| Conklin Crescent-Fillers |
One of the great pioneer penmakers, Conklin’s heyday spanned the first third of the 20th century. Roy Conklin’s great innovation was his distinctive crescent-filler, the first mass-produced self-filling pen as well as the first mass-produced pen to use a flexible rubber ink sac. The essential patents were granted in 1901 and 1903, but crescent-filler production continued into the mid-1920s when the venerable design was finally retired in favor of the lever-filler, adopted by Conklin a few years before.
Crescent-fillers with fancy metal overlays are prized by collectors, but ordinary specimens are still available at quite modest cost. All are top-quality pens, and many carry flexible nibs. Beware of pens with missing lock rings, however – replacements are not easy to find. This is further complicated by the great variety of measurements found among crescent-fillers bearing identical model numbers. It is not uncommon to see a Conklin #5 nib of smaller dimensions than a Conklin #3!
Most crescent-fillers that you will find have screw-caps, but early models used a slip cap. Mottled and red hard rubber crescent-fillers are quite scarce and desirable.
For more information, see the articles in Pen World, vols. 7/1 and 7/2 (1983).
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