Paul E. Wirt

[George A. Turner]

Paul E. Wirt was one of several early manufacturers of fountain pens that started in the 1880s and achieved significant success by 1900. Wirt retired from the fountain pen business in 1922 and sold his company’s assets in 1925 to two investors. There were several factors that contributed to this decision. One of these often cited was Wirt’s tardiness to continually improve the design of his fountain pens. Consequently, he was too conservative and started losing market share. Being less competitive he failed to keep abreast or ahead of his competitors who were more determined and energetic to make a better fountain pen. Is this a valid point? Is there evidence to support this claim? Were the rival fountain pen companies more advanced than Wirt in adopting and perfecting self filing ink mechanisms? It’s worth noting what George Kovalenko has documented: all of Wirt’s fountain pen patents, thirty of thirty-two, he received between 1882 and 1910; the other two patents were in 1921 and 1922.

[rhr]

Hi George,

 

And everyone else,

 

Just so that we're all on the same page in the textbook, here are all the Wirt patents and Wirt-related patents. Now, everyone, go and do your reading homework.

 

Sincerely,

 

George.

________________

 

Wirt Patents

 

[260,134 Marvin C. Stone, "Fountain Pen-Holder", June 27, 1882, Wirt purchased this patent a few years later, so that he couldn't be charged with infringing upon it]

266,247 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Oct 17, 1882

288,290 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Nov 13, 1883

311,554 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Feb 3, 1885, the first overfeed fountain pen, Waterman patented the first successful underfeed, and Wirt did the same with the overfeed.

328,169 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Oct 13, 1885

330,358 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Nov 10, 1885

[349,753 George H. Sackett, "Fountain-Pen", Sept 28, 1886, cites Wirt's overfeed patents.]

358,525 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Mar 1, 1887

370,438 Paul E. Wirt, "[Mechanical] Lead-Pencil", Sept 27, 1887

399,306 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Mar 12, 1889

526,425 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Sept 25, 1894

526,426 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Sept 25, 1894

526,427 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Sept 25, 1894

526,428 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Sept 25, 1894

544,712 Paul E. Wirt, "[Mechanical] Pencil", Aug 20, 1895

651,735 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", June 12, 1900

651,736 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", June 12, 1900

651,737 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", June 12, 1900

651,738 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", June 12, 1900

675,698 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", June 4, 1901

675,699 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", June 4, 1901

706,140 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Aug 5, 1902

706,141 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Aug 5, 1902

723,112 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Mar 17, 1903

723,113 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Mar 17, 1903

724,983 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Apr 7, 1903

724,984 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Apr 7, 1903

764,652 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", July 12, 1904

841,475 Paul E. Wirt, "Self-Filling Fountain-Pen", Jan 15, 1907

[844,061 & 886,095 Levi D. Van Valkenburg, "Fountain-Pen Clips", Feb 12, 1907 & Apr 28, 1908, could be attached to any fountain pen, used on Wirt, Parker, Conklin, and other pens.]

852,368 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Apr 30, 1907

978,419 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Dec 13, 1910

978,420 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", Dec 13, 1910

1,347,800 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", July 27, 1920

1,379,890 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain-Pen", May 31, 1921

 

TM 37,034 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain Pens", Sept 10, 1901

 

_______________________________

 

Canadian, 23,360 Paul E. Wirt, "Fountain Pen", Feb 5, 1886

French, 166,781 Paul E. Wirt, "Plume-Fontaine", Feb 3, 1885

Edited February 24, 2005 by rhr

[einv]

i always thought wirt got interested in a different hobby (sailboats?) and let the business slide.

[kamakura-pens]

I have always felt that what really launched Wirt ahead of his competitors was the Mark Twain ads from the late 1880's and early 1890's. These came at the hieght of Twain's popularity.

 

Wirt was also well funded when he started his pen business while Waterman and most of the others were not when they started.

 

So Wirt had a wonderful head start, but many things caught up with him. Wirt was slow to move away from his overfeed. If you have ever tried to write with a Wirt overfeed pen, then you know that these pens can drip a lot of ink while writing. I have inked a few mint Wirts just to see what it was like to write with a new Wirt pen. You need to have a blotter or tissue with you. Still, the pens were not bad, but underfeed pens like the Watermans seem to write a little better, and it is nice to see the gold nib. The early Wirt overfeed nibs had imprints, but it was rather impossible to read them with the feed in the way.

 

George K. provided all of the Wirt Pen Patents, but this doesn't tell the whole story. Wirt licensed a whole collection of patents from others. We find Wirt pens with cresent fillers, and various twist fillers. Nothing that really competed with the Sheaffer Lever though. Probably Wirt's best design, was his hump filler. Filling one of these pens involves unscrewing the locking ring in the back, about 6 turns, then filling with the hump to depress the sac, and then six more turns to lock the hump back into place. It takes about four times as long to fill a Wirt hump filler than it does a common lever filler. Eventually Wirt used a lever filler and gave up on his designs. Wirt was a brilliant tinkerer, but his designs tended to overcomplicated.

 

Wirt was also limited in the colors he used. Black or Motled hard rubber. Wirt came out with some celluloid pens, but these were late and cheaply made. Wirt had some nice gold and silver overlay pens, but not quite as nice as Watermans.

 

I am sure that as a Bloomsburg historian, George T. can tell you that there was hardly a commitee or orginization in Bloomsburg that Wirt wasn't a member. Also Wirt had quite a few other businesses going on other than pens. He had interests in a bank, the Normal school, the Bloomsburg Water Works, and Mrs. Ann Diseroad, a librarian of Bloomsburg, uncovered a 1903 news clipping about Wirt having another factory in Bloomsburg. One that manufactured rubber suspenders, collars and other elastic goods.

 

From 1885 to 1899 Wirt enjoyed being the pen Industry leader. He seems to have been satisfied with that, and was moving into other markets while his pen market slowed down.

 

I wrote all this from memory, so George K. and George T. will probably find some mistakes, but I think I covered the major points.

 

If you do not have a Wirt pen though, you ought to try and find one. All other pens are frank failures.

 

Stay well,

www.kamakurapens.com

[rhr]

I always thought wirt got interested in a different hobby (sailboats?) and let the business slide.

In an article that appeared in a Bloomsburg, Pa. newspaper ten years after Wirt's death, the author wrote, "He [Wirt] allowed his interest to become diverted and started out to develop a new type of suspender. Into that – his invention centered around the buckle – he placed great sums of money but was a dead loss".

 

George.

 

:ph34r: