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The Esterbrook Pen Company is a former American manufacturing company founded by English immigrant Richard Esterbrook and based in Camden, New Jersey . It was the largest pen manufacturer in the United States, having reached a record of producing 216,000,000 pens a year. The company produced dip pens , then concentrating on fountain pens until it was acquired by Venus Pencils in 1967, ceasing activities in 1971.

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147-560: In 2014, Harpen Brand Holdings, LLC, acquired the rights to the "Esterbrook" brand name, releasing a series of pens. Four years later, the brand was purchased by Kenro Industries, which is its current owner and holder. Richard Esterbrook (1812-1895 ) was a Cornish Quaker from England who saw an opportunity in the United States to manufacture steel pens. In 1856 he traveled to the US to set up shop as "The Steel Pen Manufacturing Company". In 1858 he

294-488: A converter , which has the same fitting as the pen's cartridge and has a filling mechanism and a reservoir attached to it. This enables a pen to fill either from cartridges or from a bottle of ink. The most common type of converters are piston-style, but many other varieties may be found today. Piston-style converters generally have a transparent round tubular ink reservoir. Fountain pen inks feature differing surface tensions that can cause an ink to adhere or "stick" against

441-480: A stress relieving point , preventing the nib from cracking longitudinally from the end of the slit as a result of repeated flexing during use. The nib narrows to a point where the ink is transferred to the paper. Extremely broad calligraphy pens may have several slits in the nib to increase ink flow and help distribute it evenly across the point, but such designs are more commonly found on dip pens. Nibs divided into three 'tines' are commonly known as music nibs. This

588-439: A target audience . Marketers tend to treat brands as more than the difference between the actual cost of a product and its selling price; rather brands represent the sum of all valuable qualities of a product to the consumer and are often treated as the total investment in brand building activities including marketing communications. Consumers may look on branding as an aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote

735-469: A titulus pictus . The inscription typically specified information such as place of origin, destination, type of product and occasionally quality claims or the name of the manufacturer. Roman marks or inscriptions were applied to a very wide variety of goods, including, pots, ceramics, amphorae (storage/shipping containers) and on factory-produced oil-lamps. Carbonized loaves of bread , found at Herculaneum , indicate that some bakers stamped their bread with

882-474: A "plume sans fin" was published in 1709 in his treatise published in English in 1723 as "The Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments". The earliest datable pen of the form described by Bion is inscribed 1702, while other examples bear French hallmarks as late as the early 19th century. Progress in developing a reliable pen was slow until the mid-19th century because of an imperfect understanding of

1029-636: A brand may recognize that advertising touchpoints are most effective during the pre-purchase experience stage therefore they may target their advertisements to new customers rather than to existing customers. Overall, a brand has the ability to strengthen brand equity by using IMC branding communications through touchpoints. Brand communication is important in ensuring brand success in the business world and refers to how businesses transmit their brand messages, characteristics and attributes to their consumers . One method of brand communication that companies can exploit involves electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM

1176-400: A brand may showcase its primary attribute as environmental friendliness. However, a brand's attributes alone are not enough to persuade a customer into purchasing the product. These attributes must be communicated through benefits , which are more emotional translations. If a brand's attribute is being environmentally friendly, customers will receive the benefit of feeling that they are helping

1323-403: A brand name is a "memory heuristic": a convenient way to remember preferred product choices. A brand name is not to be confused with a trademark which refers to the brand name or part of a brand that is legally protected. For example, Coca-Cola not only protects the brand name, Coca-Cola , but also protects the distinctive Spencerian script and the contoured shape of the bottle. Brand identity

1470-463: A brand with consumers. For example, a jingle or background music can have a positive effect on brand recognition, purchasing behaviour and brand recall. Therefore, when looking to communicate a brand with chosen consumers, companies should investigate a channel of communication that is most suitable for their short-term and long-term aims and should choose a method of communication that is most likely to reach their target consumers. The match-up between

1617-478: A brand, the more they trusted the brand. This suggests that a company could look to employ a social-media campaign to gain consumer trust and loyalty as well as in the pursuit of communicating brand messages. McKee (2014) also looked into brand communication and states that when communicating a brand, a company should look to simplify its message as this will lead to more value being portrayed as well as an increased chance of target consumers recalling and recognizing

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1764-508: A broad range of goods. In 1266, makers' marks on bread became compulsory in England. The Italians used brands in the form of watermarks on paper in the 13th century. Blind stamps , hallmarks , and silver-makers' marks —all types of brand—became widely used across Europe during this period. Hallmarks, although known from the 4th-century, especially in Byzantium, only came into general use during

1911-412: A category is differentiated from its competing brands, and thus the brand helps customers & potential customers understand which brand satisfies their needs. Thus, the brand offers the customer a short-cut to understanding the different product or service offerings that make up a particular category. Brand awareness is a key step in the customer's purchase decision process, since some kind of awareness

2058-417: A certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services can command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic , store-branded product), potential purchasers may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the perceived quality of

2205-1021: A corporation hopes to accomplish, and to explain why customers should choose one brand over its competitors. Brand personality refers to "the set of human personality traits that are both applicable to and relevant for brands." Marketers and consumer researchers often argue that brands can be imbued with human-like characteristics which resonate with potential consumers. Such personality traits can assist marketers to create unique, brands that are differentiated from rival brands. Aaker conceptualized brand personality as consisting of five broad dimensions, namely: sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful), excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up to date), competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful), sophistication (glamorous, upper class, charming), and ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough). Subsequent research studies have suggested that Aaker's dimensions of brand personality are relatively stable across different industries, market segments and over time. Much of

2352-508: A decade earlier. A capillary filling system was introduced by Parker in the Parker 61 in 1956. There were no moving parts: the ink reservoir within the barrel was open at the upper end, but contained a tightly rolled length of slotted, flexible plastic. To fill, the barrel was unscrewed, the exposed open end of the reservoir was placed in ink and the interstices of the plastic sheet and slots initiated capillary action , drawing up and retaining

