Prince's Protean: The Ne Plus Ultra For Writers

[rhr]

These two pen patents, with their quaint phrasing, and looking a lot like the Prince pen, ARE, however, suction fillers. The Hawkes pen is even said to be convertible to a piston filler.

 

50,470 George F. Hawkes, "[suction Filler] Fountain-Pen", Oct 17, 1865, "filled by drawing with the mouth".

Patent Image 50,470

 

68,727 Peter Gabriel, "[suction Filler] Fountain Pen-Holder", Sept 10, 1867, "place the other end of the holder in the mouth and draw and exhaust the air out of the holder, which causes a suction or drawing up of the ink".

Patent Image 68,727

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

Edited April 27, 2007 by rhr

[Jan]

It would appear that the name Protean is definitively connected to the Goodyear development, rather than to any particular functionality of the pen. According to the specification reprinted in the "Repertory of Patent Inventions...." published in London in 1857, the Goodyear patent not only identifies "protean", but clearly designates it as being for use in the manufacture of penholders. Interestingly, this must mean that Prince's use of the name "Protean" for his pen did not come until sometime between his first patent and his second patent. The tubes of his first pens were made of metal, and apparently they had problems with corrosion. His second patent description specifically references that the holder is made of hard rubber under the Goodyear patent. The timing is interesting here. The British patent doesn't appear to have been issued until 1856, but Prince referenced a Goodyear patent in his 1855 patent. Was there a US patent issued earlier? I haven't been able to find one, but then again, I'm not really good at searching for these. Antonio, how about it?

 

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Edited April 27, 2007 by Jan

[Jan]

Note: I just realized that the Goodyear patent described above was actually granted not to the elder Charles Goodyear (the inventor of vulcanized rubber) but to his son, Charles Jr..

[rhr]

It's not as simple as that. The original US patent for hard rubber was issued in 1851 to Nelson Goodyear. Patent Image 8,075

 

But it was re-issued in the US in 1856 to Henry B. Goodyear, the administrator of Nelson's estate. Patent Image RE 556

 

This in turn was extended on May 6, 1865, and finally expired on May 6, 1872. Until that date, any item making use of the hard rubber patent had to bear the patent date of this patent, or of the nearest re-issue.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

 

[antoniosz]

Hi Jan,

 

In the list of early pen patents here, I added the patent by N. Goodyear #8075 from May 6, 1851 at the suggestion of George.

I believe that Nelson Goodyear was Charles' brother (see this link on Goodyear geneology ).

 

Charles Goodyear had several patents, 240, 849, 3461, 3462,3633, 4099, 5536 and is involved in others 1090 and 9668 (maybe more).

Patent 3633 in which he talks about rubber+sulphur(+while lead), is often refered to as the invension of vulcanized rubber (see for example USPTO list of trivia).

But within that patent, Goodyear himself says that the combination of rubber+sulphur (vulcanization) was patented in 1938, see

patent 1090 of Hayward, N. of Woburn, MA, Assignor of Charles Goodyear.

 

Also very interesting reading is patent #21122 of AustinG. Day in 1958 which

tries to clarify the relation of his invension with those of Charles (3633) and Nelson Goodyear (8075).

 

More interesting than the patents are the following links:

 

"THE CHARLES GOODYEAR STORY: THE STRANGE STORY OF RUBBER" , from the Goodyear company (which had no direct conenction with Goodyear - it was just named in honor of him!).

"THE STORY OF RUBBER" of Polymer Science Learning Center and the Chemical Heritage Foundation (awesome reading - also describes the french and british efforts).

 

 

 

 

[rhr]

Antonios, all the Charles Goodyear patents you mentioned are for soft, elastic rubber. The only hard rubber patent is the Nelson Goodyear patent.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

 

[antoniosz]

Antonios, all the Charles Goodyear patents you mentioned are for soft, elastic rubber. The only hard rubber patent is the Nelson Goodyear patent.

 

Of course you are correct George. The "only" point in Nelson's patent that differed from Charles' earlier work was that he used more sulphur

that led to more crosslinking, which in turn increased stiffness. The process of vulcanization was exactly the same (with that of Charles' earlier work).

A modern patent attorney could have helped the poor Charles to write his patent in such a way, that it could have covered Nelson's patent :doh2:

Anyway, we are digressing

[rhr]

More sulfur, and more heat and pressure, for a longer period of time.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

Edited April 28, 2007 by rhr

[antoniosz]

...., and more heat and pressure, for a longer period of time.

 

I dont think so.

Nelson himself says: (after mixing) "the compounds must be then be subjected to the heating or curing process already mentioned as patented by Charles Goodyear", and later "I do not claim the heating or curing process, as it is termed, that having been patented by Charles Goodyear"..

 

More specifically, the temperature that Nelson claims is 260-275F, while Charles says the temperature admits considerable variation from 212 to 350F with the best effect at 270F.

 

Neither of them uses pressure for the vulcanization step (this was done much later), they only

use calendering (rolling) for the mixing of sulphur into the rubber.

 

As for time, Nelson suggests 3-6 hours. Charles makes not specific time claim but he says that

if the temperature exceeds 270F the exposure should be "brief".

 

AZ

Edited April 28, 2007 by antoniosz

[rhr]

Okay, my last post was the short answer. Here's the long answer.

 

Vulcanization

 

Most hard rubber items are molded, or subjected to heat in a mold, to keep the rubber matter from running and losing its shaped form in the process of heating. The rubber is, therefore, of necessity exposed to pressure from the simple fact of being contained in a mold.

 

Goodyear discovered the vulcanization of soft, elastic rubber in 1838-39, and the patent was issued on February 24, 1839, but Goodyear did not achieve any financial success with the product until after June 15, 1844, when he got his own patent for vulcanization after five years of experimenting with and perfecting the process. In the meantime, Thomas Hancock received a patent for vulcanization in England on May 30, 1844. It was Hancock who first observed that if rubber were allowed to remain too long in a bath of molten sulfur it became black and hard, and he said so in his patent for soft rubber. It is because of this that Ralph Wolf states in his book, India Rubber Man, The Story Of Charles Goodyear (1939), that the credit for finding out how to make hard rubber "undoubtedly should go" to Hancock. But his patent was primarily for the vulcanization of soft, elastic rubber, and it mentions this odd effect of hardening only as a peripheral comment, or as an after thought. Meanwhile in America, Nelson Goodyear, Charles's brother, also noticed that rubber turned hard when sufficient quantities of sulfur were added and sufficient heat applied for the appropriate length of time. But Nelson received his patent only as late as May 6, 1851, thus leading Wolf to call him merely "one of the inventors of hard rubber", even though in America he is credited as THE inventor of hard rubber.

 

Here is a quote from an abridgement of Hancock's British patent for elastic rubber taken from Bennet Woodcroft's Patents For Inventions, Abridgements Of The Specifications Relating To India Rubber [Caoutchouc] And Gutta Percha (1859) published for the UK Patent Office. After laying out the first two improvements for soft, pliable rubber, the abridgement lays out the third improvement.

 

Thomas Hancock, Patent no. 9,952, applied for Nov 21, 1843, granted May 30, 1844.

The third [improvement] is, immersing the caoutchouc [latex rubber] in melted sulphur or mixing it with sulphur in any way whatever, and submitting it to high temperatures, and thus changing the nature of the rubber completely. The heating is by oven or by water or steam under pressure. The result may be stated to be no longer affected by temperatures or by the usual solvents for ordinary [elastic] india rubber. Other things may be blended in the caoutchouc with the sulphur and the "change" effected by heat. The temperature from 300° to 400° varies with the nature, quality and size of the material to be changed; at first the rubber is elastic, but by higher temperatures, or by longer keeping in high temperatures, the caoutchouc gradually changes until it ultimately becomes black "and has something [of] the appearance of horn, and may be pared with a knife similarly to that substance." This process is known by the term "vulcanizing," and the article produced is said to be "vulcanized."

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

Edited April 28, 2007 by rhr

[antoniosz]

Most hard rubber items are molded, or subjected to heat in a mold, to keep the rubber matter from running and losing its shaped form in the process of heating. The rubber is, therefore, of necessity exposed to pressure from the simple fact of being contained in a mold.

 

I was refering to pressure as an "active ingredient" of the vulcanization recipe. High pressure will accelerate vulcanization.

