Fountain Pens
Budget estimates result in, day after day, sitting up at a table for nine hours at a time (with only a break for sandwiches), taking turns quizzing Government ministers and their accompanying pack of bureaucrats; questioning them on how they have discharged their responsibilities as Ministers and departments in spending their budgets and what their plans are for the future.
Throughout the week I finished up sitting next to politicians from the Opposition and Crossbench, whom I do not usually sit beside. This past week several politicians, watching me writing my notes and preparing the next questions, spoke along similar lines.
One said, “You have the nicest handwriting. Obviously you were taught to write in the copperplate style before teachers started teaching pupils that accursed cursive script. No-one taught to write in cursive script writes neatly these days.”
Two others said, “Could I try writing with your fountain pen?”
I had never thought about it. But we were taught copperplate style, practising our letters with even slope, and between lines that kept the letters in even heights and spaces. Then later, we added larger loops and swirls that were really just decoration. Fountain pens were an objective of achievement, a mark of accomplishment, a graduation gift to be cherished.
Recently, visiting the public schools concerning the implementation of our legislation of helping children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties I noticed in the class rooms 2 – 4, examples of letters to be copied, and they were a mixture of print and cursive styles. Of course computers, mobile phones, SMSing, texting and so on has ruined spelling and grammar for all time. Now with style changes and the ubiquitous ballpoints, handwriting is gone. As has mental arithmetic. We have given up effort for laziness, appearance for speed, artistry for efficiency.
With them have gone some of the finest elements of living. An electronic “THNX” will never be kept like the handwritten letter or card expressing appreciation for dinner, or gift or visit. The hasty email with its abbreviated LOL is not the same as the handwritten letter expressing love, or extending greetings or reporting news. The emails will never be kept in red ribbon and read a hundred times. I am not a Luddite. I type on my computer every day without exception, sending mail, writing articles, speeches, and books for publication.
But every year, I hand write hundreds of personal notes of appreciation and stamp them. I buy stamps 200 at a time! People tell me over and over, that in a bunch of envelopes with windows, and computer-generated addresses from their letterbox, they always open the hand-written ones first and usually don’t throw them out. Read some responses I have received about this for yourself. Click here to read Pastor from Leaving A Legacy.
Key to this is the fountain pen. In every suit coat and jacket I have a set consisting of matching fountain pen, propelling pencil and ballpoint.
Wikipedia states that “The earliest historical record of a reservoir pen dates back to the 10th century. In 953, Ma‘ādh Abū Tamīm al-Mu‘izz li Dīn Allāh, the caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. He was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib via gravity and capillary action. As recorded by Qadi al-Nu’man al-Tamimi (d. 974) in his Kitdb al-Majalis wa ‘l-musayardt, al-Mu’izz commissioned the construction of the pen instructing:
“We wish to construct a pen which can be used for writing without having recourse to an ink-holder and whose ink will be contained inside it. A person can fill it with ink and write whatever he likes. The writer can put it in his sleeve or anywhere he wishes and it will not stain nor will any drop of ink leak out of it. The ink will flow only when there is an intention to write. We are unaware of anyone previously ever constructing (a pen such as this) and an indication of ‘penetrating wisdom’ to whoever contemplates it and realizes its exact significance and purpose’. I exclaimed, ‘Is this possible?’ He replied, ‘It is possible if God so wills’.”
God so willed, and the fountain pen was invented. The oldest known surviving fountain pen was designed by a Frenchmen named M. Bion around 1702. John Jacob Parker patented the first self-filling fountain pen in 1831. The main problem with the early fountain pen models was that they were plagued by ink spills.
Its mechanism was composed of 3 parts – the nib, the feed (or black part under the nib, which controlled the flow of ink) and the round barrel, which was to hold the nib and feed together. It was Lewis Waterman’s idea to add an air hole in the nib and three grooves inside the feed mechanism, to avoid ink spillage.
All pens had an internal reservoir for ink to be filled by an eyedropper, until the mechanism to fill the ink underwent a transformation. By 1915, most pens had a self-filling soft and flexible rubber sac as an ink reservoir. To refill these pens, the reservoirs were squeezed flat by an internal plate and the pen’s nib was inserted into a bottle of ink. When the pressure on the internal plate was released, the ink sac would fill up drawing in a fresh supply of ink. I do not like ink cartridges and do not use them except in an emergency when no bottle of ink is available.
I have collected many pens over the years from garage sales and fetes. I have squeeze fillers, lever fillers, button fillers, screw fillers, piston fillers, the Sheaffer snorkel fillers and the Parker 61 capillary filler system.
My oldest sets are the English Conway Stewart, from the 1920’s and 1950’s. For decades Beverley wrote with her Conway Stewart given to her by her boss. Then I have a set of Parker 51 with the hooded nibs, the Parker 45 and a gold Parker 61. My Sheaffer snorkel set was given to me by my mother when I commenced at University. They still function well, and I wrote miles of notes, exams and essays with them. The German Lamy matte black steel model does not excite my attention.
In one jacket I have a heavy set of Inoxcrom from Spain given as one of the expensive prizes for being selected Australian CEO of the Year Long Term Achiever Award 2005.
My favourite sets are a Waterman set from USA given when I retired from the Board of an Insurance Company, an American Cross set given to me by a company instead of two bottles of Johnny Walker Black label Whiskey which was the usual gift for a keynote speaker, but most unsuitable for this teetotal speaker. The one that attracts the most attention is my four piece Mont Blanc from Germany with the giant Meisterstuck pen. That is the one people want to try their hand in writing.
My favourite three piece is an English matching solid sterling silver set of Parkers with a fabulous gold nib. I bought the matching pencil in a second hand shop in UK and the ballpoint in a small shop in Hawaii. Together they sell these days for thousands of dollars. All of my pens are identified, inscribed and insured.
In a glass top showcase I purchased in a USA Wal-Mart store, I have my Parker Duofolds, an early Swan lacquer pen, and an Italian Montegrappa.
With the pens go some desk sets, a gold Cross set on an onyx base sat on my desk at Wesley Mission for 27 years, given to me by a shop tenant, and two Sheaffer fountain pen desk sets. I have a crystal and silver ink stand complete with glass box for postage stamps used by my grandfather to write his business journals.
I have a 19th century silver and crystal inkstand purchased for me by my wife in a Brighton UK antique shop. In my home study I have an antique writing slope in leather and brass with French polished drawers to hold papers and envelopes. This is where I hand write.
Apart from copperplate, I also inscribe books and certificates in Italic or calligraphy with flat-ended nibs. I learnt this from my younger brother Robert before his death at an age of 14 years. Robbie was brought to a halt by heart illness, but he could write so he learnt to write in italics. He developed good artistic skill and became interested in the hobby of calligraphy, writing magnificent manuscript print in mediaeval English italic style. He entered a competition in calligraphy and although one of the youngest to enter, won first prize, a book on calligraphy. That book and its inscribed frontispiece became his pride and joy, even more significant than several of the swimming races that he had won before he became ill. Click here to read “Robbie” from Australian Short Stories.
I learnt from him and thereafter inscribed over a thousand wedding certificates, a thousand baptismal certificates and hundreds of Bibles in italic calligraphy, much to everyone’s delight.
It has always been a harmless and inexpensive hobby, and it has the advantage that no one is ever without an idea for a present when they want to give one. Even my politician colleagues want to have a try.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.