Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 159

Now, here are a couple of vintage fountain pens with some very interesting features, courtesy of Christopher...

(all photos courtesy of Christopher ~ please click on images to enlarge)

Christopher: "For many years I have wanted the Conklin Nozac ‘Word Gauge’, a fountain pen with a clear transparent barrel imprinted with a measurement graph of exactly how many words that could be written with the different levels of ink inside the pen. It was a Conklin pen model feature which was available from 1931 through to 1938 on their Nozac line. Unfortunately, this interest on my part proved to be challenging to find, but around the same period the Salz Bros company under their Stratford branding released a similar barrel ink graph but in ‘droplet measurements’, again, on a transparent plastic barrel. One of these pens I was able to find, but sadly the transparent barrel filler nipple was gone. This I replaced along with a rubber bulb filler to render a very interesting pen for my current collection."

 

Christopher:"Before the plastic ink cartridge was made available, the French Waterman Company, Jif offered a similar glass ink cartridge with their Standard model 32 pen. It was a feature which was replaced in 1952 when Waterman of Paris developed their CF model which not only came with a plastic ink cartridge, but also a converter. The glass ink cartridge was short-lived and today, for interested pen collectors, is somewhat rare. I was fortunate to turn up a near mint example of this pen complete with its glass ink cartridge in good working condition. Shortly after acquiring the pen, a new member of our Vancouver Pen Club passed on a 1990s French Waterman pen box. Seemly the perfect storage for my Waterman Standard, I customized the box tie-down insert card and came away with an attractive storage unit for my glass ink cartridge vintage fountain pen."

Waterman wasn't the first pen company to use a glass ink cartridge; there's a nice article on them here, though. Our thanks to Christopher for the photos and write-ups on these cool vintage finds!