2499-586: A decline particularly in the export trade to the traditional markets of the British Empire. As those countries gained independence due to American aid, they had more dollars to spend in the United States than pounds in the United Kingdom. Esterbrook continued to thrive until the beginning of 1960 when it started to see a decline in export trades with England. In 1967 the Esterbrook Empire was bought out by

2646-472: A different stage in a customer's cognitive ability to address the brand in a given circumstance. Marketers typically identify two distinct types of brand awareness; namely brand recall (also known as unaided recall or occasionally spontaneous recall ) and brand recognition (also known as aided brand recall ). These types of awareness operate in entirely different ways with important implications for marketing strategy and advertising. Brand recognition

2793-506: A few modern manufacturers (especially Conway Stewart , Montblanc , Graf von Faber-Castell , and Visconti ) now depict the fountain pen as a collectible item or a status symbol , rather than an everyday writing tool. However, fountain pens continue to have a growing following among many who view them as superior writing instruments due to their relative smoothness and versatility. Retailers continue to sell fountain pens and inks for casual and calligraphic use. Recently, fountain pens have made

2940-515: A fountain pen and in 1830, with the invention of a new machine, William Joseph Gillott , William Mitchell, and James Stephen Perry devised a way to mass manufacture robust, cheap steel pen nibs ( Perry & Co. ). This boosted the Birmingham pen trade and by the 1850s, more than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen were employed in

3087-406: A fountain pen nib receives such an overflow it will result in ink blobbing or dripping also known as burping. A pen with a misconfigured feed might fail to deposit any ink whatsoever. Some fountain pens use a fiber wick underneath the nib. They often have a plastic part that looks like a feed that is only used to hold the fiber wick in place and does not assist with ink flow. The mechanism of action

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3234-462: A given category, when prompted with a brand name, a larger number of consumers are typically able to recognize it. Brand recognition is most successful when people can elicit recognition without being explicitly exposed to the company's name, but rather through visual signifiers like logos, slogans, and colors. For example, Disney successfully branded its particular script font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo ), which it used in

3381-450: A hard, wear-resistant alloy that typically includes metals from the platinum group. These metals share qualities of extreme hardness and corrosion resistance. The tipping material is often called "iridium", but few if any nib manufacturers have used tipping alloys containing iridium since the mid-1950s. The metals osmium, rhenium , ruthenium, and tungsten are used instead, generally as an alloy, produced as tiny pellets which are welded onto

3528-493: A high level of brand equity. Brand owners manage their brands carefully to create shareholder value . Brand valuation is a management technique that ascribes a monetary value to a brand. The word brand , originally meaning a burning piece of wood, comes from a Middle English brand , meaning "torch", from an Old English brand . It became to also mean the mark from burning with a branding iron. Branding and labeling have an ancient history. Branding probably began with

3675-412: A knob at the end of the barrel is unscrewed and the attached plunger is drawn out to its full length. The nib is immersed in ink, the plunger is pushed in, compressing and then releasing the ink sac by means of air pressure. The nib is kept in the ink for approximately 10 seconds to allow the reservoir to fill. This mechanism is very closely modeled after a similar pneumatic filler introduced by Chilton over

3822-507: A low-involvement purchasing decision. Brand recognition is often the mode of brand awareness that operates in retail shopping environments. When presented with a product at the point-of-sale, or after viewing its visual packaging, consumers are able to recognize the brand and may be able to associate it with attributes or meanings acquired through exposure to promotion or word-of-mouth referrals. In contrast to brand recall, where few consumers are able to spontaneously recall brand names within

3969-470: A number of surviving examples of his "Penographic" known. Another noteworthy pioneer design was John Jacob Parker's, patented in 1832 – a self-filler with a screw-operated piston. The Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru received a French patent on May 25, 1827, for the invention of a fountain pen with a barrel made from a large swan quill. In 1828, Josiah Mason improved a cheap and efficient slip-in nib in Birmingham , England, which could be added to

4116-424: A pen made from two quills . One quill served as a reservoir for ink inside the other quill. The ink was sealed inside the quill with cork . Ink was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1663 Samuel Pepys referred to a metal pen "to carry ink". Noted Maryland historian Hester Dorsey Richardson (1862–1933) documented a reference to "three silver fountain pens, worth 15 shillings" in England during

4263-399: A receiver, it runs the risk of the receiver incorrectly interpreting the message. Therefore, a brand should use appropriate communication channels to positively "…affect how the psychological and physical aspects of a brand are perceived". In order for brands to effectively communicate to customers, marketers must "…consider all touch point |s, or sources of contact, that a customer has with

4410-413: A resurgence, with some retailers, such as Goulet Pens , saying it is because of renewed consumer interest in analog products. This has led to a new wave of casual use fountain pens and custom ink manufacturers, who utilize online stores to easily sell fountain pens to a wider audience. The feed of a fountain pen is the component that connects the nib of the pen with its ink reservoir. It not only allows

4557-401: A rigid metal pressure bar, with the crescent portion protruding from the pen through a slot and the pressure bar inside the barrel. A second component, a C-shaped hard rubber lock ring, is located between the crescent and the barrel. In normal use the ring blocks the crescent from being depressed. To fill the pen, the ring is turned until the gap in the ring is aligned with the crescent, allowing

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4704-463: A screw mechanism draws a piston up the barrel, sucking in ink. Pens with this mechanism remain very popular today. Some of the earlier models had to dedicate as much as half of the pen length to the mechanism. The advent of telescoping pistons has improved this; the Touchdown Filler was introduced by Sheaffer in 1949. It was advertised as an "Exclusive Pneumatic Down-stroke Filler." To fill it,

4851-414: A trademark from the late 1870s, with great success. Pears' soap , Campbell's soup , Coca-Cola , Juicy Fruit chewing gum and Aunt Jemima pancake mix were also among the first products to be "branded" in an effort to increase the consumer's familiarity with the product's merits. Other brands which date from that era, such as Ben's Original rice and Kellogg's breakfast cereal, furnish illustrations of

