Wasn't the Lever Fill Pretty Much the Best Idea?

[ethernautrix]

The sac is a deal breaker for me. Currently have three inked pens, my "dailies," one each of vacuum-filler, c/c, and ED.

[Edo98]

I really like the lever and especially button filling systems and the aerometric of my parker 51, they are fast and fun filling systems to use, recently I was learning how to change ink sacs and I successfully replaced one, the hardest part itself is to separate the section from the barrel and the following is easier and even entertaining, I already lost the fear that I had to add more vintage pens to my collection for fear of not knowing how to change the ink sac by myself.😊

 

From other filling systems I like for example modern pistons and eyedropper, cartridge-converter pens I only like when used with cartridges since all the converters I have tried always have ink flow problems due to surface tension, I hope someday find a converter that does not have these problems 😞.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I once had a lot of lever pens; but am down to a couple Easties; the flat bottom blue, and a Copper, a Wearever combo fountain pen and MP, and a turquoise full plastic Wearever; for my wife because that's her color.

I had pre and just after the war second tier  Wearevrs that were as good as my second tier) Easties. (third tier too of course.....unfortunately one of the early main posters was the Wearever expert, and had a great blog, but became ill and had to sell everything for a nickle on a dollar....something that can't happen in Germany with our socialist medicine...Bismark Care....that we pay 13-15% your choice.) So his blog is gone and no one knows there were good Wearevers. )

From back in the day when Esties were going for $15 not $70 or so. A Ebay buy when I was so new. Lots of the Easties in the picture had no nib.I was new and trusting.

In DJ, SJ & or LJ.,  once had 5 of the 8 smoky gray, from midnight smoke to dusk. 3 of the 5 greens, 5-6 blues...started from the inherited smokey gray, and mostly from this lot. Did luck into a few. No red, tootsie roll or stripe.

 

There was a time before the Chinese took over noobie pens, all noobies were told buy an Eastie, or a Safari.

so everyone bought $15 Eastes, when they hit $30 that advice was no longer given, in everyone had gone out on an Estie binge.

Besides growing up in the lever era; was and am use to them, and never really stuck my self with a lever.

Once sacks lasted 30-40 or more years. My first and inherited Estie had a sac last 60 years. (One of the pens that started me on this madness.)

But that was pre-saturated inks, which can eat them in a week to ten days....now sacs are thought to have done their duty if they hold out for a decade.

[txomsy]

Not in my experience: Slimlines and Noblesse have never been an issue for me. Granted, they use thinner nipple converters, the Waterman kind, but knowing it to be so I've never had any issue to find one. And recently I found some cheap Chinese converters that work too.

 

Actually, I have one of those "5x1USD converters" on the Noblesse I carry now in my pocket (just checked).

 

But I know one day converters will likely be as difficult to come by as sacs as well. Which takes me back to modern piston fillers and vintage eyedroppers (indeed I prefer an eyedropper over a lever filler for those reasons).

 

Lever fillers... I always feel they are too fragile. The lever has to work against a metal elastic bar applying pressure, and the hinge has always looked as a weak point to me.

 

But that's likely because I am old, unknowledgeable, have little experience with lever fillers (I try not to use them for the above reason) and, certainly, dumber than average, no point about that, which is why I'd like to be proven wrong to lose the fear to use the ones I have.

[Ron Z]

The lever fillers are a lot more rugged than you think, and  simple to fix if they break, especially Esterbrooks.  Pressure bars last a long time, and the C ring that holds the lever in place, or the wire pin variety, can also be repaired.  Damage usually comes from rusted parts, the result of a leaking sac.  Until the age of cartridges and converters, the lever filler was the dominant filling mechanism, Parker, and later Sheaffer, being the exceptions.

 

Piston fillers are great, but if ink dries, or the piston seal freezes, or the spindle breaks, or the back end can't open or....  OTOH, the piston seal will generally outlast any sac by quite a bit, especially if you apply a little silicone grease from time to time.  In general people are more willing to try a sac replacement on a lever filler than any other repair, which is why I see a lot more of everything else.

[Estycollector]

I remember the first time replacing the j bar.  I had long nose tweezers. It took maybe 5 minutes to extract the old and push in the new one. I recall saying to myself, well, that was easy...!!

[PAKMAN]

For me I love a variety of fillers. For certain pens like Sheaffer Balances I much prefer the lever fillers to the Vac-fil versions. But I do love my piston fillers a lot!

