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Boston Safety - Pre Wahl


Roger W.

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Syd;

 

Thought I'd give you some pics of my Boston's. This is a fairly large collection considering.

 

Roger W.

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/boston%20HRa.jpg

2, 32, 32, 52, 33, 63, 63, 35, 5, 65, 12, 13, 4 up top

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Boston%20HR1a.jpg

62, 43, 43, 32, 62, 2, 2, ?, 2, 4, 3, 2, 13 up top

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Boston%20Metala.jpg

Sterling shearaton (for lack of a better name), floral, floral, plain, snail, plain, 14K floral, filigree, gold fill, 14K, 14K, 14K etched, roller clip and 14K floral up top

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Boston%20HRst.jpg

Hard rubber 32 with Boston statement

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/BostonboxandSterling.jpg

Boston Box with Sterling floral in box

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/BostonSterling.jpg

Boston Sterling floral in box

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Tempointsa.jpg

Tempoints - Christmas box 32 "To Grandma 1920" - 14K floral

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Tempointsb.jpg

Tempoints - 32 and14K floral

 

 

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Syd;

 

Thought I'd give you some pics of my Boston's. This is a fairly large collection considering.

 

Roger W.

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/boston%20HRa.jpg

2, 32, 32, 52, 33, 63, 63, 35, 5, 65, 12, 13, 4 up top

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Boston%20HR1a.jpg

62, 43, 43, 32, 62, 2, 2, ?, 2, 4, 3, 2, 13 up top

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Boston%20Metala.jpg

Sterling shearaton (for lack of a better name), floral, floral, plain, snail, plain, 14K floral, filigree, gold fill, 14K, 14K, 14K etched, roller clip and 14K floral up top

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Boston%20HRst.jpg

Hard rubber 32 with Boston statement

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/BostonboxandSterling.jpg

Boston Box with Sterling floral in box

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/BostonSterling.jpg

Boston Sterling floral in box

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Tempointsa.jpg

Tempoints - Christmas box 32 "To Grandma 1920" - 14K floral

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/images/Tempointsb.jpg

Tempoints - 32 and14K floral

 

Gorgeous spread. I *know* the work that goes into putting that sort of assemblage together

 

d

 

 

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Roger, they are amazing.

 

What sort of filler do the black hard rubber pens in the second photo have? I think I've seen something similar in Parker pen pictures described as a "click filler".

 

Is it the case that the roller clip and lever design were Boston features taken through to Tempoints and Wahl pends?

 

I'm newly addicted to Wahl pens - it a fascinating spread (and I'll be adding "Boston" to my searches and dream-list now)!

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What a wondeful collection! :puddle:

Greg Koos

Bloomington Illinois

USA

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.

Adlai E. Stevenson

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Darren;

 

They are a hump filler. The supporting ring slide down and then you press down and like Conklin crescents and the first tpe of Sheaffer lever in 1912, you depend on the resilience of the sac to push it back up. There is another hump filler that they had where the supporting band slides sideways giving only a small area to support the hump filler.

 

Boston seems to have used the roller clip early but, I don't know if anyone else had it too. Wahl certainly picked it up for the line. Wahl tempoints are essentially Bostons as Wahl did not make any substantive changes to the line until years after they had purchased it.

 

Good luck on watching for these as I have for years. Used to be I had no competition on Ebay and could get them for a decent price. You will find that Boston's are fairly expensize when compared to other similar pens. Surprisingly, there aren't more Boston's out there as Walter Sheaffer describes Boston as one of Sheaffer's main competitors during what is called the "Kraker" trial.

 

 

Roger W.

 

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Roger,

What a nice Collection and nicely shown here. Thanks for sharing!

 

Bostons have long been an interest of mine too as the natural precursor of the Wahls. Sorry if my desire for some of the pens has added to the rise in cost!

 

Bits and pieces found on Boston Safety Pens that carried through to Wahl Pens were (as many pen parts were back then) not the intellectual property of the pen company that used them. The inner cap or humidor inside the pen cap on Bostons and Wahls, for example, and many many other brands was the invention of one August Eberstein. He aslo patented the "comb feed" that is a standard feature in many pens including Bostons and Wahls from the early days.

 

The roller clip patents belong to Messers Greenbaum and Klein. As demonstrated by U.S. Pat. No. 1,098,719, issued June 2, 1914 to James W. Greenbaum, West Hoboken, NJ. -roller clip and U.S. Pat. No. 1,116,078, issued Nov. 3, 1914 to Adolf Klein, NY, & James Greenbaum -clip improvement. While they had the design patent, the Roller Clip was actaully first or at least most prominently manufactured by William H. Hambler. On early Bostons and Wahls you will see clips with the WHH on them and the patent date.

 

Syd the Wahlnut:

 

 

 

PS If you are interested in more information about Boston Sfety Pens, you may want to take a look at the article on Boston Fountain Pen by Michael Fultz and Pat Lotfi in thr April-May, 2003 issue of Pen World (Vol. 16, No. 5).