4998-407: A trademark in the form of a 'White Rabbit", which signified good luck and was particularly relevant to women, who were the primary purchasers. Details in the image show a white rabbit crushing herbs, and text includes advice to shoppers to look for the stone white rabbit in front of the maker's shop. In ancient Rome , a commercial brand or inscription applied to objects offered for sale was known as

5145-478: A valve in the blind end of the pen, which mates with a specially designed ink bottle. Thus docked, ink is then squeezed into the pen barrel (which, lacking any mechanism other than the valve itself, has nearly the capacity of an eyedropper-fill pen of the same size). This system had been implemented only in their "Level" line, which was discontinued in 2006. Most pens today use either a piston filler, squeeze-bar filler or cartridge. Many pens are also compatible with

5292-509: A visual or verbal cue. For example, when looking to satisfy a category need such as a toilet paper, the customer would firstly be presented with multiple brands to choose from. Once the customer is visually or verbally faced with a brand, they may remember being introduced to it before. When given a cue, consumers able to retrieve the memory node associated with the brand exhibit brand recognition. Often, this form of brand awareness assists customers in choosing one brand over another when faced with

5439-413: Is a brand's personality . Quite literally, one can easily describe a successful brand identity as if it were a person. This form of brand identity has proven to be the most advantageous in maintaining long-lasting relationships with consumers, as it gives them a sense of personal interaction with the brand Collectively, all four forms of brand identification help to deliver a powerful meaning behind what

5586-420: Is a collection of individual components, such as a name, a design, a set of images, a slogan, a vision, writing style, a particular font or a symbol etc. which sets the brand aside from others. For a company to exude a strong sense of brand identity, it must have an in-depth understanding of its target market, competitors and the surrounding business environment. Brand identity includes both the core identity and

5733-403: Is a fundamental asset to a brand's equity , the worth of a brand's identity would become obsolete without ongoing brand communication. Integrated marketing communications (IMC) relates to how a brand transmits a clear consistent message to its stakeholders . Five key components comprise IMC: The effectiveness of a brand's communication is determined by how accurately the customer perceives

5880-477: Is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business , marketing , and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders . Brand names are sometimes distinguished from generic or store brands . The practice of branding—in

6027-469: Is a precondition to purchasing. That is, customers will not consider a brand if they are not aware of it. Brand awareness is a key component in understanding the effectiveness both of a brand's identity and of its communication methods. Successful brands are those that consistently generate a high level of brand awareness, as this can be the pivotal factor in securing customer transactions. Various forms of brand awareness can be identified. Each form reflects

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6174-410: Is a relatively new approach [Phelps et al., 2004] identified to communicate with consumers. One popular method of eWOM involves social networking sites (SNSs) such as Twitter . A study found that consumers classed their relationship with a brand as closer if that brand was active on a specific social media site (Twitter). Research further found that the more consumers "retweeted" and communicated with

6321-406: Is because their line, which can be varied from broad to fine, is suited for writing musical scores. Although the most common nibs end in a round point of various sizes (extra fine, fine, medium, broad), various other nib shapes are available. Examples of this are double broad, music, oblique, reverse oblique, stub, italic, and 360-degree nibs. Broader nibs are used for less precise emphasis, with

6468-500: Is compelling evidence that a working fountain pen was constructed and used during the Renaissance by artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci . Leonardo's journals contain drawings with cross-sections of what appears to be a reservoir pen that works by both gravity and capillary action. Historians also took note of the fact that the handwriting in the inventor's surviving journals is of a consistent contrast throughout, rather than exhibiting

6615-478: Is like a felt pen, just with a fountain pen nib on top of it. The fiber feeds offer plenty of ink flow and can stay wet for extended periods. Cleaning fiber feed pens can require longer soaking in water. The modern fountain pen nib is a direct descendant of the iridium-tipped gold dip pen nibs of the 19th century. The earliest attempts at adding a hard and long-wearing tipping material to a gold nib utilized materials such as ruby. A more successful approach exploited

6762-421: Is often little to differentiate between several types of products in the 21st century, hence branding is among a few remaining forms of product differentiation . Brand equity is the measurable totality of a brand's worth and is validated by observing the effectiveness of these branding components. When a customer is familiar with a brand or favors it incomparably over its competitors, a corporation has reached

6909-442: Is one of the initial phases of brand awareness and validates whether or not a customer remembers being pre-exposed to the brand. Brand recognition (also known as aided brand recall ) refers to consumers' ability to correctly differentiate a brand when they come into contact with it. This does not necessarily require consumers to identify or recall the brand name. When customers experience brand recognition, they are triggered by either

7056-406: Is stronger than brand recognition, as the brand must be firmly cemented in the consumer's memory to enable unassisted remembrance. This gives the company huge advantage over its competitors because the customer is already willing to buy or at least know the company offering available in the market. Thus, brand recall is a confirmation that previous branding touchpoints have successfully fermented in

7203-564: Is the herbal paste known as chyawanprash , consumed for its purported health benefits and attributed to a revered rishi (or seer) named Chyawan. One well-documented early example of a highly developed brand is that of White Rabbit sewing needles, dating from China's Song dynasty (960 to 1127 CE). A copper printing plate used to print posters contained a message which roughly translates as: "Jinan Liu's Fine Needle Shop: We buy high-quality steel rods and make fine-quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time." The plate also includes

7350-508: Is the nib's shape, with longer tines offering more flexibility than short tines, while greater curvature increases stiffness. Contrary to common belief, material alone does not determine a nib's flexibility. Gold alloys of greater purity (18K, or 750/1000 gold) will on average be softer and less springy than alloys of lower purity (14K, or 585/1000 gold), but whatever the alloy its resilience can be altered considerably in manufacture by means of controlled work-hardening. Fountain pens dating from

7497-761: The Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE); large numbers of seals survive from the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley (3,300–1,300 BCE) where the local community depended heavily on trade; cylinder seals came into use in Ur in Mesopotamia in around 3,000 BCE, and facilitated the labelling of goods and property; and the use of maker's marks on pottery was commonplace in both ancient Greece and Rome. Identity marks, such as stamps on ceramics, were also used in ancient Egypt. Diana Twede has argued that

