen as it only writes. There are nine different styles of nibs that present stub, oblique, regular, italic, and many other styles of writings. Oblique provides bold writing and proves good for left-handers. With italic or stub nib, your writing will slow down as it is slanted and generally meant for calligraphy purposes.

4. Ink Capacity – Some pens have piston mechanism that refills ink through the spinning of its knob at the back. However, fillers that have piston usually leave lesser capacity for ink since the pistons take more space in the barrel. Therefore, Cartridges would be an economical option to initiate mobility, more ink capacity and quicker refilling.

5. Price – After inspecting through a range of shapes, colors and style, it is always possible to reach an affordable fountain pen when you have a lot of variety to compare and choose. If you are collector and you extremely value the pen, purchase it in the first place. If you are a regular user and want to make a reasonable deal, you will surely grab a pen that your pocket can buy.

It records that the quill pen survived the maximum years in the history of writing until the user needs left behind the quill pen as lazy. If you keep a passion of handwriting, you will realize that by the passage of time, you will obsess by your writing instrument. No matter how lazy or messy it will be, you may keep it with you for your life achievements.

You can characterize your favorite pen with an haute couture fashion, ounce of precious perfume, or a fine aged wine. Therefore, always try to practice all the tips discussed above and matching them with your needs. By the end of the day, your satisfaction will be your decision.

In the year 1884, Lewis Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen. It was the pioneer of pens used by writers. In the facts of history, it shows that a fountain pen from year 1702 still survives belonging to a Frenchman, M. Bion.

These antique pens are of grand value and form a unique item for collectors around the globe. They are expensive for their rarity and distinctiveness however at the same time; they require extra care and handling techniques as compared to other pens. They are somehow similar to modern pens for their ink filling mechanisms while their writing qualities and structures have been differentiating throughout.

There lies a variation in the cost of antique fountain pens after identifying the pens’ owners and explicitly the material of their makeup.

Other than that, there have also been a few quality measures to set a price such as the nib material. If it is gold or silver, the price increases significantly. They get even more expensive if the pen-cases are of a precious quality. For these pen cases, there have been genuine leathers used, heavy metals and mostly the royal styling of gold and silver.

Moreover, some antique pens carry a history behind them and therefore attract the people forcing an economic law of price rise after demand rise. Other antique pens are not less in value since they are always popular among people who collect pens belonging to different eras.

Despite the historic events and existence of antique pens, there are still a few modern brands selling pens that are hundreds of years old. They have preserved the ingredients and production techniques and sell them at high prices.

You may not find these fountain pens at wholesale outlets but there are flea markets and old curio shops built for selling ancient items. Their dealers have a sound experience in trading antique pieces. In this modern world, even the online stores are displaying the antique fountain pens with a promising originality. With a few clicks of research, you can compare the prices and buy yourself a cheaper yet an antique fountain pen of your choice.