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I recently wrote about a MacNiven & Cameron 'The Cameron Pen', dating from around 1912.  The pen is, essentially, a bulb filler but it originally had two metal bars that were used to compress the sac, much like a modern 'aerometric' affair.  I have now finished work on the pen but am still unable to source the filler bars, but I live in hope. It's a hard rubber pen, in outstanding condition, with no signs of oxidation, it must have been kept in the dark for most of its life.  It uses a full length ink sac so all of the...

Chalk marks on vintage pen take the form of small, white lettering on a pen barrel giving, usually, the make, model, nib size, and retail price of the pen: This is an almost intact example of a chalk mark on a Parker 17.  Part of the price is eroded but I think it was '49/-, forty nine shillings. This is pre-decimal U.K. currency, the changeover date from 'old to new' currency in U.K. was 15th February 1971.  Pens produced, and chalk marked in the year or so prior to this date were dual marked, with prices shown in currencies, in this...

In 1921 the Wahl company produced their first self filling pen under their own name, the Wahl All Metal Fountain Pen, stamped simply 'Whal Pen'.  Contemporary lever fillers, having a metal casing, were made by overlaying the metal on to a hard rubber pen, but Wahl, largely because of their vast experience in working metal, were able to dispose of the hard rubber and build an all metal case. The pens were not only lighter than those of their competitors but were also stronger and allowed more room inside the barrel for a larger ink sac. The patterns were engine...

It's amazing how ancient pens occasionally produce an innoivation that would have revolutionised the industry had they taken it a little bit further.  In this case MacNiven and Cameron devised a filling system that was only a tiny bit removed from an Aerometric filler.  Had they seen the natural improvement they would have jumped ahead about forty years, missing out button fillers and lever systems altogether. The pen was the 'Cameron', a hard rubber, Gold nibbed affair: The pen shown is missing the filler bars at the moment but the arrangement can be seen in a c.1912 advert for the pen: All...

Wyvern were one of the few English pen makers to produce a combination pen, the combination being a fountain pen and a mechanical pencil in one body.  the americans were quite keen on theae but they never really caught on in the U.K. This is a quite robust and good sized affair made around 1920. Not the prettiest writing device I've ever seen but it is was really quite practical at a time when handwritin gand sketching played a more important part in peoples' lives than it does today.  I can imagine a busy 1920s technocrat using one of these,...