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7644-508: The Venus Pencil Company and thus the name changed to "Venus Esterbrook", which continued to produce replacement nibs for fountain pens . There were numerous administrative changes and moves and eventually their final base of operations was vacated in 1971, and the building was demolished. Venus Esterbrook would be finally taken over by Berol in 1971, and all Esterbrook operations ceased. In 2014, Harpen Brand Holdings, LLC, acquired

7791-474: The "consumer packaging functions of protection, utility and communication have been necessary whenever packages were the object of transactions". She has shown that amphorae used in Mediterranean trade between 1,500 and 500 BCE exhibited a wide variety of shapes and markings, which consumers used to glean information about the type of goods and the quality. The systematic use of stamped labels dates from around

7938-478: The "cool" factor. This began the modern practice now known as branding , where the consumers buy the brand instead of the product and rely on the brand name instead of a retailer's recommendation. The process of giving a brand "human" characteristics represented, at least in part, a response to consumer concerns about mass-produced goods. The Quaker Oats Company began using the image of the Quaker Man in place of

8085-400: The "…potential to add positive – or suppress negative – associations to the brand's equity" Thus, a brand's IMC should cohesively deliver positive messages through appropriate touch points associated with its target market. One methodology involves using sensory stimuli touch points to activate customer emotion. For example, if a brand consistently uses a pleasant smell as a primary touchpoint,

8232-738: The 1850s. In the 1870s Duncan MacKinnon, a Canadian living in New York City, and Alonzo T. Cross of Providence, Rhode Island, created stylographic pens with a hollow, tubular nib and a wire acting as a valve. Stylographic pens are now used mostly for drafting and technical drawing but were very popular in the decade beginning in 1875. In the 1880s the era of the mass-produced fountain pen finally began. The dominant American producers in this pioneer era were Waterman , of New York City , and Wirt, based in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania . Waterman soon outstripped Wirt, along with many companies that sprang up to fill

8379-510: The 1st century CE. The use of hallmarks , a type of brand, on precious metals dates to around the 4th century CE. A series of five marks occurs on Byzantine silver dating from this period. Some of the earliest use of maker's marks, dating to about 1,300 BCE, have been found in India. The oldest generic brand in continuous use, known in India since the Vedic period ( c.  1100 BCE to 500 BCE),

8526-606: The 6th century BCE. A vase manufactured around 490 BCE bears the inscription " Sophilos painted me", indicating that the object was both fabricated and painted by a single potter. Branding may have been necessary to support the extensive trade in such pots. For example, 3rd-century Gaulish pots bearing the names of well-known potters and the place of manufacture (such as Attianus of Lezoux , Tetturo of Lezoux and Cinnamus of Vichy ) have been found as far away as Essex and Hadrian's Wall in England. English potters based at Colchester and Chichester used stamps on their ceramic wares by

8673-465: The Esterbrook plant had 450 workers and produced 600,000 pens a day. There were no experienced pen-manufacturing workers in the U.S. and no broadly available machinery to produce the pens, so Esterbrook designed all processes in-house. Only 15 people made up the first payroll, but the growth of the company was steady. The buildings were added to from time to time, and in 1912 a five-story concrete building

8820-427: The Esterbrook products. Esterbrook produced a wide range of dip pens for art and calligraphy . Some of them were #62, 355, 356, 357, 358 (extra fine pens suitable for drawings); #0 (lettering), #048 "Falcon", #32 "American Congress", #14 "Bank Pen", among many others. Fountain pen past models include the "Relief", "Dollar", "J", "Safari" series, among others. As of November 2019, current Esterbrook model lines are

8967-524: The Medieval period. British silversmiths introduced hallmarks for silver in 1300. Some brands still in existence as of 2018 date from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries' period of mass-production. Bass Brewery , the British brewery founded in 1777, became a pioneer in international brand marketing. Many years before 1855, Bass applied a red triangle to casks of its pale ale. In 1876, its red-triangle brand became

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9114-596: The Parker Jack-Knife Safety and the Swan Safety Screw-Cap). In Europe, the German office supplies company Gunther Wagner, founded in 1838, introduced their Pelikan in 1929, the first modern screw piston-filling fountain pen. This was based upon the acquisition of patents for solid-ink fountain pens from the factory of Slavoljub Penkala from Croatia (patented 1907, in mass production since 1911), and

9261-457: The Waterman C/F in 1953 that brought cartridge filling to the attention of the international market. Modern plastic cartridges can contain small ridges on the inside to promote free movement of the contained ink and ink/air exchange during writing. Often cartridges are closed with a small ball that gets pressed into the cartridge during insertion into the pen. This ball also aids free movement of

9408-476: The atrium, and bearing labels as follows: Scaurus' fish sauce was known by people across the Mediterranean to be of very high quality, and its reputation traveled as far away as modern France. In both Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum, archaeological evidence also points to evidence of branding and labeling in relatively common use across a broad range of goods. Wine jars, for example, were stamped with names, such as "Lassius" and "L. Eumachius"; probably references to

9555-453: The ballpoint pens most modern writers are experienced with. Despite being rigid and firm, the idea that steel nibs write "horribly" is a misconception. More flexible nibs can be easily damaged if excessive pressure is applied to them. Ideally, a fountain pen's nib glides across the paper using the ink as a lubricant, and writing requires no pressure. Good quality nibs that have been used appropriately are long lasting, often lasting longer than

9702-402: The barrel, through which one blew to compress the sac). In 1908 Walter A. Sheaffer received a patent for an improved lever-filling pen. Introduced in 1912, Sheaffer's pens sold in rapidly increasing numbers and by 1920 Sheaffer had become one of the largest fountain pen makers in the United States. Parker introduced the button filler, which had a button hidden beneath a blind cap on the end of

9849-474: The barrel; when pressed, it acted on a pressure bar inside to depress the ink sac. One of the most complex filling mechanisms was introduced in 1952 with the Sheaffer Snorkel. The Snorkel had an axial tube below the nib that could be extended, allowing the pen to be filled from a bottle without needing to immerse the nib or to wipe it off after filling. With the advent of the modern plastic ink cartridge in

