What Is The Origin Of The Retractable "safety Pen"

[KandyPenz]

Waterman, Kaweco, Boston and few other companies have early retractable nib fountain pens. Earliest reference i can find so far is the Soennecken dating to around 1905.

 

 

What is the origin of this filling system, when was it invented and what is the earliest safety you have ?

[shalitha33]

Oldest i have would be either a caw or a moore. Caw is probably the more interesting pen of the two.

 

 

 

There are also overfeed safety pens from Paul e Wirt that probably predate these.

[TheDutchGuy]

Very interesting. I’d no idea that it goes this far back.

[shalitha33]

A truly unique one would be the paul e wirt design. you can find infor about them in greenie's site.

 

http://vintagependoctor.com/wirt-retractable-nib-pens/

 

caw pens feed has a slot that a pin on the cap goes in to. It looks to be made out of 3 layers of ebonite. one overfeed layer and 2 underfeed layers,very tempted to pull it apart and see inside. but given this is the only pen i have, that might not be a good idea

 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

This might help

 

http://www.richardspens.com/ref/design/safeties.htm

[sansenri]

Richard Binder's site explains the matter very well.

in a nutshell however early pens had filling systems (like eyedropper) that were less secure in maintaining ink inside the pen in case of the pen being carried around.

The need to bring the pen with you, and not just leave it at your desk, was probably the reason that brought to the invention of the safety pen.

One particular frequent use of safety pens was by soldiers during war, the pen had to bear heavy tossing around, but still write when needed.

[Greenie]

Moore safeties, production in 1899

https://vintagepens.com/Moore_safeties.shtml

 

Waterman safeties production starting in 1908

https://vintagepens.com/Waterman_safeties.shtml

 

shalitha 33 already linked to some rarer Wirt pens, patented 1894, but not broadly produced.

 

Caw's patent was Feb 12, 1895. It was advertising that same year.

https://books.google.com/books?id=R01YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA465&lpg=PA465&dq=caws+safety+pen+patent&source=bl&ots=Hl1uMqw2em&sig=ACfU3U3jbyw84jD7UpbzIN_X8xfDxeVwTQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn-e7Ym4XpAhWjGTQIHWhzBCQQ6AEwDXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=caws%20safety%20pen%20patent&f=false

 

Caws are much less often seen and even plain models are highly sought after. Moore's are fairly common and much more attainable to get a c1900 retractable nib safety.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Greenie

[Greenie]

Oldest i have would be either a caw or a moore. Caw is probably the more interesting pen of the two.

 

 

 

There are also overfeed safety pens from Paul e Wirt that probably predate these.

 

That is a fantastic early Caws! It would probably be the earliest actual production safety pen. The Wirt patents are earlier, but it is not clear if they were really produced. The Caws was widely marketed.

[KandyPenz]

Thank you all for providing all this information and links for further reading. This sparked my interest in looking at collecting early vintage pens.

[Estycollector]

Thank you.

[G-S]

The fun part on a safety is retracting the nib while holding it nib down because you forgot about it last time... ;-)

[inkstainedruth]

I had never heard of the Caw brand before.

I LOVE this site -- I learn new stuff all the time.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[shalitha33]

Caw has some interesting pre 1900s pens. from the outside they looks like a fairly normal over-under feeds. When you unscrew the section and look through it from within , you can see how little of an area the feed is taking and its basically a nib held in place with gaps all around it. makes me wonder why ink doesn't just fall out.

 

 

http://fountainpenhistory.blogspot.com/2014/04/francis-cashel-brown-pt-1.html

 

 

Not sure who started the over-under feeds, but they are probably one of the earlier ones?

Earliest patent line I have is as follows on a Caws Dashway No 105.

 

Pat: Jul 30, Nov 30, 86

 

on a side note , I would really like to see a photo of a prince's protean fountain pen. If some one with it can share a photo. all i could ever find is advertisement drawings