Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pen Ephemera

[D Armstrong]

Ephemera—the various pieces of paper that are a part of everyday life—are, by definition, disposable. In many cases (thinking of my shopping lists), that is no great loss. However, there are times when it would be more than just idle curiosity to see what is on those old papers.

 

http://www.restorersart.com/images/shop/pens/waterman0952/IMG_7176_small.jpg

 

 

When we recently came across a pristine Canadian-production Waterman’s “Ideal” fountain pen in the wild (an 0952½V, for those who care about such things), we were thrilled to find the original paper documentation included with it in it’s box. This pen is typical of many sold in the early part of the 20^th century, and such ephemera gives us insight into that world. We get glimpses of such things as: prices, repair practices, intended uses, materials, available ink colours, advertising practices, factory locations, and more. (Interestingly, even one hundred years ago, as seen on page two, pen repair technicians were reminding their customers not to ship pens with ink in them!) While similar ephemera are documented elsewhere, it is also of interest to note the differences between documentation produced by different branches of the same company.Along with the pen was originally included a four-page pamphlet which lists filling instructions, contemporary repair charges, “Directions and Suggestions for the Use of Waterman’s Pencil” (including a cutaway diagram and reload instructions), and an ink advertisement page (gallon jug of ink, anyone?) This pamphlet is printed in black ink on both sides of a sheet of 22.9 mm x 28.6 mm light newsprint paper, folded once. The printing job is not great, with patchiness to some areas that has nothing to do with age. As well, the clarity of some of the illustrations is not great: the darkness on page three (the pencils) is the actual printing, and not our scanner.

 

Additionally, there is a small, full-colour, advertisement for ink, fitted to match the bottom of the box. This is 2.5 mm x 14.6 mm, and is printed in four colours on one side of a higher-quality, sized white paper. The paper weight seems to be around 20 lbs., about the same as our modern office paper.

 

Below are facsimiles of all of these, suitable for printing in the original sizes, or for viewing online. We decided on adding subtle watermarking to each page to discourage any unsavoury types from trying to pass off reproductions as originals (sadly, it does happen.)

 

http://www.restorersart.com/images/blog/waterman_ephemera/Watermans1.gif

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.restorersart.com/images/blog/waterman_ephemera/Watermans2.gif

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.restorersart.com/images/blog/waterman_ephemera/Watermans3.gif

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.restorersart.com/images/blog/waterman_ephemera/Watermans4.gif

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.restorersart.com/images/blog/waterman_ephemera/WatermansInkInsert.gif

 

 

 

[simp]

My "Classic Fountain Pens" book is filled with this kinda stuff.

oh, what they did back then to sell their pens!:

From a Parker Vac ad: "Full Television Ink View!"

From a P51 ad: "Exclusive Ink Governor"

If you are interested in things like instruction sheet you can find some of them here:

 

http://www.fountainpen.it/Instructions

 

These are the ones I scanned myself or were scanned by some friends and given me.

 

But if you want to look for slogan I suggest my ADs page:

 

http://www.fountainpen.it/ADs

 

there are a lot of them, one I like a lot is: "A regular camel for ink, goes a month without a drink" for the Dunn pens, here:

 

http://www.fountainpen.it/images/thumb/e/ec/1922-11-Dunn-Bakelite.jpg/456px-1922-11-Dunn-Bakelite.jpg

 

(the full resolution scan is here).

 

Regards

Simone