9996-515: The barrels used, effectively using a corporate trademark as a quasi-brand. Factories established following the Industrial Revolution introduced mass-produced goods and needed to sell their products to a wider market—that is, to customers previously familiar only with locally produced goods. It became apparent that a generic package of soap had difficulty competing with familiar, local products. Packaged-goods manufacturers needed to convince

10143-427: The beginnings of brand management. This trend continued to the 1980s, and as of 2018 is quantified by marketers in concepts such as brand value and brand equity . Naomi Klein has described this development as "brand equity mania". In 1988, for example, Philip Morris Companies purchased Kraft Foods Inc. for six times what the company was worth on paper. Business analysts reported that what they really purchased

10290-414: The benefit of a greater level of ink shading, a property wherein ink pools in parts of a stroke to cause variations in color or sheen – where dyes in ink crystallize on a page instead of absorbing into the paper, which leads to a different color being seen on less absorbent paper due to thin film interference. Finer nibs (e.g. extra fine and fine) may be used for intricate corrections and alterations, at

10437-401: The brand and is termed the consumer's brand experience . The brand is often intended to create an emotional response and recognition, leading to potential loyalty and repeat purchases. The brand experience is a brand's action perceived by a person. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image , is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people, consisting of all

10584-412: The brand has a much higher chance of creating a positive lasting effect on its customers' senses as well as memory. Another way a brand can ensure that it is utilizing the best communication channel is by focusing on touchpoints that suit particular areas associated with customer experience . As suggested Figure 2, certain touch points link with a specific stage in customer-brand-involvement. For example,

10731-413: The brand or on the basis of the reputation of the brand owner. Brand awareness involves a customer's ability to recall and/or recognize brands, logos, and branded advertising. Brands help customers to understand which brands or products belong to which product or service category. Brands assist customers to understand the constellation of benefits offered by individual brands, and how a given brand within

10878-425: The brand". Touch points represent the channel stage in the traditional communication model, where a message travels from the sender to the receiver. Any point where a customer has an interaction with the brand - whether watching a television advertisement, hearing about a brand through word of mouth or even noticing a branded license plate – defines a touchpoint. According to Dahlen et al. (2010), every touchpoint has

11025-400: The brand's intended message through its IMC. Although IMC is a broad strategic concept, the most crucial brand communication elements are pinpointed to how the brand sends a message and what touch points the brand uses to connect with its customers [Chitty 2005]. One can analyze the traditional communication model into several consecutive steps: When a brand communicates a brand identity to

11172-509: The brand, he or she is more likely to try other products offered by the company – such as chocolate-chip cookies, for example. Brand development, often performed by a design team , takes time to produce. A brand name is the part of a brand that can be spoken or written and identifies a product, service or company and sets it apart from other comparable products within a category. A brand name may include words, phrases, signs, symbols, designs, or any combination of these elements. For consumers,

11319-455: The brand. In 2012 Riefler stated that if the company communicating a brand is a global organization or has future global aims, that company should look to employ a method of communication that is globally appealing to their consumers, and subsequently choose a method of communication with will be internationally understood. One way a company can do this involves choosing a product or service's brand name, as this name will need to be suitable for

11466-452: The chamber has a section wider than the rest, and when the plunger passes this point, the difference in air pressure in the area behind the plunger and the area ahead of it is suddenly evened out and ink rushes in behind the plunger to fill the chamber. Converters are also available in several different types such as piston, plunger, squeeze and push button in rare cases. The first commercially successful ink cartridge system for fountain pens

11613-527: The characteristic fading pattern typical of a quill pen caused by expending and re-dipping. While no physical item survives, several working models were reconstructed in 2011 by artist Amerigo Bombara that have since been put on display in museums dedicated to Leonardo. The fountain pen was available in Europe in the 17th century and is shown by contemporary references. In Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae (a 1636 magazine), German inventor Daniel Schwenter described

11760-510: The company started an Esterbrook branch in England to join the ranks of the other main pen manufactures in Birmingham . By 1920, the fountain pen was fast becoming more popular amongst people who were tired of dipping pens into ink, and the company manufactured its first fountain pen. By 1930 the company sought less expensive means of manufacturing pens, as gold and jewel tips were growing too expensive and in this same year they began selling fountain pens in England. The Esterbrook Company began using

11907-501: The consumer through branding. Producers began by attaching simple stone seals to products which, over time, gave way to clay seals bearing impressed images, often associated with the producer's personal identity thus giving the product a personality. Not all historians agree that these markings are comparable with modern brands or labels, with some suggesting that the early pictorial brands or simple thumbprints used in pottery should be termed proto-brands while other historians argue that

12054-402: The crescent to be depressed, thus compressing the sac. Many other variations on the basic sac and pressure bar mechanism were introduced in the first decades of the 20th century, such as the coin-filler (with a slot on the barrel, allowing the pressure bar to be depressed by use of a coin), the matchstick-filler (with a round hole, for a matchstick) and the blow-filler (with a hole at the end of

12201-562: The discovery of the platinum group of metals, including ruthenium , osmium , and iridium . From the mid-1830s gold dip pen nibs tipped with iridium were produced in rapidly increasing quantities, first in England and soon thereafter in the United States. The first mass-produced fountain pens used gold nibs sourced from established makers of gold dip pen nibs, some of the most prominent being Mabie Todd, Fairchild, and Aikin Lambert. Today, nibs are usually made of stainless steel or gold , with

12348-473: The drawing paper with a Scripto light blue pencil, and inked with a 356 Esterbrook pen. My wife inked the dialogue with an A-5 or B-6 Speedball, and blacked the solid areas with a #2 sable brush." Author Shelby Foote used Esterbrook 313 Probate Nibs to write all three volumes of The Civil War: A Narrative "...I used a #356 Esterbrook art and drafting pen which could do everything from thin 'fadeaways' to broad accented curve sweeps on foreground circles such as

