When Did Press Bar Filler Units Become Converters ?

[Mangrove Jack]

From an old Parker leaflet: quote"

The 75, 61, 65 and 45 pens are convertible, they can either be loaded with an ink cartridge or filled from a bottle. Your convertible pen is already fitted with the press bar filler unit, the cartridges are located underneath the gift box platform.

The 51 and Lady pens are press bar only.

The new Slimfold pen is cartridge only." unquote.

 

So how did press bar filler units come to be called converters ?

[zwack]

A press bar filler unit is a converter when they stick a nipple on the end and make it detachable.

 

Converters come in many different types. Threaded and slide piston, and pressure bar seem to be the two most common.

[Ron Z]

Well, some 65 pens use a converter. There are also some that use the VP style filler, but with an important difference. They have a round shaft, instead of the splines found on the nose of a VP filler. The purpose was to keep the owner from twisting the collector inside if they twisted the filler, which would twist the nib and break off the little peak at the end of the section. The 51, 61 and 65 were first made with some other filling system and later were modified to be cartridge fillers.

 

The converter came into being when the manufacturers introduced cartridges, so that those who preferred to use bottled ink could even though the pen was designed for a cartridge.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Well not needing the box, I tossed it for my P-75 same minute I got home in '70-71. Don't even think I read that pamphlet. Took me until I got back to fountain pens some 7 years ago, to find out it took cartridges too. And it could use a converter was also news. There were no converters way back then.

So a good P-75 has the press unit, a converter and can use those overly expensive cartridges in an emergency.

[Sasha Royale]

In the early 1960's , the press-bar filler was proven technology. I is reasonable that a detachable ink reservoir would use the same proven technology.

[ppdiaporama]

Sheaffer used press-bar converters until the late 90s and Pilot still has one on the market.

 

The converter part is the fact that you can interchange between a converter and an ink cartridge.

[dogpoet]

It's worth pointing out that the older Parker press bar convertors (these are the "Buck Rogers" things we're talking about, right?) are hugely good convertors as well. The same goes for the similar Sheaffer ones, though I have had one of the latter leak on me, filling a pen barrel with ink: not sure if the rubber had perished, or if a previous owner had worked the bar a little too zealously and poked a hole or torn it...

[Mangrove Jack]

Thanks all. Interesting.

However, Parker were talking about a pen that could take a cartridge and converter in the quote above (OP), but did not refer to it as a converter but called it a press bar filler. Which means that it took a few years for a "removable press bar filler" to become known as a converter. I think the term "converter" was coined by users to describe a removable press bar filler.