[Bo Bo Olson]

1 hour ago, txomsy said:

Noblesse

Thanks for the reminder Txomsy.

I have a nice classy one, won in my last live auction  a 7 pen plastic bag.. Having looked in Pablo's blog, it is a 3rd generation, '87-early 2000's. I'd guess mine '88-very early '90's like the rest of that bag of pens.

"Having a more complex clip, made as two long bars with a tab on the end," than the 1st&2nd generation.

"silver plated cap, red marble lacquered barrel but instead of a 14kt gold nib, an 18 Kct.750 eyeballed to an OM.

Unfortunately a nail.***

MB converter.

Hadn't been cleaned out since the original owner  died in the early '90's........in all the pens were late '80's-to 1994.

The ink had been a BB, in Royal Blue cleans out in more of a cloud, and not quite so stringy as BB. (lots of experience at knowing the difference between the two inks from the very many old cheap vintage/semi-vintage pens I bough over the last decade.)

Polished up real nice. That blood red marbled barrel, is a touch of class.

 

*** has much to do with why I'd not looked at the nail pen.

And for me converter pens stand behind piston pens. Though I do have a couple pretty slightly different green marbled Pelikans; a 381 and a Celebry. And a couple others.

My 7 pen bag....had to take them out of the bag to look at them, and I knew I couldn't win, but wanted to drool over th eHunter Toledo. At 3 X my max...Wooden looking one on top is a Diplomat, the black ones are a W.Germany 800, Waterman 200 and 149

Other side Hunter, Noblesse and a CC Cd"A fountain pen, and RB or BP body. All 18 K nibs.

All but the two nails, are nice springy regular flex....just thumbnail tested the Waterman, 149 and Hunter....not yet inked.

Trying desperately to keep my self at 9 pens or less inked. Some day I'll have only 5 inked; so I can use up some inks. With my normal 17 that I use to have inked; one does not use up inks.

In spite of being 3 X's my max; having totaled up all the pens, got it for 1/3 the worth.

 

Lever pens are not big in Germany since Pelikan dragged Soennecken, and MB screaming and kicking into the 'modern' '30's.
 

[aimi]

Wow I feel like reading this thread I might be one of the few contrarians... I really dislike lever fillers. Some of them feel a bit rickety (granted, those likely come from pens nearing 100), and even if they are robust, I'm still afraid of one day lifting the lever slightly wrong-- maybe just a bit too angled sideways-- and off it pops. I would prefer to clean a piston or cartridge-converter (probably not a vacuum filler though), and I wholly prefer the button-filler for sac pens. My aversion to levers is thankfully very good for my wallet, as there are many vintage pens I'd love to one day own otherwise (looking at you, adjustable Wahl Doric...)

[Bo Bo Olson]

Won't happen...and never to an Esterbrook....which has some very, very pretty pens between @ 1940 and 60.

Parker and Shaffer went over to cheap looking but sturdy Plastic...Parker at War's begin. Sheaffer soon after.

Esterbrook is as Sturdy as a truck.

 

Lots of newer folks don't trust plastic at all thinking metal is the way to go....IMO wrong ...and many of the newer find that out also............

Metal outside the P-75 which is a perfectly balanced pen, metal seldom has good, much less great balance. You need to find out you do need or want a light and nimble pen you can write all day long with.....one with very good balance. Pre metal clunkers (on the whole).

There was a time, when it was One Man, One Pen....buy a new pen a decade later.....and pens were used all day, not just for conference room notes. So balance and being light and nimble was a must.

Of course the pen was stable enough to go to war on the front lines.....and plastic.

A '40-60 Esterbrook is a tank; outside the Black or white pens beautiful.

Go look in the Esterbrook section...........don't say I didn't warn you.

 

[loganrah]

Another contrarian view: In my experience the problem of leaking pens has not been solved (even in modern ones) and for primarily that reason I prefer Japanese Eyedroppers and Safetys. Safetys also have the advantage of being essentially immune to drying out and having very robust internal parts compared to a sac, so they can be used with many inks that you might be more hesitant to put in a lever filler.

[Estycollector]

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Won't happen...and never to an Esterbrook....which has some very, very pretty pens between @ 1940 and 60.

Parker and Shaffer went over to cheap looking but sturdy Plastic...Parker at War's begin. Sheaffer soon after.

Esterbrook is as Sturdy as a truck.

 

Lots of newer folks don't trust plastic at all thinking metal is the way to go....IMO wrong ...and many of the newer find that out also............