12495-473: The dropper-filler provide ample compensation for its inconveniences. After the eyedropper-filler era came the first generation of mass-produced self-fillers, almost all using a rubber sac to hold the ink. The sac was compressed and then released by various mechanisms to fill the pen. The Conklin crescent filler, introduced c. 1901, was one of the first mass-produced self-filling pen designs. The crescent-filling system employs an arch-shaped crescent attached to

12642-469: The ducks' forms. The trick of breaking in a new pen, I discovered, is to soak it for several minutes in the ink bottle. Then wipe off the ink and the pen's varnish. For some weird reason most new pens then start out flexible and free-flowing..." Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz used an Esterbrook 914 Radio nib for inking the comic strip . He liked the nib so much, he bought the remaining stock when Esterbrook went out of business. Brand A brand

12789-453: The earliest fountain pens were mostly filled by eyedropper ("dropper" was the term used at the time). This could be messy, spurring development of so-called "self-filling" pens equipped with internal filling mechanisms. Though self-fillers had largely displaced dropper-fillers by the 1920s, they never went out of production, and there has been a revival of interest in recent years. For some, the simplicity, reliability, and large ink capacity of

12936-403: The early 1950s most of these filling systems were phased out. Screw-mechanism piston-fillers were made as early as the 1820s, but the mechanism's modern popularity begins with the original Pelikan of 1929, based upon a patent that was initially licensed to a Croatian company Moster-Penkala by inventor Theodore Kovacs. The basic idea is simple and intuitive: turn a knob at the end of the pen and

13083-516: The environment by associating with the brand. Aside from attributes and benefits, a brand's identity may also involve branding to focus on representing its core set of values . If a company is seen to symbolize specific values, it will, in turn, attract customers who also believe in these values. For example, Nike's brand represents the value of a " just do it " attitude. Thus, this form of brand identification attracts customers who also share this same value. Even more extensive than its perceived values

13230-411: The expense of shading and sheen. Oblique, reverse oblique, stub, and italic nibs may be used for calligraphic purposes or for general handwritten compositions. The line width of a particular nib may vary based on its country of origin; Japanese nibs are often thinner in general. Flexibility is a function of several factors. One is the nib material's resilience; another is its thickness. Finally there

13377-414: The extended identity. The core identity reflects consistent long-term associations with the brand; whereas the extended identity involves the intricate details of the brand that help generate a constant motif. According to Kotler et al. (2009), a brand's identity may deliver four levels of meaning: A brand's attributes are a set of labels with which the corporation wishes to be associated. For example,

13524-401: The first half of the 20th century are more likely to have flexible nibs, suited to the favored handwriting styles of the period (e.g. Copperplate script and Spencerian script ). By the 1940s, writing preferences had shifted towards stiffer nibs that could withstand the greater pressure required for writing through carbon paper to create duplicate documents. Furthermore, competition between

13671-426: The first registered trademark issued by the British government. Guinness World Records recognizes Tate & Lyle (of Lyle's Golden Syrup ) as Britain's, and the world's, oldest branding and packaging, with its green-and-gold packaging having remained almost unchanged since 1885. Twinings tea has used the same logo – capitalized font beneath a lion crest – since 1787, making it

13818-625: The flow of ink while writing had been regulated, the next problems to be solved were the creation of a simple, convenient self-filler and the problem of leakage. Self-fillers began to gain in popularity around the turn of the century; the most successful of these was probably the Conklin crescent-filler, followed by A. A. Waterman's twist-filler. The tipping point, however, was the runaway success of Walter A. Sheaffer's lever-filler, introduced in 1912, paralleled by Parker's roughly contemporary button-filler. Meanwhile, many inventors turned their attention to

13965-450: The following: Esterbrook pens were among those used by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to sign legislation. A set of 72 clear Lucite Esterbrook fountain pens were used to sign the civil rights bill into law in 1964. The famous Disney artist Carl Barks was an enthusiastic user of Esterbrook pens. He particularly used a Nº 356 model to ink and letter his famous Donald Duck comic-book pages. "...I drew direct onto

14112-642: The fourth century BCE. In largely pre-literate society, the shape of the amphora and its pictorial markings conveyed information about the contents, region of origin and even the identity of the producer, which were understood to convey information about product quality. David Wengrow has argued that branding became necessary following the urban revolution in ancient Mesopotamia in the 4th century BCE, when large-scale economies started mass-producing commodities such as alcoholic drinks, cosmetics and textiles. These ancient societies imposed strict forms of quality-control over commodities, and also needed to convey value to

14259-440: The industry. Many new manufacturing techniques were perfected, enabling the city's factories to mass-produce their pens cheaply and efficiently. These were sold worldwide to many who previously could not afford to write, thus encouraging the development of education and literacy. In 1848, American inventor Azel Storrs Lyman patented a pen with "a combined holder and nib". In 1849 Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson invented

14406-436: The information and expectations associated with a product, with a service, or with the companies providing them. Marketers or product managers that responsible for branding, seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics, which make it special or unique. A brand can, therefore, become one of

14553-486: The ink reservoir through the channels of the feed, though some modern authorities believe this is a misconception and such venting is unnecessary. Some fountain pens come without a breather hole such as the Camlin Trinity, Monami Olika, Pelikan Pelikano, and Platinum Preppy. The breather hole's other main function is to provide an endpoint to the nib slit and an indexing point for slit cutting. The breather hole also acts as

14700-432: The ink to flow to the nib (in what is often described as a "controlled leak") but also regulates the amount of air flowing backwards up to the reservoir to replace this lost ink. The feed uses a series of narrow channels or "fissures" that run down its lower edge. As ink flows down these fissures, air is simultaneously allowed to flow upwards into the reservoir in an even exchange of volumes. The feed allows ink to flow when

14847-470: The ink will chemically promote free movement of the contained ink and ink/air exchange during writing. However, ink might react adversely to adding a surfactant. Vacuum fillers, such as those used by Pilot in the Custom 823, utilize air pressure to fill the ink chamber. In this case, while the nib is submerged in ink, a plunger is pushed down the empty chamber to create a vacuum in the space behind it. The end of

