Converters

[greencobra]

Hello pen history buffs. I'd like to know when the converter came into being as we know it today. I guess I'm looking for a timeline when they started appearing as a regular filling system for FPs in replacing the sac for the most part, regular production if you will as opposed to being a "novelty". No points for the correct answer but just if you can get me to the correct decade +/- a few years I could live with that answer. Thanks so much!

[Richard]

I'm not sure if Parker's was the first converter on the market, but it appeared in 1961, the year after the 45 bowed.

 

http://www.richardspens.com/images/ref_info/vma/45_ad_1961.jpg

 

My guess is that the converter was part of the original 45 concept and engineering that Eversharp was doing when Parker bought them in '57.

[greencobra]

Thank you Richard. A handy little devise, talk about busting the paradigm with this invention. Would have liked to have been the fly on the wall when this concept was first mentioned at an Engineering Dept. meeting. I wonder who was the patent holder when it first it, Parker most likly.

[Richard]

The piston converter, and a pen to put it in, constitute U.S. Patent 3,134,362, by Homer T. Green; filed December 7, 1960; granted May 26, 1964; assigned to the Parker Pen Company.

 

Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Google Patent Search.

[sztainbok]

I think the history of the development of converters is of interest and has not received much attention.

I believe it is connected to the introduction of cartridges, in order to offer a nib dipping alternative to the cartridge for filling the pen. In 1954 Waterman introduced the model CF which is the first fountain pen that came out with a modern cartridge. There is a converter for it which is of the rubber sac type, operated very much like the LeBoef thumb filler or the Parker 51. I would assume it is the first converter if it came out at the same time or shortly after the CF.

Richard indicated in this thread that the first piston filler was invented by Parker and it came out with the Parker 45. Parker has also used extensively the rubber sac type converter on the 45 and other models.

Sheaffer introduced a vacuum type cartridge with a mechanism similar to the Vacumatic, with the Sheaffer Stylist model.

The latest re-incarnation of the Parker 45 came out with a syringe type converter that has a metal pellet inside it. I believe it is meant to break up possible ink clogging in the converter.

 

Up to now I have identified converters of the sac type, piston fillers, vacuum fillers and syringe fillers which emulate fountain pen filling systems.

 

Is it possible that converters exist of the pump type such as the Dunn pen filling system or a plunger filler such as the original Onoto system? I would be interested to find out.

 

In the picture below, you can see the syringe Parker 45 converter at the top, the Sheaffer vacuum converter in the center and the Waterman CF converter at the bottom

 

Cheers

Victor

 

 

Edited October 22, 2008 by sztainbok

[sztainbok]

I have recently purchased a Lus Atomica 300, which had a peculiar converter. It has a receptacle for ink pellets and you can use it to fill the pen with water. As Lus was the first company to manufacture a pen with a plastic cartridge. Could we assume this is the first converter?

[sztainbok]

Coming back to this old topic on the history of converters, I recently noticed that some converters are threaded so that they need to be screwed into the section.

I have seen MB, Lamy, Cross, Monteverde etc. It would be interesting to know what pen was the first to use a threaded converter and how interchangeable they are.

Victor.