I think the answer must be that some do, but different forces like cost and fashion intervene in other cases. Take, for instance, Conklin’s crescent filler. This was an undoubted improvement over the eyedropper filler, in that it was self-contained and efficient. That its utility was appreciated is shown by its longevity – from the last years of the nineteenth century to the early nineteen thirties. During most of that period it was competing successfully against the lever filler. In the end, though, the crescent filler died and the lever filler triumphed. This may, at the margins, have been influenced by production cost, but I think it was mostly fashion, in the sense that the protruding hump of the filler began to be seen as clunky and old-fashioned.

Another early filling system, De La Rue’s Onoto plunger-filler, pre-dated and competed against the lever filler in a similar way. It lasted much longer, until 1955 in the UK and a few years longer in Australia. I have seen it asserted that production of the plunger-filler ceased because the filling system had become outdated, but I don’t think there’s any truth in that, or at least not in the normal sense. The reality, I believe, is that the shrinking market for fountain pens caused De La Rue to try to find a way of reducing production costs. Manufacture of the K-Series piston-fill Onotos was subcontracted to a German firm which had much more modern machinery and could achieve large productivity savings. Only final assembly was done in Britain. De La Rue was not alone in using this solution. Later, Conway Stewart would follow the same route. One might say, then, that the high production costs of the plunger-filler became outdated, but not that the system failed from inefficiency or unpopularity. It was, and remains, one of the most popular and effective filling systems – the high price of restored Onotos is evidence enough.

There are some filling systems that became largely rejected by the industry. The blow-filler, an inelegant and inefficient method, had a short life, its only real benefit being the low cost of production. Syringe and bulb filling are almost in the same category, but not quite. Neither is intrinsically a bad method, though one might say that the syringe filler lacks elegance as a solution. Nonetheless, it’s the basis of many converters today. The bulb filler, with a breather tube, is a highly efficient way of getting a lot of ink into a pen. The problem for these filling systems was that they were cheap to implement and were taken up by companies selling pens at the bottom of the market. Often poorly made, they led to customer dissatisfaction that, a little unjustly, caused to these systems to be rejected.

What about the lever-filler? Did it become outdated? In truth, I think it did, though its demise was from several causes. By 1960 or so, the fountain pen itself was no longer the first choice of writing instrument. Led by Waterman, pen companies saw an opportunity to salvage profitability by producing pens that would accept only a cartridge made by them, a modern marketing concept that had been pioneered by Gillette with its safety razors and continues today with inkjet printers. A pen with no moving parts was cheaper to make, too, and so the lever filler faded away, the end of a very long tale.

I’m having a lapis lazuli period at the moment. Months can go by without sight of a lapis pen, then they come flocking in. I’ve had four in the last three weeks, which is a record for me. I’m especially fond of lapis lazuli, in all its surprisingly varied forms.

In the 1920s, as the potential of celluloid began to be understood and more adventurously developed, a vogue for gemstone-themed patterns began. Jade and lapis lazuli, the earliest examples of this trend, were never very true to the appearance of the gemstone, but were more patterns in their own right. A little later, Waterman’s patterns such as Red Quartz or Onyx were very close to the original. Not just pretty patterns, these gemstone colours were at the heart of the spirit of the time. The use of gemstone in statuette bases, desk sets, clock cases, bookends and the like is very much an Art Deco expression, and these pens formed part of the same taste. By the late thirties the fashion was largely over, but in the intervening years some of the most beautiful and striking celluloid pens were produced. Lapis lazuli, along with the rest, disappeared from the pen catalogues until recently, when it was brought back as a revival by several modern pen companies, most notably by Kaweco and Cross.

Parker, I believe, began the fashion. They had two main patterns, one dark blue with light blue inclusions, the other dark blue with off white inclusions. A third one is sometimes seen, a more marbled dark blue/light blue pattern, as in this Lucky Curve Parker Lady:

It was the one with the light blue inclusions that was copied most, and many manufacturers like Conway Stewart and Swan had versions. Here’s a classic example in an English Jewel pen:

Some, such as Swan, went for a blue and black streaked version, which seems to me pretty far from the gemstone original, but is nonetheless accepted as lapis lazuli:

As I’d never seen an example, either illustrated or in reality, I long believed that Swan didn’t make lapis lazuli pens. They do, of course, both in Leverless form and in their self-fillers. A Swan 230 in a good lapis pattern would be pretty much my ideal pen.

The most authentic-looking pattern I have seen so far is in an English no-name lever-filler flat-top:

That really does evoke the gemstone.

Though it doesn’t discolour as readily or as badly as some other celluloid patterns, like jade, black and cream or onyx, lapis lazuli can be spoiled by an out-gassing rubber sac, and should always be repaired using a silicon sac.

