Editing Fountain pen (section)

===New patents and inventions===
In 1848, American inventor Azel Storrs Lyman patented a pen with "a combined holder and nib".<ref>''The Times'' (London, England), 15 September 1885, p. 6: Obituary</ref> In 1849 Scottish inventor [[Robert William Thomson]] invented the refillable fountain pen.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Engineer - Late, great engineers: Robert William Thomson - of aerial wheels and fountain pens |url=https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/in-depth/late-great-engineers-robert-william-thomson-of-aerial-wheels-and-fountain-pens/ |website=The Engineer |language=en |date=18 January 2023}}</ref> From the 1850s, there was a steadily accelerating stream of fountain pen [[patent]]s and pens in production. However, it was only after three key inventions were in place that the fountain pen became a widely popular writing instrument. Those were the [[iridium]]-tipped [[gold]] nib, [[Ebonite|hard rubber]], and free-flowing ink.<ref name="Best Fountain Pen" />

[[Image:SafetyDemoRJJ PD.jpg|thumb|Waterman 42 Safety Pen, with variation in materials (both red and black hard vulcanized rubbers or [[ebonite]]) and retracting nibs]]
[[Image:Duofold.jpg|thumb|60px|[[The Parker Pen Company|Parker]] [[Duofold]], c. 1924]]

The first fountain pens making use of all these key ingredients appeared in the 1850s. In the 1870s Duncan MacKinnon, a Canadian living in New York City, and [[A. T. Cross Company|Alonzo T. Cross]] of Providence, Rhode Island, created stylographic pens with a hollow, tubular nib and a wire acting as a valve.<ref>{{cite web|title=Stylographic Pens|url=http://www.vintagepens.com/stylos.shtml|website=Vintage Pens|access-date=27 July 2016|archive-date=12 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812093737/http://www.vintagepens.com/stylos.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p4o9AQAAIAAJ|title=Scientific American, "Fountain Pens"|date=1878-08-10|publisher=Munn & Company|pages=80|language=en}}</ref> Stylographic pens are now used mostly for drafting and technical drawing but were very popular in the decade beginning in 1875. In the 1880s the era of the [[mass production|mass-produced]] fountain pen finally began. The dominant American producers in this pioneer era were [[Waterman pens|Waterman]], of [[New York City]], and Wirt, based in [[Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania]]. Waterman soon outstripped Wirt, along with many companies that sprang up to fill the new and growing fountain pen market. Waterman remained the market leader until the early 1920s.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Binder|first1=Richard|title=Significant Pens of the Twentieth Century|url=http://www.richardspens.com/ref/misc/significant.htm|website=Richard Binder's Pens|access-date=27 July 2016|archive-date=20 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160820183604/http://www.richardspens.com/ref/misc/significant.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

At this time, fountain pens were almost all filled by unscrewing a portion of the hollow barrel or holder and inserting the ink by means of a dropper – a slow and messy procedure. Pens also tended to leak inside their caps and at the joint where the barrel opened for filling.<ref name="dropper">{{cite web|last1=Binder|first1=Richard|title=Filling System Histories: Here's Mud in Your Eye(dropper)|url=http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/fillers/ed.htm|website=Richard Binder's Pens|access-date=26 July 2016|archive-date=20 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160820160516/http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/fillers/ed.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Now that the materials' problems had been overcome and the flow of ink while writing had been regulated, the next problems to be solved were the creation of a simple, convenient self-filler and the problem of leakage. Self-fillers began to gain in popularity around the turn of the century; the most successful of these was probably the Conklin crescent-filler, followed by A. A. Waterman's twist-filler.<ref>{{cite web|title=Filling Instructions: Twist-Fillers|url=http://www.vintagepens.com/filling_instructions_twist-fillers.shtml|website=Vintage Pens|access-date=27 July 2016|archive-date=27 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727232826/http://www.vintagepens.com/filling_instructions_twist-fillers.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Crescent Filler|url=http://www.hisnibs.com/crescent.htm|website=His Nibs|access-date=27 July 2016|archive-date=10 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160810181614/http://www.hisnibs.com/crescent.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> The tipping point, however, was the runaway success of Walter A. Sheaffer's lever-filler, introduced in 1912,<ref name="Binder Lever">{{cite web|last1=Binder|first1=Richard|title=Filling System Histories: Lever Look Back|url=http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/fillers/lever.htm|website=Richard Binder's Pens|access-date=26 July 2016|archive-date=20 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160820154219/http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/fillers/lever.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> paralleled by Parker's roughly contemporary button-filler.