History of Waterman



Waterman's Factory in New York City
Waterman is one of the largest manufacturers of writing instruments to this day. The firm was founded in 1883, in New York, by Lewis Edson Waterman, and is one of the few historical producers who survived, albeit indirectly, to this day. 

Excepting the first years of life, Waterman had always maintained a very conservative approach that has privileged tradition with regard to both style and technology, while still maintaining a high level of quality. However, due to this traditional approach, after the golden period ending in the 1920s, Waterman was incapable of adapting to market trends and began to lose ground against its more dynamic competitors such as Parker, Sheaffer and Eversharp.

The story of the fountain pen is deeply linked to Waterman's story, and many believe its founder, Lewis Edson Waterman, as the inventor of this writing instrument. In fact, this is an exaggeration, although it must be acknowledged that at the dawn of the fountain pen era, Waterman was at the forefront of industrial production, promotion and dissemination of this writing instrument on the international market.

It is said that everything began with a malfunctioning fountain pen that made Lewis Waterman, who then worked as an insurer, loose a lucrative contract that was stained because of an ink spillage. This led Mr.Waterman to be interested in the workings of such an object and identifying the solution to this problem, and thus was born the first modern multi-channel feeder for a fountain pen. 

In fact, this story (often referred to as the ink blot myth), is totally false as recent investigations have proved. In fact, it is now certain that it was nothing more than a "marketing" ploy that was spread by Waterman's creative department. But the fact remains that a feeder, inspired by the same principles as the one patented by Lewis Edson Waterman, remains today, unchanged in its founding principles, the heart of every fountain pen.

Waterman's first years of activity are still rather obscure: the original novelty was that of introducing, in 1883, the first multichannel feeder for which Lewis Waterman had obtained the first patent (No. US-293545) of the company in 1884. It was thanks to this innovation that the first fountain pens, produced before the company's official foundation in 1888, were very successful and on which the company's initial fortune was based. To this, we have to add the know-how of industrial processes and the heavy investments done in innovation and promotion.

After the founder's death in 1901, the company's leadership passed to his nephew, Frank D. Waterman, who can be considered as the true author of the company's international success. In fact, he implemented a world-wide expansion policy making Waterman the world's largest producer of fountain pens and the unbeaten market leader all through the beginning of the 20th Century.

Waterman's initial production consisted mainly of black ebonite pens (smooth or with some mechanical engravings). In this first period, where shapes and loading mechanisms were essentially the same, the different models were identified solely on the basis of the nib's size.

From the beginning of the century, up to the 1910s, Waterman was characterised by great efforts in technical innovations: the clip is introduced on the cap (the Clip Cap), and different loading mechanisms were experimented with the dropper. In this period, Waterman had successfully industrialised one of the most classic loading systems, the Safety system. 

In 1903, a special pump mechanism called the pump filler was introduced, and soon replaced in 1910 by the sleeve filler, whilst, from 1913 to 1914, an original coin filler was made. However, all of these systems were replaced in 1915 by the lever filler, first introduced by Sheaffer, but that Waterman was able to copy, evading the competitor's patent thanks to a previous patent (nº US-726495) for a different manufacturing design.

Also in the early 1900s, new models were introduced with different shapes of caps and to identify these, Waterman created a special numbering system composed mostly of three digits, in which the hundreds indicated the type of finish (not applicable for standard pens), the tens identified the caps, while the units continued to indicate the size of the nib. Because of this methodology, a number was imprinted on the bottom of the pen to identify its characteristics immediately.

In a short time, however, due to the introduction of new loading systems and the creation of the new screw caps, the numbering system quickly became obsolete and confusing, so much so that in 1917 Waterman completely reformulated it by expanding the coding of the figure of the hundreds, and using the tens digit to indicate the filling type. This system remained in vogue substantially unaltered for all models produced by Waterman until 1927, when the Ripple was introduced.

The beginning of the 20th Century was the golden period for Waterman, completely dominating the market and becoming the reference point for all other producers of fountain pens, who had to introduce innovative solutions to remain in the marketplace. Series like the 52 in black, red or flamed ebonite, or the 452 covered in silver, are classic examples and represent the summit of the fountain pen world of those years.

But apart from this initial period, Waterman has not distinguished itself (exceptionally) for having contributed to major innovations in fountain pen history. The company's success has always been dictated by the quality and reliability of its pens. For this very reason, Waterman saw its market share eroding after the 1920s, beginning to lag behind Parker, Sheaffer, and Eversharp.

In 1922, with the introduction of Parker's Duofold, which launched the fashion of large pens, Waterman continued to focus its production and design on traditional and now old dropper models, and began to loose market share inexorably, losing its leadership in sales.