Metal outside the P-75 which is a perfectly balanced pen, metal seldom has good, much less great balance. You need to find out you do need or want a light and nimble pen you can write all day long with.....one with very good balance. Pre metal clunkers (on the whole).

There was a time, when it was One Man, One Pen....buy a new pen a decade later.....and pens were used all day, not just for conference room notes. So balance and being light and nimble was a must.

Of course the pen was stable enough to go to war on the front lines.....and plastic.

A '40-60 Esterbrook is a tank; outside the Black or white pens beautiful.

Go look in the Esterbrook section...........don't say I didn't warn you.

 

This is why FPN needs a “like” link. Well said 💚💚

[Estycollector]

14 minutes ago, loganrah said:

Another contrarian view: In my experience the problem of leaking pens has not been solved (even in modern ones) and for primarily that reason I prefer Japanese Eyedroppers and Safetys. Safetys also have the advantage of being essentially immune to drying out and having very robust internal parts compared to a sac, so they can be used with many inks that you might be more hesitant to put in a lever filler.

Until I got into the workings of my lever fill Esterbrook pens I would have, might have agreed. 

 

So, you’re depressing a balloon so it will suck in ink. So genius 🧐 and yet, so simple. 🤓
 

 

 

[Aether]

Lever/button is not needful.  breaks the lines of barrel from being pure.  also pen can never be used as eye dropping.

[Estycollector]

47 minutes ago, Aether said:

Lever/button is not needful.  breaks the lines of barrel from being pure.  also pen can never be used as eye dropping.

Sort of like a stick shift breaks the lines of the transmission hump??

 

[Aether]

Not hardly.   Said before, pull section and squeeze sac with your fingers to fill up with the ink. simplicity.  No need for lever, no need to cut pieces out of barrel.  no need to damage esthete lines of pen by cutting piece out.  just my opinions 

[Bo Bo Olson]

1 hour ago, loganrah said:

many inks that you might be more hesitant to put in a lever filler.

True the modern supersaturated inks; which started with Parker Penman inks, will destroy a rubber sac quickly, some are destroyed in 7-10 days; other folks have better luck.

A certain modern American ink, is not covered in certain well known American repairmen's warrantee. 

 

How ever I like two toned shading ink** instead of vibrant boring monotone inks. Of course I do have good to better papers for them.

** What noobies call wishy-washy or pastel...

 

 

It's good folks have opinions about fountain pens; or we'd all be using BP's...Is there actually a Ball Point Com?

 

"""Sort of like a stick shift breaks the lines of the transmission hump??"""LOL

 

Well I don't see the breaking of a pens line, but I grew up with lever pens.....the non-lever pens the Adult's single P-51 or Snorkel....were expensive, not for school kids, until they went to collage....or got a Job.

 

Now Going Back before my time, I do like the little coffin Waterman put it's levers in....but I never saw that in 'real life', being obsolete. Waterman died in the states sometime in the early to mid '50's as far as I can remember. don't even remember TV or top of the line Mag's advertising Waterman.

 

Imagine having to think ahead and fill your pen either when finished with it or in the morning.....

So folks stopped thinking ahead and went to unscrewing a fountain pen and shoving expensive and they were then and are now still expensive cartridges in it.

Back in the Day......

The main question always was, from whom did I borrow a cartridge; so I could borrow from someone else....and how to get up the dough to buy enough cartridges to pay those generousness folks back.

 

I remember the great day, when I got 10 ball point fillers for just 10 cents (a whole year's worth of writing for a dime) and could afford a big nickle snickers or a new big 10 oz Coke. or a pack of baseball cards...which was why I was able to afford the #1 Spidie comic book.

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That I folded up and put in my back pocket.

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Then swapped the old used comic book for a new once read Fab 4.

So that is why I'm not a millionaire.

 

 

[Ron Z]

also pen can never be used as eye dropping.

 

I'm good with that.   As one pen friend frequently reminded me when I brought out my Boheme, "There's a reason why they quit making eyedroppers and safety pens."

[sgphototn]

30 minutes ago, Ron Z said:

 

 

 

I'm good with that.   As one pen friend frequently reminded me when I brought out my Boheme, "There's a reason why they quit making eyedroppers and safety pens."

Yeah. All those breakable parts and constant need of adjustments that eyedroppers present must keep you busy!😄

[lionelc]

i am for living dangerously - the mabie todd twist filler, doesnt break the lines of a pen but twist too hard and ...