20, The First Snorkel Filler, Not A Sheaffer

[rhr]

Who was the first to come up with a snorkel filler? Sheaffer was the first to call it such, but was it first to come up with the tube-filler idea, or the "Don't get your nib dirty with ink" idea? Well, take a look at patent no. 1,548,502, the first snorkel filler, or rather precursor to the Sheaffer Snorkel Filler.

 

The patent specification reads in part, "One of the objects…is to provide…a self-filler having the peculiarity or characteristic of filling…itself without requiring a dipping of the pen proper [nib] into the ink. Another object is to provide a filling channel independently of the supplying channel for the [nib]". The snorkel is called a "filling tube" in this patent, but it's definitely a snorkel, even before Sheaffer's snorkel. The only original thing that the Sheaffer Pen Co. contributed to the snorkel filler was the name. If you don't know your own history, you're doomed to repeat it, or maybe they did know it, and stole the idea.

 

And then there's patent no. 2,603,189, another Snorkel precursor in which the snorkel is called a "filler needle". It was issued on July 15, 1952, then re-issued as patent no. RE23,683 on July 7, 1953 and assigned to the W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co., to buy out the competition in the business. Check out the interesting replacement of the word "pen" by the word "nib" in the re-issue.

 

And then there's the snorkel piston filler that Herbert Anders created for Wahl-Eversharp and that Len Provisor found, and that Fultz wrote about in Pen World, and which may never have been patented. And then there's the vanishing point snorkel that William Bunn created for Sheaffer, and that Sam Fiorella found the drawings for and wrote about in The Pennant, and which may never have been patented. I could find no patents in the EPO website that were issued to either Herbert Anders or William Bunn. I'll leave them for someone else to try to find, if they will be found at all.

 

The snorkel story ain't over yet.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r:

Edited March 21, 2007 by rhr