What Makes A Pen Vintage?

[sassinak]

Hello all.

 

Bought a couple of pens (as a single lot) on eBay classed as a vintage unused Parker pen and other. Got them today to discover that the Parker is a reflex (sold between 2000 and 2007) and I it got me wondering - what makes a pen vintage?

 

Incidentally, can anyone identify the other pen? It says 'MONVIAL" on the nib, no other information on the barrel and it has some sort of plunge filler.

[Ernst Bitterman]

The problem is that there's no official word on the matter. While I think almost everyone here would say that the Reflex is a couple of decades away from qualifying, there's not a lot of agreement. Some say "Older than me". Others have a firm if arbitrary date. My own view is a little more fluid-- I have no trouble calling a 1945 Parker Vacumatic Major a vintage pen, but the Parker "51" of the same date I have to struggle with a little through design and materials (thank goodness it's got that archaic filler!); I get into a lot of trouble with a 1989 Pelikan M600, which is quite vintage in most respects but too darned new.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Ernst Bitterman

[Pchi]

I wondered that exact same thing when I saw a Parker Sonnet identical to one of mine which I bought new a couple of years ago. I know Somnet changed the style in 2008/9, but there are still plenty of the older style ones to be bought new.

 

I think it's actually difficult for sellers because there isn't really an "in-between" word. Either it's a current model, therefore new, or it's "vintage", even if that only means a couple of years old. And many pens, such as the Sonnet or the Duofold, have been around a really long time; dating them is a matter of which model.

 

When I say "vintage" I mean my calligraphy nibs, the youngest of which is seventy years old. My fountain pens are "modern" (20 years old and 2 years old) and everything else, from a 1950's Waterman to my 60's-80's calligraphy FP's is just a grey area!

 

I guess the important question is "do you like them?" Because a 2008 pen that you love is worth ten times the priciest, oldest pen that writes like a drunken spider fell in the ink pot.

 

Be interesting to know what regular sellers say in answer to this. I've a feeling that, like how "flexy" a pen is, the answer is as many and varied as the pens themselves...

[pajaro]

It seems that a vintage pen is any pen I have used in my lifetime.

 

Parker 51

Parker 21 Super

Parker 45

Montblanc 146

Montblanc 144

Sheaffer Dolphin

Esterbrook J, LJ, SJ, M2, Safari ...

Reform

Senator

Cross Century

Sheaffer Touchdown Imperial

and on

 

This is a revolting situation.

 

 

[Pchi]

It seems that a vintage pen is any pen I have used in my lifetime.

 

Parker 51

Parker 21 Super

Parker 45

Montblanc 146

Montblanc 144

Sheaffer Dolphin

Esterbrook J, LJ, SJ, M2, Safari ...

Reform

Senator

Cross Century

Sheaffer Touchdown Imperial

and on

 

This is a revolting situation.

 

It IS a revolting situation. Mostly cos it's not me that's got to own them all. Sulking.

[Jebus]

Wether a pen will be classified as vintage or not will depend on your own feelings about it I guess.

 

I have a Pelikan 400 (pre '54) which I think is rather vintage. But also the M400 ('82-'89)I am using as a daily writer at the moment seems to be a little vintage for someone born in '82.

 

So I think "vintage" depends on your own idea about it. As long as the terminology is not used by people for justifying a premium because it is ruined with scratches...

[Uncle Red]

For sales vintage equals used since used isn't a popular word. To my mind a vintage pen had to start production before the Waterman C/F, the first modern cartridge pen (yes, I know about the earlier ones).

[Lloyd]

A pen's owner refers to his/her pen as "vintage" if the pen is older than the owner.

[Pchi]

A pen's owner refers to his/her pen as "vintage" if the pen is older than the owner.

 

Heh - older than they ARE or older than they SAY they are? Because the gap is getting ever wider in my case, and quite a few of my pens could get lost in the chasm!

