Tag Archives: Waterman pens

Pen Books: Waterman Past & Present

Staring at a shelf full of pen books, it struck me that I ought to share with you some of what these great tomes have to offer. As such, I would like to start with a pen-collecting classic.

Here is the cover to “Waterman Past & Present,” a definitive guide to Waterman pens spanning 1883 to 1958. It is a great resource for identifying each model of Waterman pens.

“Waterman Past & Present: The First Six Decades” by authors Max Davis and Gary Lehrer.

If you are just getting into vintage pens and/or Waterman pens, this book is an absolute must. Most professional collectors and dealers I know still use this book as one of their favorite references to identify classic Waterman pens.

The book’s authors are among the most trusted dealers in vintage pens. Max Davis once owned a pen shop in New York City, before moving to Europe to start several very successful websites. According to the book, he contributes most of the European advertising for Waterman and most of the ink displayed in one chapter. The rest of the book was completed by renowned pen expert Gary Lehrer, whose personal Waterman collection was possibly second-to-none. He also created with his wife Myrna one of the most successful vintage pen catalogs online and in print. I had the good fortune to know Gary and Myrna on the pen show circuit, and I was very sorry to learn of Gary’s passing earlier this year. He was an honest, kind and hard working pen man who helped to build pen collecting into the hobby it is today. He also was an excellent pen repairman.

Published in 2008, “Waterman Past & Present” is a 236 page book. Hardbound and coffee-table book size, it sports full-color on almost all of its thick, quality paper pages. After a very brief history about Louis Edson Waterman and his pens from 1883 to 1958, there is very little writing in this book.

Instead, it is a feast of images from common Waterman pens to some of the only known remaining rare models. Most of the pen photos are printed at their actual size, with specific details called out to help differentiate between models that might look similar. Along with the photos of pens are clear, easy to read images of original Waterman catalog pages AND magazine advertisements. Additionally, many of the original bottles of Waterman ink are present.

The only thing missing from this book appears to be Waterman pencils. Some appear in the ads and catalog pages shown, but few are photographed or given much thought.

Nevertheless, this remains a phenomenal resource for identifying Waterman pens, and it is wonderful to be able to see real samples of some rare pens that you and I might never seen in real life.

We’ve Struck the Motherlode!

Witness more than 300 vintage and modern fountain pens and writing instruments we have recently acquired for the website! If anything catches your eye, ask and we'll tell you all about it.

Witness more than 300 vintage and modern fountain pens and writing instruments we have recently acquired for the website! If anything catches your eye, ask and we’ll tell you all about it.

It has been a while since we updated these pages, but we’ve been extremely busy putting together 3 huge acquisitions of vintage and modern pens. We have tons of vintage Sheaffers, Parkers, Conklins and Waterman fountain pens as well as preowned pens by Mont Blanc, Parker, Caran d’Ache, Pelikan, Waterman and many others.

You will soon see more than 300 writing instruments available…once we restore them all to their former glory. We have great pens ranging from a Parker 20 1/2 Jack Knife Safety pen to red Wahl-Eversharp Dorics to early wide-bodied Sheaffer TouchDowns to half a set of oversized Sheaffer Balance Lifetimes with their original nib stickers including Extra Fine, Fine, Medium and STUB!

The Mont Blanc pens include a Writer’s Series Agatha Christie and many bargains on the standard Meisterstucks!

Keep checking in to see what is new every day on our vintage pens pages and pre-owned pens pages. Enjoy!

‘Out of Africa’ into the Pen Blog

Last week we had a request from loyal reader Karen P. to identify the pen used by Meryl Streep in her Oscar-winning movie “Out of Africa.”

Finding a picture of the pen was relatively easy. Identifying the pen is a different story.

For those of you who are not familiar with the film, it is based on the true story with the same title by Danish baroness Karen Blixen, who initially wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Autobiographical, it is the saga of Blixen, played by Streep, marrying for convience and title, moving to Danish colonial Kenya, establishing a successful coffee plantation and ultimately having an affair with a big game hunter played by Robert Redford. (As her husband has slept with half of Africa, she’s owed Robert Redford.)

The film was directed by Sydney Pollack and earned 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture. Most remarkable are the sweeping shots of Africa. Few movies will make you want to book a flight to Africa faster.