A load that holds a mold closed, so that the piece does not run off, is not generating enough pressure to affect vulcanization.

 

As to who invented vulcanization, soft or hard rubber is just less or more suphur crosslinks but essentially the "same" thing,

even if some of these early inventors thought that "the nature of rubber was changing".

So, I am happy that you found THE truth. For me, I am not happy until I find the ancient greek that "truly" invented this stuff..

Edited April 30, 2007 by antoniosz

[Jan]

This morning, I ran across what appears to be an earlier reference to the commercialization of Prince's Protean. We know he got his first patent in 1851, but the first references I've seen to the pen being available commercially are from 1855. The reference I found was in the "Official Catalogue of the New-York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations - 1853". Apparently, Prince's pen was on display. He is listed by name and, and his product is described as "Spring fountain pen containing reservoir and spring for supplying ink."

[antoniosz]

Very nice. Item 57, page 64

It refers to the first patent, I presume.

It would be nice to find the time to make a detail comparison of the 1851 and the 1855 patents to see

if we can find out what really made the second take off commercially.

[contravox]

Does anyone have any pictures of a Protean pen? I'd love to see what it looked like.

 

 

*edit*

nevermind...you guys already posted that one

 

Edited May 26, 2007 by contravox

[Johnny Appleseed]

Since the subject of early Prince Protean pens was raised here, let me add a tidbit I just stumbled across.

 

From the New York Times, May 11, 1853:

 

"GOLD PENS. - IMPORTANT TO COMMERCIAL MEN, Editors, Lawyers, Reporters, Engineers, and all who write little or much. - SPRING FOUNTAIN PEN! Prince's Patent - the ne plus ultra of Gold Pens, just perfected -- are easily adjusted, and simple in their combination, and, with once charging, will hold ink enough to write a whole day!! The public are invited to call, examine and test the article at THOMAS BLAKENEY'S Gold Pen Manufactory, Nos 42 and 44 Nassau st., upstairs, near the Post-Office, where a general assortment of Pens and Pencil Cases may be had the the manufactur-er's prices. Pens repaired."

 

This is probably one of the earliest ads for Prince's Protean pen (and the first mention of the word Fountain Pen in the New York Times).

 

 

John

[rhr]

Nice find, John. How about a picture of the ad?

 

It looks like the ad doesn't use the name "Protean", yet. Instead, it calls it the "Spring Fountain Pen". And by the way, this is probably the earlier Prince patent no. 8,399, not one of the later ones from 1855.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

Edited July 13, 2007 by rhr

[Jan]

Nice find, John. How about a picture of the ad?

 

It looks like the ad doesn't use the name "Protean", yet. Instead, it calls it the "Spring Fountain Pen". And by the way, this is probably the earlier Prince patent no. 8,399, not one of the later ones from 1855.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

 

It's interesting that the other known 1853 mention of the pen in the catalog for the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations also describes it as a "Spring fountain pen containing reservoir and spring for supplying ink."

 

 

[antoniosz]

Lets add one more reference to this old thread

 

A MAGIC PEN.—Of this new invention the Independent says: "We hold in our hands a pen which allows our thoughts to flow from its point as freely

as they list, without the interruption of dipping into ink every alternate moment. Indeed, our thoughts sometimes dry sooner than the pen. Our readers may judge something of its capacity, when we inform them that we can write six columns of this journal, or twenty pages of a sermon, or for five hours on the stretch, with one filling of our fountain pen. It is light, graceful, easily regulated, and in all respects a complete and well-finished article. The pen feeds itself without any care from the writer, who only needs to busy himself about his words.—To the merchant or clerk in taking orders, the accountant in making long entries, the editor in scribling paragraphs, the lawyer in drawing instrument, the copyist in transcribing, the minister in writing sermons, and the tiaveller in joting down items, it will be alike serviceable in the economy of time and the reedom from the annoyance of ink-dipping, blotting, and wiping. It may be had of the trade generally, under the name "Prince's fountain pen." This admirable article is sold by Folleys and Wells for Three Dollars and may be sent prepaid by return of the first mail to the post-office in the United States

 

Manitowoc Tribune, 4/19/1855, p. 1