Boston Safety Pen: What exactly was it?

[lectraplayer]

Not sure where to put this topic, but best I can tell, the Boston Safety Pen is the only pen of it's sort that I have found so far, but it says on the Noodlers site that it was made in the fashion of some aviation centric pens that were made before the Second War. Were these pens made for a special purpose and didn't make mainstream, or am I just missing them? Also, what were some similar pens that were made during the original era the Boston is attempting to pay homage to?

[arcfide]

It was modelled after a style of pen that was tried and used early in fountain pen design experimentation before a more standard style took over. 

 

In some sense, they did serve a special purpose, but that purpose would have been less "special" at the time compared to today, where they are indeed very specialized. 

 

Montblanc used to make one, and I believe they made an homage to their version, but their modern variant only looks somewhat like the old pens, and it uses the modern C/C filling system. I think other pen makers of various sorts made some, too. I don't know which ones at which time though. 

 

The whole mechanism is somewhat more hazardous to use than your typical pens today or even of the past, because the nib of the pen rests in the ink reservoir directly when capped and stored. This means that it is easy to make a very tight sealing pen, and the nib itself can never dry out unless the ink in the pen dries out. This meant that you could reasonably use a much wider range of inks that were much more likely to destroy the typical pen of the time, which didn't seal nearly as well. It also meant that large changes in air pressure were unlikely to cause any sort of burping or other spillage that would cause you pain while the pen was capped. 

 

The cost for all this benefit was that you had to extend the nib each time you wanted to use the pen, and you also needed to retract the nib when you were finished. During this time, it was like you were holding a vial of ink opened to the world, so if you shook or otherwise tipped the pen over the wrong way with the cap off and the nib retracted, that ink would go everywhere. It also meant that you needed to make sure that all the seals were kept in good order so that the pen wouldn't leak on you. 

 

Overall, it's a really cool design, but the extreme nature of the design created some sharp edges that were less tolerable over time as people wanted more convenience and didn't have the same desire to write with the same sorts of difficult inks and feeds and capping systems improved their ability to keep the pens from burping or leaking. 

[lectraplayer]

What were some of the actual early pens that the Boston was actually going for, or was it it's own bespoke thing for artists? I am assuming something from just after dip pens, but just before the common fountain pen really caught on--very early pen history that I haven't heard much discussion about.

[PPPR]

8 hours ago, lectraplayer said:

What were some of the actual early pens that the Boston was actually going for, or was it it's own bespoke thing for artists? I am assuming something from just after dip pens, but just before the common fountain pen really caught on--very early pen history that I haven't heard much discussion about.

As usual, Mr. Binder comes to the rescue. Here's a link for some history of "safety" FPs.

 

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