Some time back there was a post about Morton pens and it was absolutely fascinating for me and I thought you all would appreciate this Morton that I got this weekend at an estate sale. Lets just say that in the jewelry that it came in there was a WWI RFC wings as well as an 8th cavalry badge from at least the Spanish American War. The lady's father was a general store owner in Oklahoma Territory and this I would have no problem believing that it could be Civil War era or even older but I will leave that up to the experts. I only pick one up occasionally when it catches my eye and this one I didn't even know what it was at first. Nib says A. Morton New York NY St. Quality No. 7.

I forgot to list a picture of the nib. Sorry about that.Click to view attachment

A Morton apprenticed under A. G. Bagley and even signed as a witness on some of the Bagley patents. Morton began his own business around the time of the War. In addition to making his own pens, he also supplied nibs to early Fountain pensmiths like FC Brown of the Caws pen company.

I don't have a lot on Morton, but I do have some on Bagley:

http://www.kamakurapens.com/Manhattan/BagleyAG.html
http://www.kamakurapens.com/Manhattan/ManhattanList.html


Stay Well

RD
http://www.kamakurapens.com

You were probably referring to the thread about Morton fountain pens, but there was also this thread on the German pen company Kaweco, which quite improbably crossed paths with A. Morton & Co., the company founded by Alexander Morton in 1848.

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=14104

George Kovalenko.

Is there any way of knowing when this pen falls into the time frame of the A. Morton company from 1848-1920? I would think by style that it is certainly from the 1800s and the nib does not have Mr. Waterman's hole at the end of the slit so off hand I would think that it predates about 1890 but this is purely conjecture. I hope someone can enlighten me on this point. One thing that I think is really neat but perhaps not all that unusual is that the plunger to suck the ink into the pen is made of wood.

I don't think that is a plunger to suck ink into the pen. I believe this is a dip-pen, and the black piece on the back is simply an extendable taper. The nib most likely retracts into the barrel by means of the little slider on the side.

As for the date, unfortunately the lack of a vent-hole on the nib does not mean that it is early or before 1890. Waterman and many other fountain-pen nibs had vent-holes as early as the 1880s AFAIK, but gold dip-pen nibs were often ventless well up into the nineteen-teens if not the twenties. I have a catalog from 1917 with a selection of Aikin Lambert ventless dip-nibs, sold right alongside fountain-pens with vented nibs.

John

For curiousity, if the taper is not for ink why would it be extendable?

John is right. It is not a fountain pen, but rather a telescopic penholder. The taper is merely extendable for balance, to make it more like a desk penholder when being used, and collapsible for portability in the vest pocket. The taper also can be part of a mechanism to extend the nib.

The penholder was probably not made by A. Morton & Co., since they were a gold nib making company. You're right to think that by the style it is from the 1800s. And most early gold nibs for penholders do not have the hole at the end of the slit. Good guess that it predates about 1890.

Here's a similar penholder, Patent 243,319 from 1881 assigned to Aikin-Lambert & Co. To be quite technical and pedantic, ;~) it's not just a penholder, but a pen case with a sliding, telescopic taper end that makes it a collapsible, portable penholder. Often such a pen case also has a mechanical pencil in the taper, or under the nib, in which case it is called a
pen and pencil case, or a combination pen and pencil case.

George Kovalenko.

Ok, I am bringing this back from the dead, but I thought I would post the 1917 catalog with Aikin-Lambert ventless dip-nibs. They were obviously sold long after most fountain pens (including Aikin Lambert) had vented nibs. Not that this has any bearing on the specific date of the Morton, but just to point out that ventless nibs were around into the 19-teens.



John

Let's set something straight about nib terminology. Some people refer to the hole at the end of the slit in a fountain pen nib as a "vent hole", but it doesn't "vent" anything. Most fountain pen nibs have them, but they would do just fine with a nib without a hole. Okay, some air goes in through the hole, but enough air also burps in through the slit, and gets in all around the nib and feed that it almost makes the hole superfluous. And an open nib in a penholder, or dip pen doesn't need any kind of "vent hole" at all, although most steel nibs still have an aperture at the end of the slit.

This is what the so-called "vent hole" really does. The aperture in most steel nibs serves the function of adding flexibility to the tynes of the nib, so they should more rightly be called "flex holes". This is also true for gold nibs, but in most gold nibs the aperture serves the extra function of stopping the slit in the nib from splitting further under the pressure of flexing, so they should more rightly be called "anti-split holes". Sometimes even an aperture won't stop a slit from cracking further. Drilling a hole at the end of a crack to stop it from spreading any further is an old machinist's trick. It is used by a lot of pen repairmen to repair cracked cap lips. They drill the hole, then fill the hole and crack with the repair material of their choice. There is a third function that the aperture serves, and that is the purpose of providing good looks. Fountain pens with nibs with apertures are a longstanding tradition, and some people think that they just look better this way, so they should more rightly be called, I don't know, "pretty holes"? ;~)

As for the 1917 catalogue listing of the nibs without apertures, this is to be expected. A product will always continue to be produced as long as some old fuddy duddy keeps asking for it. Eyedropper pens were produced by Waterman well into the 1940s. When I said that it was a "good guess that it predates about 1890", I wasn't just referring to the nib. I was also taking into consideration the style of the pen case in the original posts.

Please notice that I didn't use the term "vent hole" even once in this post. I merely mentioned it. ;~)

George Kovalenko.