[inkstainedruth]

There was a thread awhile back (last spring or summer, IIRC), about what the demarcation line(s) should be between "antique", "vintage", "NOS" and "new".

I liked the suggestion someone (sorry, don't remember who) came up with at the time: "vintage" is prior to the introduction of the Parker 45, which was one of (if not *the*) first pens to use a cartridge. Therefore, "vintage" should refer to pre-1960. Don't remember how far back you had to go for a pen to be classified as "antique", though.

So, my Parker 45 is technically *not* vintage (it probably dates to the mid-1960s, from what I was told when I posted photos of it), but my 51 Aerometrics both are both vintage (1949 and undated but pre-1956); ditto for my 51 Special and 21, all of which I can positively place as pre-1956 (all four say "use Superchrome ink" on the sac sleeve). My Snorkel is vintage (probably 1952-53). At least one of my Esterbrooks is -- I've been told that the first SJ I got is probably late 1950s, so it just squeaks under the wire (heck, it's probably only a year older than me, and *I* just squeak under the wire.... :roflmho:).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[welch]

For sales vintage equals used since used isn't a popular word. To my mind a vintage pen had to start production before the Waterman C/F, the first modern cartridge pen (yes, I know about the earlier ones).

 

I tend to agree because, but would set the date as roughly 1960 - '65, when Parker was designing and introducing the 45 and the 75. Parker and Sheaffer shifted to owner-repairable pens: parts could be unscrewed, cleaned, replaced by the owner. No parts meant to be fixed or replaced only by a specialist with special tools. So the last vintage pens would be the Parker 61 and the PfM, with a few stragglers, and the first modern pens would be the P45 and 75, and Sheaffer Imperial cartridge or cartridge/converter pens.

 

I'd push the date a couple of years after Uncle Red's date, but only because the Sheaffer cartridge pen was intended as a school pen. Sheaffer still advertised the Snorkel and then the PfM for grownups.

 

(The P61 would be an interesting "bridge" pen: the capillary filler was intended to take the spills out of refilling a pen, but by a simpler design than the snork. About 1969 or '70, Parker made the '61 into a c/c pen.)

[Pchi]

There was a thread awhile back (last spring or summer, IIRC), about what the demarcation line(s) should be between "antique", "vintage", "NOS" and "new".

I liked the suggestion someone (sorry, don't remember who) came up with at the time: "vintage" is prior to the introduction of the Parker 45, which was one of (if not *the*) first pens to use a cartridge. Therefore, "vintage" should refer to pre-1960. Don't remember how far back you had to go for a pen to be classified as "antique", though.

 

I agree that's a perfect point at which to say pens are vintage, because it's the point where filling systems largely changed. Problem is though, what do you call the intermediaries? I don't know if FP's are the same, but "NOS" in terms of calligraphic nibs means real vintage/antique but unused - I assumed the definition was the same for fountain pens, but I could very easily be wrong. Us dip-nib inkslingers are just thrilled to have graduated from a stick in a muddy puddle!

 

I'd suggest maybe antique is pre-lever fillers, that was the big deal then, and levers became the norm until cartridges and converters. But there's not really a name for that intermediary stage. Maybe we should call it "Alan" (sorry, that was another one of my personalities taking over!)

 

I'm quite relieved I'm not vintage though. Definitely neither NOS nor, sadly, new...

[Bo Bo Olson]

First step of vintage is when they had good nibs ( with a bit of flex) ...so Aurora may be vintage as of mid 2000's.

Pelikan before '97, before '89 defiantly before '65.

Sheaffer had some in the early '50's.

 

Back when pens had filling systems other than cartridge.

I'm quite willing to call a Snorkel vintage, in I was unable to recognize a fountain pen in the year it came out; even if it isn't older than me. Use to see it advertised on B&W TV.

Sac pens count as vintage.

 

When standard size pens were standard and large pens were medium-large?

[Pchi]

(The P61 would be an interesting "bridge" pen: the capillary filler was intended to take the spills out of refilling a pen, but by a simpler design than the snork. About 1969 or '70, Parker made the '61 into a c/c pen.)

