Waterloo, Iowa Fountain Pens

This is an interesting pen and filler. It is an Evans Pen, dating to around 1916, manufactured in Waterloo, IA by the Evans Pen Company. William Welty started the Welty Pen Company in Waterloo near 1904 and patented his first “hump filler” in 1906. As you can see, it is very similar to the familiar Conklin Crescent Filler. In fact, Conklin sued Welty over this, with Welty eventually winning. In 1915 Welty, constantly in search of additional funding, accepted funding from Patrick Evans and the Company name was changed to Evans. They produced “dollar pens” such as this one for a period of time in Waterloo, and also produced parts and pens to other pen companies, though this information is sketchy.

From a restoration standpoint this was fun, as I enjoy working on different types of filling mechanisms. I had restored a couple of crescent fillers and the method was the same. Once the section and nib (an original Evans) were removed and cleaned, I removed the “hump” bar which protrudes through the slot in the body of the pens, and is secured by the turning ring. The bar was badly pitted and discolored but cleaned up quite nicely. I also removed the old sac remnants. Here is a picture of the hump filler, and the original patent and drawing can be seen here.

The BCHR body and cap were in fairly good condition, considering the condition of the rest of the pen. They required no work at all. I fit a size 16 sac to the feed and reinserted the feed/nib into the pen after placing the clean bar into the body. When the outside locking ring is turned to allow for the bar to be pressed, this allows the sac to compress and then expand to accept ink as the bar is released.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

I have not used this pen yet, having restored it about a year ago. It is another example of an interesting small Midwestern pen manufacturer that carved out a niche for itself, albeit for a short time period.

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