14994-414: The ink. The outside of the reservoir was coated with Teflon , a repellent compound that released excess ink as it was withdrawn. Ink was transferred through a further capillary tube to the nib. No method of flushing the device was offered, and because of problems from clogging with dried and hardened ink, production was eventually stopped. Around the year 2000, Pelikan introduced a filling system involving

15141-508: The inside of the reservoir. Common solutions for this problem are adding a small (rust-proof) ink agitating object like a 316L or 904L stainless steel or zirconium dioxide bearing ball , spring or hollow tube in the tubular reservoir to mechanically promote free movement of the contained ink and ink/air exchange during writing. Adding a very small amount of surfactant such as Triton X-100 used in Kodak Photo-Flo 200 wetting agent to

15288-404: The lifetime of the original owner. Many vintage pens with decades-old nibs can still be used today. Other styles of fountain pen nibs include hooded (e.g. Parker 51 , Parker 61, 2007 Parker 100, Lamy 2000, and Hero 329), inlaid (e.g. Sheaffer Targa or Sheaffer P.F.M) or integral Nib (Parker T-1, Falcon, and Pilot Myu 701), . Users are often cautioned not to lend or borrow fountain pens as

15435-430: The literature on branding suggests that consumers prefer brands with personalities that are congruent with their own. Consumers may distinguish the psychological aspect (brand associations like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the brand) of a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with

15582-419: The logo for go.com . Unlike brand recognition, brand recall (also known as unaided brand recall or spontaneous brand recall ) is the ability of the customer retrieving the brand correctly from memory. Rather than being given a choice of multiple brands to satisfy a need, consumers are faced with a need first, and then must recall a brand from their memory to satisfy that need. This level of brand awareness

15729-462: The major pen brands such as Parker and Waterman, and the introduction of lifetime guarantees, meant that flexible nibs could no longer be supported profitably. In countries where this rivalry was not present to the same degree, such as the UK and Germany, flexible nibs are more common. Nowadays, stiff nibs are the norm as people exchange between fountain pens and other writing modes. These more closely emulate

15876-473: The market that the public could place just as much trust in the non-local product. Gradually, manufacturers began using personal identifiers to differentiate their goods from generic products on the market. Marketers generally began to realize that brands, to which personalities were attached, outsold rival brands. By the 1880s, large manufacturers had learned to imbue their brands' identity with personality traits such as youthfulness, fun, sex appeal, luxury or

16023-540: The marketplace that it aims to enter. It is important that if a company wishes to develop a global market, the company name will also need to be suitable in different cultures and not cause offense or be misunderstood. When communicating a brand, a company needs to be aware that they must not just visually communicate their brand message and should take advantage of portraying their message through multi-sensory information. One article suggests that other senses, apart from vision, need to be targeted when trying to communicate

16170-578: The masses. By the 1960s, refinements in ballpoint pen production gradually ensured its dominance over the fountain pen for casual use. Although cartridge-filler fountain pens are still in common use in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, India, and the United Kingdom, and are widely used by young students in most private schools in England, at least one private school in Scotland, and public elementary schools in Germany,

16317-566: The metal Iridium , which they called "Durachrome", in their nibs. To meet the fountain pen demand the company reformed as "The Esterbrook Hazel Pens Ltd". In 1940 war had come to strike a blow at the Esterbrook company . In 1947 Esterbrook bought out John Mitchell (which had been established in 1822 as the world's first manufacturer to cut nibs by machine) and then acquired Hazell Pen Co. The company re-formed again as "The Esterbrook Pen Company". Some time after that, Esterbrook ceased production of dip pen nibs permanently. The post war years had seen

16464-400: The minds of its consumers. Marketing-mix modeling can help marketing leaders optimize how they spend marketing budgets to maximize the impact on brand awareness or on sales. Managing brands for value creation will often involve applying marketing-mix modeling techniques in conjunction with brand valuation . Brands typically comprise various elements, such as: Although brand identity

16611-569: The modern era, the concept of branding has expanded to include deployment by a manager of the marketing and communication techniques and tools that help to distinguish a company or products from competitors, aiming to create a lasting impression in the minds of customers . The key components that form a brand's toolbox include a brand's identity, personality, product design , brand communication (such as by logos and trademarks ), brand awareness , brand loyalty , and various branding ( brand management ) strategies. Many companies believe that there

16758-433: The most enduring campaigns of the 20th-century. Brand advertisers began to imbue goods and services with a personality, based on the insight that consumers searched for brands with personalities that matched their own. Effective branding, attached to strong brand values, can result in higher sales of not only one product, but of other products associated with that brand. If a customer loves Pillsbury biscuits and trusts

16905-568: The most notable models, such as the Parker Duofold and Vacumatic , Sheaffer's Lifetime Balance series, and the Pelikan 100. During the 1940s and 1950s, fountain pens retained their dominance: early ballpoint pens were expensive, were prone to leaks and had irregular inkflow, while the fountain pen continued to benefit from the combination of mass production and craftsmanship. (Bíró's patent, and other early patents on ball-point pens often used

17052-412: The most popular gold alloys being 14 carat (58⅓%) and 18 carat (75%). Titanium is a less common metal used for making nibs. Gold is considered the optimum metal for its flexibility and its resistance to corrosion , although gold's corrosion resistance is less of an issue than in the past because of better stainless steel alloys and less corrosive inks. Palladium alloys have been used occasionally in

17199-579: The most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace . This means that building a strong brand helps to distinguish a product from similar ones and differentiate it from competitors. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management . The orientation of an entire organization towards its brand is called brand orientation . Brand orientation develops in response to market intelligence . Careful brand management seeks to make products or services relevant and meaningful to

17346-549: The name of the producer. The use of identity marks on products declined following the fall of the Roman Empire . In the European Middle Ages , heraldry developed a language of visual symbolism which would feed into the evolution of branding, and with the rise of the merchant guilds the use of marks resurfaced and was applied to specific types of goods. By the 13th century, the use of maker's marks had become evident on

