Inkless Fountain Pen ?

[ZeissIkon]

INKLESS FOUNTAIN PEN

 

Mmm, contradiction in terms.

 

Actually, Parker tried to develop a fountain pen in the 1940s and 1950s that would have used a dry ink tablet that drew water from the air into a capillary system like the 61, with a single ink tablet good for roughly the same writing as a full bottle of ink. There were a number of ink-tablet pens made that filled with plain water, and the ink reconstituted inside the pen -- one never had to handle a bottle, just the dry tablets (which, if your fingers were dry, wouldn't even get your fingers inky). I suspect the Inkless Fountain Pen referred to was one of these.

[grimakis]

INKLESS FOUNTAIN PEN

 

Mmm, contradiction in terms.

 

Actually, Parker tried to develop a fountain pen in the 1940s and 1950s that would have used a dry ink tablet that drew water from the air into a capillary system like the 61, with a single ink tablet good for roughly the same writing as a full bottle of ink. There were a number of ink-tablet pens made that filled with plain water, and the ink reconstituted inside the pen -- one never had to handle a bottle, just the dry tablets (which, if your fingers were dry, wouldn't even get your fingers inky). I suspect the Inkless Fountain Pen referred to was one of these.

 

The Camel pen also had a replaceable ink cartridge that was good for over a year. You would fill the pen with water(it was a button filler), and the water would mix with the internal ink pellet. Evidently it wrote lightly at the beginning, and thick and muddy toward the end.

[rhr]

Parker tried to develop a fountain pen in the 1940s and 1950s that would have used a dry ink tablet ... I suspect the Inkless Fountain Pen referred to was one of these.

Parker received a trademark for the word "Instant-Ink" in the 1960s. The title of the trademark is "Fountain Pens And Parts And Ink Concentrate Units Therefor", and it was said to be used since Nov 28, 1960. The 1960s, and your date range 1940s-50s, are much too late for the Inkless Fountain Pen, which dates as far back as 1909.

 

It's probably some early version of the "Metal Pen" cited by MYU, perhaps one that was shaped like a traditional fountain pen with a nib-shaped stylus. As I said earlier, if someone can find a copy of the Johnson Smith & Co. catalogue, there's a good chance that the pen is illustrated there. Various editions, including this 1929 copy, are listed in Google Books, but with "No previews available",

Johnson Smith & Co. 1929 cat.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

Edited July 28, 2009 by rhr

[MidnightBlue]

Companies stretch the truth. Car companies in England exagerated claims on horsepower of their cars in the 60's .( They lied to quote Top Gear 2008). Coca Cola was initially marketed as a health tonic, etcetera.

Thanks

[Silvermink]

I guess I don't think of ink pellets as "inkless" - just a different way of arriving at ink.

[Xing]

Sorry to revive the dinosaur, but I got my hands on a copy of a 1970 reprint of the 1929 Johnson Smith & Co catalog, where I obtained the following scan of the ad for this inkless pen. The ad makes no claims about it being an inkless fountain pen, but I found no other ad for inkless pens, fountain or not, in the catalog.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6uEyBwGQYp8/Su45ofaZ-oI/AAAAAAAABmk/EGQT51R3XVQ/s800/Catalog%20002.jpg

[antoniosz]

Very nice Thank you for posting.

Therefore it is not a pen... It is close to the modern one that MUY showed above.

[rhr]

Hi Anthony,

 

Looks like that 7 out of 10 chance of a pic paid out. Thanks for settling the issue by posting the image.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

Edited November 9, 2009 by rhr

[rhr]

Here's another earlier version of the ad for the Inkless Pen. It's from Popular Mechanics magazine, April 1916, but the seller is still Johnson Smith & Co. They were both pretty much birds of a feather.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/rhrpen/InklessPenPopularMechApr1916.jpg

 

George Kovalenko.