1920 Ink Shutoff Sawaco

[GlenV]

I came across something cool in an old pen that I was wondering if other folks might be interested in. I obtained a SAWACO (Samuel Ward company) a Dewitt-Lafrance product soon after the formation of the pen and pencil company about 1919 -1920. It's a ringtop sleeve or thumb filler, and I really wanted to be able to ink it up. It was not like any pen I have seen, though. There is a pin at the front of the barrel to remove prior to any look at the section, but the works at the front were gummed up pretty solidly. After a while of cleaning was eventually able to remove the front parts, little by little removing bits from the sac side of the section. When the section came out, there was a closely fit tube entering the barrel side that abuts the feed.

Initially I thought this was a feature to easily remove the section/feed/nib for replacement or customization by the seller, but after looking at this a bit realized that the section was intended to move fore and aft to block off the tube connected to the sac. I think likely there was originally a spring that pushed the section forward when uncapped although little of this remained. I am intrigued at the complexity of this little pen, and the precision needed to make this work when originally sold, very cool to me. I found this ad later to support this as well.. this crude drawing illustrates this design if it makes any sense to anyone

[bass1193]

How intriguing! So there's a hole in the closed end of the sac tube that abuts a solid part of the feed when capped? That would stop most flow from the sac to the feed, I suppose. Very interesting indeed!

[eachan]

That's a very interesting and probably unique pen.

[GlenV]

Thanks for the comments I think its cool and found another one this one with the patented Lafrance clip but I cant have it till Christmas ha

[GlenV]

I'm going to not make this a novel, but some cool stuff I'm encountering about this pen brand, SAWACO by Dewitt Lafrance. The implications for fans of Superite, Signet(Rexall) Carter's and Laughlin pens as well as fans of early mechanical pencils, are somewhat enlightening to me. I read different versions of Sawaco, and Lauglin and Carter's but I think it isn't that complicated, just not that well documented that I can see.

The recent pen I obtained is similar vintage (1919-20) as the above pen, and has the same barrel imprint and the same holes in the forward barrel for a pin, but it appears that Dewitt Lafrance discontinued the movable section quite early, as this one has a standard section and sac attachment. It's a pretty pen and quite good size at 5 1/4 in. stout and well made. The clip is what I've been going down the rabbit hole about, as is the same as the patent by Dewitt Lafrance shown. Later clips by this company have a spoon shaped end as noted on the Delaco pencil illustrated. I've seen Lauglin pens with the patented Dewitt Lafrance clip, with the spoon shaped end, and about identical pens to Superites of the same vintage. However looking at Richard Binders glossipedia picure of the Laughlin sleeve filler is really interesting though as it is virtually identical to the SAWACO pen. Mine has what appears to be a nickel plated clip, but otherwise very similar, clearly the clip is the Dewitt Lafrance patented clip. The sleeve filling mechanism is not the same as the Lauglin patent either, which had a hinge mechanism forward of the open sac area, and the SAWACO pens I have both have a loose attachment at the far end of the pen under the blind cap that can travel up and down without a hinge. Maybe others have commented already on this, but I think the fact that Lauglin pens ended the same time that Carter's bought the pen division of Dewitt Lafrance in 1926 isn't a coincidence as far as I can see. The pictures of the cool clip design are included...and Luiz Leite's blog "old fountain pens just for fun" has some great pictures of the Lauglin clips with the spoon ends same as Superite if you search under Kraker and scroll down.