Fountain Pens

Archive for the ‘Fountain Pens’ Category

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.