Syd "the Wahlnut" Saperstein

Pensbury Manor

Vintage Wahl Eversharp Writing Instruments

Pensbury Manor

 

The WAHL-EVERSHARP Company

www.wahleversharp.com

New WAHL-EVERSHARP fountain and Roller-Ball pens

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  • 5 years later...

Hi Roger

Very nice collection, my 62 has lost its gold platting but very clean.

the nib is incredible!

Great collection.

regards

Richard

las plumas

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  • 1 year later...

I know I'm dredging up an old thread here, but I just discovered a pen I had forgotten I even had. It's a Boston safety pen in mottled HR with roller clip. It has a wide wide 18k gold filled band. And it has a #5 Wahl Tempoint STUB nib! If anyone is interested. I'm going to clean it up a bit today and take some pics.

 

I would add to the above that the relationship between Wahl and Boston went a little deeper than just buyer and seller might imply. They didn't just buy a business location or name or building and do their own thing. It was more like Wahl took over Boston. They wanted a turnkey pen company and they got it. Boston equipment and employees went to Wahl. Wahl was Boston in the early years because they couldn't have gone in a different direction even if they wanted to.

Save the Wahls!

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I know I'm dredging up an old thread here, but I just discovered a pen I had forgotten I even had. It's a Boston safety pen in mottled HR with roller clip. It has a wide wide 18k gold filled band. And it has a #5 Wahl Tempoint STUB nib! If anyone is interested. I'm going to clean it up a bit today and take some pics.

 

I would add to the above that the relationship between Wahl and Boston went a little deeper than just buyer and seller might imply. They didn't just buy a business location or name or building and do their own thing. It was more like Wahl took over Boston. They wanted a turnkey pen company and they got it. Boston equipment and employees went to Wahl. Wahl was Boston in the early years because they couldn't have gone in a different direction even if they wanted to.

Yes and no. Jon is technically right from the legal aspect though I think your comment that Wahl Adding Machine wanted a turnkey pen company is apt as well. As far as I know no Boston employees went to Wahl. It was announced in a trade paper how several of the key Boston folks went to Moore in Boston which was American reincorporated in 1917 for that very purpose with George Brandt (from the family that owned Boston) contributing patents to Moore. Everything else went to Chicago and there was a published announcement about that which stated they bought everything thus killing the speculation that Boston was split up in any way. Wahl advertised for tradesman that could turn rubber late in 1917. I'm sure that not all of Wahl's management was on board with any plan on how to use Boston when they bought it. It was in process of being purchased in January 1917 with Wahl advertising Boston pens for sale in June in the Chicago Tribune. The Tempoint name wasn't thought up until October. One sticking point clearly was that the lever pen was huge for Boston in 1916 and something that Wahl had to have but all of Wahl's Tempoint lever pens are licensed from Sheaffer and do not use the patent that Boston was using. While Wahl may not have known what to do with Boston they were wise enough to maintain Tempoint in the tradition of Boston without making substantive changes for many years. Tempoints clearly identify with Boston as many boxes state "formerly known as Boston Safety Pen".

 

Roger W.

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I didn't mean to say that all or even most Boston employees moved to Chicago. But I believe and have read that some, obviously more key management and design people did. My real point though, is that the "culture" of Boston Pen, was transfused to Wahl in several ways.

Save the Wahls!

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I didn't mean to say that all or even most Boston employees moved to Chicago. But I believe and have read that some, obviously more key management and design people did. My real point though, is that the "culture" of Boston Pen, was transfused to Wahl in several ways.

I agree with your sentiment. I have no documentation that any employees went to Chicago which could have happened, not ruling it out. I do have documentation that key employees went to Moore.

 

Roger W.

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Well, they would seem to have done better at Wahl than at Moore :)

 

Doubtful. Much as I love Wahl Eversharp's products, I'm not a fan of the way they treated their people - they tended to use them until they were used up, then discarded them. Charles Keeran (inventor of the Eversharp pencil) got the boot in 1917, right after arranging the Boston deal ... although everything I've seen indicates that Keeran was a hothead and likely brought it on himself. Hugo Hasselquist, another Wahl inventor, left a few years later and went over to Autopoint. John C. Wahl himself, the company's founder, was relegated to the R&D department and appears to have had little influence in the business direction of the company. John Wahl tinkered away in the R&D department, even starting his own company (the John C. Wahl Co.) around 1940.

 

Unlike Waterman, Sheaffer and Parker (and most other manufacturers), Wahl wasn't family owned. Shareholders and directors decided whether the profits were sufficient to justify keeping you around.

 

Would you have been able to stay at Wahl longer than at Moore, even if you could keep Wahl's board of directors happy? Barely. Moore shut down in 1956, while Eversharp's writing instruments division was sold to Parker in 1957, only to be dismantled entirely just three years later.

 

None of the foregoing, of course, involves Syd Saperstein's endeavor, which is an entirely new company reviving the old name, and doubtless treating its employees well. :)

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I didn't mean to say that all or even most Boston employees moved to Chicago. But I believe and have read that some, obviously more key management and design people did. My real point though, is that the "culture" of Boston Pen, was transfused to Wahl in several ways.