I had my say about black hard rubber the other day. Now let’s look at mottled hard rubber in its various forms including red ripple and woodgrain. Visually, MHR tends to survive in a more pleasing condition than may be the case with BHR. Yes, the blacks can fade but the pattern always remains clear. Often the surface has become dull, but a gentle polish with one of the usual proprietary polishes like simichrome will improve things. Even that abrades the surface a little, as you’ll see if you look at your polishing cloth, which will have picked up some colour from the pen. Myself, I prefer a non-abrasive solution like museum wax. It would always be my choice to stop at that. Any fading of the pattern is a reflection of the pen’s age. Unless it has spent the intervening years enclosed in a box, it isn’t reasonable to expect the pen to look as it did when it was new in nineteen-twenty-whatever.

Not every collector, user or restorer will agree with me, though, and that’s where radical solutions that I would reject come in. I only discuss them here because it’s better to cause less damage rather than more.

Restoring the original strong colours of the pattern can only be achieved by abrading the surface away. Metal-work such as levers, rings and clips must be removed. Imprints must either be sacrificed or saved at the cost of showing a different pattern colour from the rest of the pen. The surface of the material is evenly planed away using a medium grade of micromesh. Once an unfaded layer has been reached, successively finer grades are used to restore a smooth finish, and the pen can be reassembled.

Don’t try to do this with proprietary polish. Yes, polish is an abrasive, but it is a comparatively inefficient one, which is why we can use it on something as delicate as a fountain pen without causing damage – or at least visible damage. It won’t reduce the surface of MHR evenly, as an efficient abrasive like micromesh will. Using polish, the softer black areas will be reduced more than the harder red ones, producing an ugly, uneven surface which can only be repaired by further abrasion with micromesh.

As a conservative restorer, all of this falls outside what I do. Nonetheless, people do many things in the name of restoration, whether it be of paintings, buildings, motorcars or pens. Better that it be done properly if it is to be done at all.

Hard rubber is not especially fragile, except in the Red Hard Rubber form, which does merit particular care. MHR is little different from BHR in terms of strength, but it does get used for quite delicate pens, like the half-sized Watermans. Treat it with the respect you’d give to any old pen and you’ll be fine. Also, despite the surface, aesthetic effects of oxidisation, hard rubber is comparatively stable, more so than many celluloids or caseins, which were often poorly cured, or early injection-moulded plastics which had a tendency to shrink. Oxidisation does not weaken a pen; “curing” oxidisation by reducing component thickness may do. Remember, too, that the moment you have finished returning the pen to its original colours, the process of fading begins all over again.

I’ve touched on the subject of reblacking black hard rubber pens before, but today I’m going to rant.

I’m a conservative restorer. I don’t try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I produce restored pens for people to use, but my pens must also be in a condition acceptable to a collector. Not only do serious collectors reject reblacked pens, some, in recent times, have even given up collecting BHR pens because of the spread of the practice of reblacking.

I buy pens wherever I can, but mostly my choices are made on the basis of photos. Unless it’s an exceptionally good photo, you can’t tell that a pen has been reblacked. The minute it’s in your hand, of course, you are in no doubt. The most common reblacking agent is Syd Saperstein’s Pen Potion No9, which is only marginally better than black shoe polish. It does not come anywhere near replicating the original appearance of a black hard rubber pen. The best thing about Potion No 9 is that it is reversible. It can be removed. Trouble is, old pens have lots of surface imperfections that the potion penetrates, making it really difficult to remove the coating completely. It can be done, but it often requires hours of work. I could leave it, of course, but then I would be colluding in the fraud on the end buyer perpetrated by the person who reblacked the pen in the first place.

If you buy a faded black hard rubber pen and choose to reblack it, that’s your business. The pen is yours and neither I nor anyone else can tell you what you may or may not do with it. However, if you subsequently decide to sell it, there’s an ethical duty on you to declare that this is not a pristine pen that has retained its original colour, but a pen that has been artificially blackened. Worse still are the people who routinely reblack pens, not for their own pleasure, but to fraudulently sell them as having retained their original black colour. They never (or at least never in my experience) make it clear that these pens have been reblacked. It may well be that there is a subset of users and collectors who will be perfectly happy with these pens. There are others of us who don’t want them. It is only fair that we should be informed.

My own view is that reblacking should never be done. Even when it is carried out with the best of intentions, it will ultimately lead to someone taking ownership of a pen that is not what he or she believes it to be. Mostly, it is not done with good intentions, but purely to line the pockets of the unscrupulous. Aesthetically, it is not an improvement. All the reblacked pens I have seen have uneven colour, the machined patterns have soft edges and you can see brush strokes. Every one, without exception, and I test every black hard rubber pen I buy for reblacking. If it’s there, it comes off. So far, not a single reblacked pen would have fooled me – or anyone else.

My view will not prevail, of course, but I think the minimum the hobby should accept is disclosure, and disclosure in a permanent fashion that is attached to the pen. After all, there is another reblacking agent, Giovanni Abrate’s G-10, which was brought to market in 2007 and rapidly removed from general sale following an outcry of concern from the hobby. It was, I believe, then made available to one American restorer who will reblacken any pen and who has resisted requests for disclosure. I don’t know whether any of these pens have come my way or not. Unlike Syd’s potion, this stuff is irreversible and undetectable by normal means.

All of which, of course, has us doubting the validity of any shiny, black BHR pen we see. And that’s a problem.