John Brindle’s Mabie Todd List is coming along by leaps and bounds.  More models are appearing week by week and quite a few are illustrated now.  There’s a new drop-down tab too, entitled Mabie Todd Information Gathering.  This leads to a forum where discussions can take place on any Mabie Todd-related issues you care to raise.  Come along and register and take part!  I know there’s a lot of knowledge out there that we can record for the benefit of all those who love Swan, Blackbird and Jackdaw pens.

Some of the terms used in describing fountain pen filling systems are less than helpful in understanding how the pens work.  For instance, Parker’ Vacumatic and Sheaffer’s Vacuum Filler seem to lay claim to the vacuum principle in filling pens, whereas every pen that has a self-filling system depends on that principle.  Whether they be sac fillers, piston fillers, plunger fillers or any other self filling system I’ve forgotten they are provided with a means of creating a vacuum and it is nature’s abhorrence of that vacuum that fills the pen.  None is more dependent or makes greater use of the vacuum principle than another.  All self-filling pens are vacuum fillers.

“Twist Filler” must be the most misused term of all. In a true twist filler, the sac is attached at both ends, one directly to the turn-button on the end of the barrel.  When the button is turned, the sac is wrung out like a dish-cloth.  The defining principle of the twist filler, then, is that the sac itself is twisted to empty it of air in preparation for pulling in ink.  Almost any pen that has a turn-button on the end of the barrel seems to be called a twist filler nowadays, whereas the majority of them work in another way.  Swan’s Leverless is often called  twist filler, but in fact the sac is attached at only one end and rather than being twisted it is pressed against the interior of the barrel, thereby expelling most of the air.  Various late Mabie Todd pens are called twist fillers when in fact they are most closely related to the button filler.  A cam is activated by turning the button, and this presses down on a normal pressure bar which squeezes the sac in the usual way.

Yes, I’m feeling picky and pedantic today.

It might be worth taking another look at John Brindle’s Mabie Todd Pen List.  John’s been adding a few more model numbers, and we’ve begun the long process of illustrating each pen with a photo.  It’ll be a long process because all of us have other projects to pursue – like putting bread on the table – but it’s growing at the rate of a few photos most days.  That’s a lot of photos in a year.

John Brindle’s list is available now here.  I’ve also added the URL to my blogroll, down on the right-hand side of this blog.  Many thanks to Martin Holloway who made a splendid job of creating the site.

As well as being a useful source as it stands, John’s list provides an excellent start-point for further research.

Just a few quick lines today as my assistant and are up to our respective ears (hers are relatively higher than mine) in work.

The Mabie Todd  numbers site proceeds apace.  Many thanks to Martin Holloway who has acquired the domain and has begun work on the site.  He has been reading your comments with interest.  I think the way that it will work is that Martin will have the final say on what it is practical to do, under John Brindle’s ownership of the material which he is very generously making available.

Martin has suggested a downloadable .pdf file of the material, which seems like the way to go.  Illustrations of the pens seems the next logical step and Martin is looking into how that could be best implemented.

It will take some time and quite a lot of work but I’m looking forward with great anticipation to seeing this coming to fruition.

A gentleman by name of John Brindle phoned the other night to speak to me.  I was unavailable at the time and my husband, another pen enthusiast, took the call.  John spent last winter researching Mabie Todd fountain pens, and he has drawn up a list correlating model number, colour, cap bands and filling system.  He has recorded – literally – hundreds of pens.

I have the list before me now and it’s an astonishing piece of work, clearly very valuable to Swan and Blackbird enthusiasts.  John seems amenable to the idea of having it published but I want to ascertain that more formally.  Then I would either need a copy of the original digitised document or I would have to key it in.  It shouldn’t be difficult to find somewhere to host it for a time to make it widely available.