I purchased a Conklin Nozac a couple of months ago from Fahrney's; it's a nice pen if a little large for my taste.

I've been to Conklin's website among others; there's always talk about the origin and of course the Mark Twain endorsement. What I'm wondering is when did the company peter out, and who and when it was resuscitated. I don't even know where these are made.

Anyone able to help?

The original Conklin company, located in Toledo, Ohio, died in 1938 when it was sold to a Chicago syndicate. The remaining stock of Toledo pens and parts were included in the deal, and the new owners continued selling the pens, and using the parts in new-made pens, until they were exhausted. But the Chicago people were far more interested in running things to maximize profit than in producing pens of high quality; they discontinued the higher-line models like the Nozac (which was the U.S.A.'s only successful piston filler) and pushed cheaply made models of very low quality. The company declined, and it finally ceased operation in 1948. The new company is connected to it only by virtue of having acquired the rights to use the names and styles of the original company's pens. (I don't know what legal requirements there were; it may simply have been enough to start using the names and perhaps trademark them, or there may have been someone who held the rights and sold them.) The modern pens are made by several different job-shop companies; I don't know where the Ohio and Glider are coming from, but the Crescent-Filler models are made by Stipula.

Thank you, Richard. Rather like sewing machines, watches and many other daily use items that have familiar names, but are made by Heaven-knows-who!

Who knows, maybe they're Chinese. Don't know, just the mind mulling over what I've read here.

Yes

I think I recall someone posting that the nib and feed on the current Nozacs was interchangeable with one of the Danitrio models. So what, Nationalist China, Communist China?

It is almost certainly very bad etiquette to bad mouth a whole company, but I have "heard" that many of the modern Conklins have problems right out of the box, so I have stopped checking them out.

Hmmm, I thought the most recent posts seemed to indicate that Conklin had gotten the quality control issue in hand.

In a recent issue of Pen World there was an article about the new Conklin. I'm thinking the previous issue or the one before that. Has anyone read it?

Depends on what models we are talking about. As the large Danitrios use Bock nibs (like Stipula, Bexley, Conway-Stewart and many more), the gold nibs in Conklins may be of German origin - at least they look like Bocks.

AIR, the model(s) mentioned did not strike me as the large bodied one(s).

OTOH, it could be Bock as they now make nibs at all price points and quality levels for the OEM market.

Whoever made the nib on the Nozac I had for a short time I had no complaints and thought it was a top notch grind. The pen refused to feed ink after a week of trying every suggestion I've seen on this board and the other one, so I sent it back for credit. IF Conklin has their Q.C. in hand and they are still delivering the otherwise high quality I experienced in that pen, I would buy one without hesitation.

Yep, it was in the Sept 2006 issue (the last one before PW went to a larger format).