The situation worsened further in the following years, with the arrival of Sheaffer with his celluloid pens, soon followed by Parker who adopted the same material for the Duofolds. At this time, Waterman had introduced a new ebonite processing (called Rippled) as a variant of the traditional flush red / black version, and shortly slipped to third place in the sales rankings. 

In 1925 Frank Waterman ran for Mayor of New York City, but lost in a clash with Democrat James J. Walker, but this was not without consequences for Waterman, who for the first time found itself suffering a loss because of the huge resources used for the election campaign.

Waterman Ideal Red Ripple Set of Fountain Pen and Pencil
Only in 1927, with the creation of the Ripple model made with the homonymous ebony, the company produced a new pen model designed to compete against the Parker Duofold, adopting for the first time a new colour code for the identification of the nibs, which until then, despite being present in over a hundred different versions, were identified only by their size number.

Although the Ripple is a good quality pen, it could not stand the competition of celluloid-based fountain pens (which had by then been adopted by all other major manufacturers) in terms of strength and colouring possibilities that the new material offered. Waterman, however, was stubbornly bound to the use of ebonite, perhaps because of the strong bonds with Seymour's Day Rubber Company, coming up with models in a particular coloured ebony, but they did not gain great success.

Only in 1929, with the introduction of the Patrician models, did Waterman decide to produce a celluloid pen, obtaining one of the rarest models and most sought after by collectors, especially for the presence of colours of great impact such as the Onyx or Moss Agate. The pen, however, although it was of the highest quality (probably the most beautiful pen produced by Waterman), did not have great sales (due to the relative rarity of the same), given the rather high cost and limited output coinciding with the period of the great depression.

In the following years, the production of pens continued always following the traditionalist approach of the company, which saw the birth of new models in celluloid like the series Waterman 94 or the Lady Patricia. In 1933, models No. 7 and No. 5 were also produced in celluloid (in this case black), and a new economic range, the Series 32 in coloured celluloid.

The company was always very close to the leverage system and responded late to new market trends. The success of new loading systems that allowed for the creation of transparent pens, initiated by Parker's Vacumatic, was only answered in 1935 with the introduction of the Ink-Vue model.

Waterman Hundred Year (small size) Fountain Pen
One of the few innovations of the company was the introduction, in 1939, of the Hundred Year model, characterised by the use of lucite as a new material and by more modern lines conceived by the industrial designer John Vassos (design nº US-D118872). Interestingly, the pen arrived ahead of time and was completely obscured by the huge success of the Parker 51 two years later. Again the company followed late the new tendency of the hooded nib, which was only introduced by Waterman in 1945 with the Taperite.

The transition to plastic production continued with a series of variations of the Taperite series in the following years, but without achieving any significant results. The decline of the company continued inexorable in the following years, helped by the recent introduction and growing success of the ballpoint pen. The original American company was liquidated in 1954, and the production plants were sold to BIC in 1959 for the production of ballpoint pens.

With the closure of American production facilities, the British and French branches remained, and Waterman would have completely disappeared if it had not been for Jules Fagard's entrepreneurial skills who had created a largely autonomous French branch since 1926. Fagard, the owner of JiF's branded mechanical pencils, had successfully marketed Waterman's pens and pencils and had created production facilities in France which made specific versions for the European market (collections of particular interest are the Safety Made with ornamental coverings in precious metals). For this reason the Waterman in France was mainly spread with the co-joint brand JiF-Waterman.

It had been from the French branch one of the latest innovations linked to the Waterman brand, when in 1936, a first practical version of cartridge filling was developed, initially made of glass, and marketed in Europe with modified versions of the original American pens. Thus was born in 1953, the last historical model of great success of Waterman, the CF (abbreviation for Cartridge Filler) produced in France. With the creation of the first disposable plastic cartridges, the most common loading mechanism of modern fountain pens was introduced on the market. Thus, after more than 30 years, JiF-Waterman brought the brand to the pinnacle of innovation, but it was not enough to revive a dying company.

Production still continued for a number of years outside the United States with the X-pen, an imitation (but simpler and intended for the low-end market) of the Parker 61. 

JiF-Waterman continued to thrive in the European market, first under the guidance of Jules Fagard, and after his death, under the direction of his widow Elsa. The company passed the period of World War II substantially unscathed, and also survived the crisis of the ballpoint pen of the 1960s, continuing production even after the failure of the parent company. 

In 1971, the JiF-Waterman company acquired the Waterman brand, and currently operates under the name Waterman S.A. and is owned by Sanford, a division of Newell Rubbermaid which also owns Parker.