I thought I had written about these weird and wonderful pens before but when Mario Kaouklis showed me his excellent picture I searched the blog and there was nothing. I remember discussing such pens on one of the boards, probably Lion and Pen of fond memory, many years ago.
Andy Russell kindly reminded me of these pens and put them in context. They are decidedly old, an attempt at a self-filler in the early years of last century when everything else was eyedropper fillers.
The pen appeared as the Victoria or, as this one, Triumph. A later, similar pen was the Manos from Austria. I think it is fair to say that these pens are assisted dip pens rather than true fountain pens. They don’t come apart for servicing but the one I had long ago was persuaded to give up its secrets. There is a piston with cork seal which draws up the ink. The ink isn’t then delivered to the page by capillary action as in a later piston pen; one must twist the knob periodically to release ink. I think the difficulty is caused by the poor design of the feed. In most, nowadays, the seal has perished and they draw very little ink. Their main attraction was that they were cheap. In 1904 the pen fitted with a gilt nib cost 3/- and 5/6 for a gold one.
My one appeared to have an original nib, once gold plated, a truly dreadful thing, but it appears that any nib could be fitted. The Stationer Printer and Fancy Trades Register gave the Victoria a tremendous boost in 1904. I believe they sold well. While uncommon, these pens turn up not infrequently, suggesting that they must once have been plentiful.
Thanks to Mario and Andy.
Goodwriterspens's Blog 
A fascinating pen, Deb, and a type I’ve never seen before. A useful instrument if one wanted to swap nibs while sketching outdoors. Cheers.
I’m sure they were useful in their time. Dip nibs could be fitted.
Hello Deb,
Thanks for including this in your Blog and for linking it to ‘The Victoria’; I had meant to ask you whether you knew anything about these pens and your enlightening blog then led me to the WES page on Summit pens and about four photos down is one of the Victoria, without question a relative of the Triumph. There they say that ‘Kay & Co was the forerunner of Lang, and operated out of Liverpool at the end of the 1800’s. Kay & Co produced a pen called “The Victoria”.’ What is so silly is that I’ve visited that page loads of times and knew that the shape looked familiar, but didn’t manage to make the link!
All the best
Mario
There are a few names that were used for more than one pen. For instance there is another British Triumph that is quite different from your one.
The pen pictured half way down the Company History page of the Summit website is indeed an example of ‘The Victoria Pen’ that Deb mentioned but it was nothing to do with Kay & Co. It was marketed (and probably made) by the Victoria Pen Co of Princess Road, Birmingham, from 1903., to a patent known as ‘Bolog’s patent’ in the stationery trade press. It has not so far been possible to track down this patent. The Victoria Pen Co was still in existence and selling pens in 1921.
A newspaper report on the introduction of the Victoria in 1903 indicates that the cap had a little brush enclosed within so that it would automatically wipe the nib clean when the cap was replaced. Is there any sign of that in the end of the cap of your pen?
Kay & Co were not manufacturers. They did sell a ‘Victoria’ but that was a completely different pen, and actually a stylo, not a fountain pen, which was (initially at least) imported from America. Their fountain pen of the same era was called ‘The Queen’, coincidentally an example of that is pictured at the top of the same page of the Summit site.
Checking my records again, it seems I did eventually find the patent for the Victoria Pen some time ago. It was actually Balog’s patent (as opposed to Bolog, which was the name quoted in the press), hence the confusion. Jacques Balog of Vienna patented this in Britain in 1903, number 26789. Given the Austrian connection, he may well have been involved with the later manufacture of the Manos pen which Deb also mentioned.
The brush in the cap is clearly shown in the patent drawings.
Thank you for these informative replies, Andy.
Many thanks, Andy, that is all really informative. I’ve just had a quick look and there is no brush in the cap; as there is what appears to be a breather hole in the cap end then it’s likely there never was a brush in this one.
Having looked through my pen drawers today, it seems I have also had one of these for some time! It is called ‘The Globe’ and the off-white (rather tatty) box is otherwise identical to the Triumph and Victoria boxes. The pen looks to have been only lightly used and it is in excellent condition cosmetically. Like your pen, the cap has a breather hole at the end and no sign of a brush within.