 

 

Please excuse my ignorance; I'm learning. What exactly IS a snorkel, and how was it different? I presume they bridged the gap between levers and modern-day fillers? I keep seeing them, but can't work out how they operated, although the nake suggests some kind of suction (although that's pretty much any sac filler, isn't it?) And what's a "capillary fill"? I've never even heard of that!

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Please excuse my ignorance; I'm learning. What exactly IS a snorkel, and how was it different? I presume they bridged the gap between levers and modern-day fillers? I keep seeing them, but can't work out how they operated, although the nake suggests some kind of suction (although that's pretty much any sac filler, isn't it?) And what's a "capillary fill"? I've never even heard of that!

 

This page gives information on many filling systems, including the capillary and snorkel.

 

Without claiming any authority, I consider my Parker Super 21 to be vintage, even though I was alive when they stopped making them in 1965 (I don't know what year mine is from). From that, my own selection takes a big jump to the cartridge filled Sheaffer School Pen of the 1990s, which I would not call vintage, but I don't know everything that was in between. I like the comments in previous posts that being vintage has to do with design as well as well as age, although of course any modern maker can reproduce old filling systems if he likes. My old aerometrics, lever and crescent fillers, and vacumatics just have a different character from most modern pens.

Edited April 23, 2013 by ISW_Kaputnik

[BrandonA]

I think technically speaking there is no definition because the term is being used incorrectly when described to a pen.

 

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/vintage?q=vintage

 

If however we are to insist on applying the term to a pen, the seller of the item the original poster bought could have said something like "the Parker is vintage 2000-2007, thus letting potential sellers know when it was made.

 

I think you could argue that if the pen is no longer being made then it is no longer current. If something is not current then you could suggest it an antique or vintage.

[welch]

Please excuse my ignorance; I'm learning. What exactly IS a snorkel, and how was it different? I presume they bridged the gap between levers and modern-day fillers? I keep seeing them, but can't work out how they operated, although the nake suggests some kind of suction (although that's pretty much any sac filler, isn't it?) And what's a "capillary fill"? I've never even heard of that!

 

This page gives information on many filling systems, including the capillary and snorkel.

 

Without claiming any authority, I consider my Parker Super 21 to be vintage, even though I was alive when they stopped making them in 1965 (I don't know what year mine is from). From that, my own selection takes a big jump to the cartridge filled Sheaffer School Pen of the 1990s, which I would not call vintage, but I don't know everything that was in between. I like the comments in previous posts that being vintage has to do with design as well as well as age, although of course any modern maker can reproduce old filling systems if he likes. My old aerometrics, lever and crescent fillers, and vacumatics just have a different character from most modern pens.

 

 

Right. Any modern maker could make an old-style pen, but they won't: too expensive, and there is no longer a system of service centers to repair them.

 

There are a few throw-backs, but they are exceptions made by fountain pen fans who want to build to an old system more for the fun. We might have a button-filler, and the new Onoto has made a pen that seems to fill like the classic Onoto plunger filler, but cartridge / converter and swappable components have won out.

[Wahl]

To me a vintage pen is one made before 1950.

[PeterPenPencil]

Vintage to me are those pens that are not now in the market, whether they were discontinued or a new model appeared. Also, brands that are not manufacturing at the present. It is almost philosophically impossible to impose an Absolute on vintage pens.

[Edwaroth]

Age and age alone makes something vintage. In Michigan,at least, one can purchase special liscense plates for a car that is 20 to 25 years old. A wine vintage is the year the grapes were picked and made into wine. I have pens from the fifties and from the sixties both of which I consider to be vintage. Collectable is another matter altogether. One is a Conway-Stewart Model 84 which I think may collectable, the other is a Sheaffer Imperial Touchdown. A sweet NOS pen and very usable but collectable?..... To me, both however, are vintage...just from different years.