 

This is one of those areas of pen history where there is a lot of unsourced hearsay collector lore that has been repeated over and over again over the years, and where there has also been some good, hard, fully-sourced research which has yet to be properly noted by the majority of collectors (although I fear a lot was published at Lion & Pen, and is now largely lost to public view).

 

The evidence of the latter strongly suggests that none of the key Boston management folks were hired by Wahl. It was a fairly hostile takeover. If anyone was likely to have been brought to Chicago -- and probably only very temporarily -- it would have been a few key line supervisor/mechanics to get operations up and running. There's even less reason Wahl would have wanted anyone from Boston management, too, given that it was their mismanagement that enabled Wahl to take them over.

 

One other area of research was to determine if any machinery from Boston was actually shipped out to Chicago. That has often been repeated, but as far as I know is still unsettled, one way or the other. The machinery of the era was far less specialized than one might think, so it could well have been that little if anything was shipped out, given that Wahl already had a very well-equipped factory for pencil manufacture that was already producing on a scale vastly greater than Boston.

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If they didn't get any machinery and they didn't get any personnel, what did they get? They obviously didn't want the name. Aside from a patent for the roller clip, what did they even need from Boston? Why engage in a hostile takeover?

Save the Wahls!

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I don't know if we can say it was Boston mismanagement that allowed Wahl to take them over. There is the old saw that Boston had cash flow issues but that is based on what? I think but, it is supported by Keeran, that old man Brandt saw an opportunity to sell Boston a good pen company that had been doing OK but, not spectacular after 13 years of operation. It is clear that the initial offering was made in September 1916 ahead of the holiday sales of Boston's new lever filler. By the time Wahls' President got into the negotiations Brandt had decided not to sell and for being a cash strapped company offers $20,000 to make them go away. That doesn't sound like a cash flow problem to me. Lever models make up 12% of Bostons found which is disproportionate for the length of time they were offered which suggests that old man Brandt saw that the new pen was a hit and Boston worth keeping after all. Boston was finally on the precipice of making it big.

 

As far as the machinery goes I would say based on the ad George found last year that Eversharp Pencil Company (so the ad states - not Wahl Adding Machine, which would be the legal) states "We have just purchased the entire business of the Boston Fountain Pen Co...." So they leave nothing to the imagination when they go on "...including all patents (Boston didn't have any so they must mean Brandts patents) such as the lever self filling device (which they never used) comb feed, screw cap, etc." This was March 3, 1917 so the negotiations had been wrapped up in two months. As you say though, the machinery itself was not extraordinary so it either got shipped to Chicago or sold locally with either disposition being meaningless to the story of the sale as too much emphasis has been made on the machinery in the past. The ad does further state that Eversharps facilities would furnish their skilled pen workers with better tools (than Boston had) and enable them to turn out finer work. So I don't think the machinery was shipped to Chicago but that is of exactly no consequence as Moore in Boston (claimed to be a recipient of Boston being broken up) and Eversharp both likely didn't need it anyway. The machinery was not essential to the specific manufacture of Boston pens as such machinery was amply available and generic in nature. Moore would announce in late March that they had gotten George Brandt, Mr. Sypher, the superintendent of production and Mr. Liddell the head mechanic so we know key people went to Moore which had just been restructured as such from American Pen which was likely done to accommodate George Brandt who contributed patents to Moore.

 

What Wahl got was the name which they later decided to change to Tempoint but, those would state formally known as the Boston Safety Fountain Pen. Initially they were prepared to sell Eversharps with Bostons so the name was important. They got the patents (more than the roller clip) and obviously the designs as Tempoints are identical to Bostons with some design element changes in the metal overlays but the hard rubber pens are even identical down to the model numbers used. They may have got into stores that they weren't in with their pencils. While Eversharps were selling in huge numbers they had been around only a few years compared with Boston's more than a decade. Wahl wasn't into designing their own pen but, they be happy to buy one. They pretty much stole Keeran's pencil so in the early days Wahl wasn't about creativity but, acquisition.

 

Roger W.

Edited by Roger W.
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I would argue that, at least from Wahl's point of view, the fact that Boston's leaders sold the company cheap, then tried unsuccessfully to back out of the deal, was de facto evidence of incompetent management.

 

Given what we know about Wahl's hard-nosed and frankly predatory approach to business, winning was everything -- and Boston had lost.

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I would argue that, at least from Wahl's point of view, the fact that Boston's leaders sold the company cheap, then tried unsuccessfully to back out of the deal, was de facto evidence of incompetent management.

 

Given what we know about Wahl's hard-nosed and frankly predatory approach to business, winning was everything -- and Boston had lost.

David;

 

OK, I get your point. I do think I have a case that Brandt was worn down by the business and the lever hit it out of the park and he changed his mind. So the mismanagement I was addressing the oft opinionated piece that Boston had cash flow issues. How anyone without financial statements could know that is beyond me but, it was actually another example of pure speculation with nothing to back it up (myself I go for speculation with some facts - still maybe not quite good enough). That Brandt was not prepared to fight his way out of the sale and Wahl was a predatory extraordinaire I would agree with.

 

Roger W.

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