Fountain Pen Cartridge

A fountain pen is essentially a pen that holds a reservoir of liquid based ink. The difference to the more commonly used ball point pens, the fountain pen is designed with a whole lot more complexity and exclusive craftsmanship in the nib – which is the metallic section wrought to a point, with a minuscule ball of extremely hard material attached to its tip. Therefore, a majority of all fountain pens are devised to be refillable. To this effect there exist a number of various mechanisms to refill the pen, such as piston lever and sac fillers. However, for the most part cheaper fountain pens employ the use of a fountain pen cartridge to store ink.

The fountain pen cartridge could be traced back to the era of the mid fifties, of the twentieth century. A selection of some of the earliest models was designed from glass. The fad died away pretty quickly and different plastics soon became the material of preference. A number of the manufacturers during this period moreover, tried out with refillable cartridges. The disadvantage to these refillable cartridges was that they were messy leading to their unpopularity. With this disposable cartridges very fast became the standard. 

A sizable number of people consider the fountain pen cartridge to be even more suitable than bottled ink. This is more so dependant upon the fountain pen’s refilling mechanism. Even as a high-quality cartridge pen is not as prone to creating a mess as compared to a pot-filler, contemporary piston fillers are very clean. Again, cartridges may in certain circumstances be easily portable as compared to a number of ink bottles. Still as with any product on the market, there are some downsides to the fountain pen cartridge. On the average, they are relatively more costly when compared to potted ink. Secondly, their color selection and designs are lesser as compared to their bottle ink counterpart. Thirdly, the flow of ink down the cartridge more often than not tends to be slower with a number of nibs. Lastly, pens shaped to hold cartridges on the whole hold less ink rather than a devoted sac filler.

Closer scrutiny of the fountain pen cartridge will divulge two popular trends of opening. While some manufacturers will use an incredibly slim piece of plastic material, punched through by a unique connector within the pen, others will a minuscule ball which is just vaguely wider than the cartridge aperture. This ball is primarily glued to the opening of the cartridge. When placed in for the first time, the ball is hard-pressed back into the cartridge’s body. Cartridges are designed and manufactured in an array of sizes dependant on the manufacturer. Some manufacturers like Sheaffer, for example utilize proprietary cartridge dimensions. While others like Yard-o-Led and a good number of discounted European and Asian pens apply the internationally accepted cartridge size. This is not an explicitly documented standard nor does it hold claim to any priory decided upon name it simply goes by European, Standard or Universal size.