Vintage (Like Really Old) Fountain Pens

[shalitha33]

This pic is from an earlier ebay listing. Hope the owner wouldn't mind me posting. third from the top is the mackinnon with the tiny gold cap. hope i am not braking any rules by posting this image

 

[ckalus]

Get thee to a pen show. Dealers LOVE to share their knowledge. You can try out many pens to get a feel for what suits you best. They’ll help you make a wise purchase(s). I Don’t know where you live, in VA, but the Washington, DC  show is the biggest pen show in the world.

 

 https://www.dcpenshow.com

[bunnspecial]

Just will toss out for me that the pens under discussion here in my mind would fall out of the "vintage" category and into "antique" especially given the 100-year-old definition I sometimes here toss around.

 

I don't really go much older than self fillers in my collection outside my token Waterman Safety(which I'm actually not 100% sure isn't a 1920s or so pen, but that's a different discussion) but it's been nice for me in the past year or two that some of my oldest pens have legitimately rolled into the "antique" category.

[GlenV]

It may be that another way to describe the vintage of pen needed, say prior to 1900, personally I love the pens from 1900-1920 as many of my favorites, although it's too expensive for me to get my hands on them.   When celluloid pens reach 100 year mark shortly it just doesn't seem correct to call them antique to me.  I only have a couple prior to 1900.. Wirts. Fountain pens certainly changed rapidly after AA Waterman and Conklin and Crocker and probably others started using rubber sacs.....which was just a bit prior to 1900 so is pretty close 

[KandyPenz]

Some of the oldest fountain pens are self-fillers. This patent from 1856 got both a shut-off valve (sort of) as well as a syringe type filler built in.

Sliding back plate is used to cut off ink supply to this primitive feed.

Patent text mentions: 

"We are aware that fountain-pens have been made before this of our invention, and there fore do not set up any claim to have invented the first fountain-pen. Our invention relates to the mode of con structing the pen and combining it with the pen-holder and case, so as to hold the ink under all circumstances and at the same time control its flow when being used."