How do I fill a vintage pen?

Nearly all vintage pens are self-fillers – that is, they fill from a bottle without requiring any other apparatus. Although cartridge pens were marketed as early as the end of the 19th century, the system did not really begin to catch on until plastic cartridges were introduced by Waterman in the early 1950s. To find out how your vintage pen fills, go to the Filling Instructions page.

To empty a pen, one generally follows the same procedure as for filling. In many cases, however, not all the ink will be expelled when operating the filler mechanism. For complete emptying, either operate the filler with the pen held nib down, holding a piece of absorbent tissue against the nib and feed, or shake the pen out over a sink -- taking care not to hit the sink with the pen, or to splatter ink outside the sink.