Anyhow, after their second encounter, Redford’s character gives Streep’s character a beautiful gold or gold-filled fountain pen. It looks like a clipless lever-filler that looks to be about 13 to 15cm when capped. Sadly, there are no close ups on the pen, as Blixen writes in the film. Therefore, I cannot fully I.D. the pen.

This is the closest vintage pen we currently stock that looks like Streep's pen. It is a lever-filler by Hutcheon.

This is the closest vintage pen we currently stock that looks like Streep’s pen. It is a lever-filler by Hutcheon.

Taking the easy way out, I could recommend that it might be a Waterman or Wahl, as they made plenty of slender gold-fill pens. The closest pen I have for sale is a faux gold Hutcheon lever filler that looks to be from the 1920s. Most likely, it is a Waterman 52 with gold sleeves over the hard rubber cap and barrel.

If anybody has a better idea of what the movie pen is, please write in and help Karen. Thanks.

Learn from Vintage Pen Ads

Vintage pen ads tell us so much. They help us catalog what a company once offered, introduce us to new pens we want to collect and provide insights to the culture and economics of the past.

Vintage pen ads tell us so much. They help us catalog what a company once offered, introduce us to new pens we want to collect and provide insights to the culture and economics of the past.

I love old catalog ads such as this one because they go far to help me identify old pens, their sizes and their design alternatives.

I am forever stumbling upon hard rubber Waterman’s from the 19-teens and 1920s, and I am never quite certain which ones were given sterling silver or gold filigree by the factory or by a local jeweler plying his artistic talents to a basic black pen–as was a frequent occurance during that time.

These ads also help to establish various sizes of pen models and their original pricing. For example: The top pen in the ad comes with the exact same gold mounts in sizes 12 (small) through 16 (large). I now know how many pens I will have to hunt down and find if I want that same model in all sizes with those gold mounts.

After daydreaming for a minute, wishing I had a time machine to go back to the early 1920s to buy gold and silver pens for less than the price of a cocktail in downtown Chicago today, I have fun with the advertising copy.

This ad was very challenging to make in 1924ish. There were no computers or Indesign programs to pop it together. Intricate artwork, cutting, pasting and more went into this very expensive ad for its time. However, you can’t help but wonder who the copy editor was.

“Prices vary according to size of gold pen contained”…???

Even then wouldn’t it have been easier to say, “Prices vary by the amount of gold in each pen”?

I guess I can see why Sheaffer always beat out Waterman. According to our last ad post, Sheaffer pens come with a “cunning” box. Waterman’s pens only came with a “neat” box. Who wouldn’t prefer a pen box that can play chess and carry a conversation with wit?

Parker 21, Parker 45 & Esterbrook Fountain Pens

If you have been visiting our vintage pens pages lately, you might find yourself asking, “Self, what’s with all of the cheap Parkers and Esterbrooks?”

We sell more vintage Esterbrook pens than any other brand. These copper-colored Esterbrooks are my personal favorite of the options available, but our most popular colors are blue, grey and black.

We sell more vintage Esterbrook pens than any other brand. These copper-colored Esterbrooks are my personal favorite of the options available, but our most popular colors are blue, grey and black.

It is simple enough my friends. Esterbrooks are the most popular pens we sell at ThePenMarket.com. We generally can’t keep them in stock. As for the inexpensive Parkers, we had so many expensive pens on the vintage pens pages, we thought it would be nice to offer a high-quality entry pen to the site for people just looking to get into writing with fountain pens.

But then there is one more reason.

ThePenMarket.com recently acquired an amazing collection of rarer, harder to find vintage pens dating back to the turn of the last century. We’re talking hard rubber and silver filigree fountain pens. Think Waterman 12, Waterman 52, Waterman 54 and a beautiful sterling silver Waterman 452. We’ve got Parker Duofolds and Vacs. Sheaffer Lifetimes and Balances. Maybe some Mabie Todd. Perhaps some sterling and gold no names. You’ll quiver with delight at the senior Conklin Enduras with remarkable color clarity.

We’ve got 120 classic vintage pens to catalog, restore and post for sale.

Are you salivating yet? When they arrive online would you rather they be the first things you see or have them buried under 2 dozen steel nib beauties. That’s what we thought. In the coming weeks and months, e-fist fights might breakout over the first daily opportunity to buy these glorious fountain pen wonders of yesteryear.