17493-435: The new and growing fountain pen market. Waterman remained the market leader until the early 1920s. At this time, fountain pens were almost all filled by unscrewing a portion of the hollow barrel or holder and inserting the ink by means of a dropper – a slow and messy procedure. Pens also tended to leak inside their caps and at the joint where the barrel opened for filling. Now that the materials' problems had been overcome and

17640-423: The nib "wears in" at an angle unique to each individual person. A different user is likely to find that a worn-in nib does not write satisfactorily in their hand and, furthermore, creates a second wear surface, ruining the nib for the original user. This, however, is not a point of concern in pens with modern, durable tipping material, as these pens take many years to develop any significant wear. The reservoirs of

17787-603: The nib into the reservoir. Some pens employ removable reservoirs in the form of pre-filled ink cartridges. According to Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi ( d.  974 ) in his Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat , the Fatimid caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah in Arab Egypt demanded a pen that would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen that held ink in a reservoir, allowing it to be held upside-down without leaking. There

17934-417: The nib's tip prior to cutting the nib slit and grinding the tip into its final shape. Untipped steel and titanium points will wear more rapidly due to abrasion by the paper. The nib usually has a tapering or parallel slit cut down its centre, to convey the ink down the nib by capillary action , as well as a "breather hole" of varying shape. The breather hole's intended function is to allow air exchange with

18081-421: The original literal sense of marking by burning—is thought to have begun with the ancient Egyptians , who are known to have engaged in livestock branding and branded slaves as early as 2,700 BCE. Branding was used to differentiate one person's cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal's skin with a hot branding iron . If a person stole any of the cattle, anyone else who saw

18228-433: The past, usually as a money-saving alternative to white gold. As long as palladium remains more valuable than gold, however, it is unlikely to see much use for nib manufacture. Further gold plating provides favorable wettability , which is the ability of a solid surface to reduce the surface tension of a liquid in contact with it such that it spreads over the surface. Gold and most steel and titanium nibs are tipped with

18375-490: The patent of the Hungarian Theodor Kovacs for the modern piston filler by 1925. The decades that followed saw many technological innovations in the manufacture of fountain pens. Celluloid gradually replaced hard rubber , which enabled production in a much wider range of colors and designs. At the same time, manufacturers experimented with new filling systems. The inter-war period saw the introduction of some of

18522-432: The pen in an inkwell during use. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits the ink on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action . Filling the reservoir with ink may be achieved manually, via the use of an eyedropper or syringe , or via an internal filling mechanism that creates suction (for example, through a piston mechanism) or a vacuum to transfer ink directly through

18669-420: The pen is being put to paper but ensures ink does not flow when the pen is not in use. The feed makes use of capillary action; this is noticeable when a pen is refilled with a brightly coloured ink. The ink is taken up and into the feed by way of capillary action (and is often visible in clear demonstrator pens), but is not dispensed onto the paper until the nib makes contact. How the feed is shaped may determine

18816-657: The practice of branding livestock to deter theft. Images of the branding of cattle occur in ancient Egyptian tombs dating to around 2,700 BCE. Over time, purchasers realized that the brand provided information about origin as well as about ownership, and could serve as a guide to quality. Branding was adapted by farmers, potters, and traders for use on other types of goods such as pottery and ceramics. Forms of branding or proto-branding emerged spontaneously and independently throughout Africa, Asia and Europe at different times, depending on local conditions. Seals , which acted as quasi-brands, have been found on early Chinese products of

18963-473: The presence of these simple markings does not imply that mature brand management practices operated. Scholarly studies have found evidence of branding, packaging, and labeling in antiquity. Archaeological evidence of potters' stamps has been found across the breadth of the Roman Empire and in ancient Greece . Stamps were used on bricks, pottery, and storage containers as well as on fine ceramics. Pottery marking had become commonplace in ancient Greece by

19110-493: The problem of leakage. Some of the earliest solutions to this problem came in the form of a "safety" pen with a retractable point that allowed the ink reservoir to be corked like a bottle. Horton, Moore, and Caw's were the earliest makers of such pens, all starting in the 1890s. In 1898, George Safford Parker released the Parker Jointless , so named because its barrel was single-piece with no section joint to leak and stain

19257-513: The producer's name. Roman glassmakers branded their works, with the name of Ennion appearing most prominently. One merchant that made good use of the titulus pictus was Umbricius Scaurus, a manufacturer of fish sauce (also known as garum ) in Pompeii, c.  35 CE . Mosaic patterns in the atrium of his house feature images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and quality claims. The mosaic depicts four different amphora, one at each corner of

19404-418: The product, the consumer lifestyle, and the endorser is important for the effectiveness of brand communication. Fountain pen A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib to apply water-based ink , or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal reservoir to hold ink, eliminating the need to repeatedly dip

19551-424: The refillable fountain pen. From the 1850s, there was a steadily accelerating stream of fountain pen patents and pens in production. However, it was only after three key inventions were in place that the fountain pen became a widely popular writing instrument. Those were the iridium -tipped gold nib, hard rubber , and free-flowing ink. The first fountain pens making use of all these key ingredients appeared in

19698-506: The reign of Charles II , c. 1649–1685. By the early 18th century such pens were already commonly known as "fountain pens". Hester Dorsey Richardson also found a 1734 notation made by Robert Morris the elder in the ledger of the expenses of Robert Morris the younger , who was at the time in Philadelphia , for "one fountain pen". Perhaps the best-known reference, however, is that of Nicholas Bion (1652–1733), whose illustrated description of

19845-471: The rights to the "Esterbrook" brand name, registering it as "Esterbrook, est. 1858" (plus the phrase "America's Original Pen Company") and releasing a series of Esterbrook fountain and ballpoint pens, including new versions of classic Esterbrook models, such as the "Deluxe" fountain pen and the "J" ballpoint pen, both originally released in the 1950s. The brand was later acquired by Kenro Industries, Inc. Since then, Kenro has manufactured and commercialised

19992-527: The role that air pressure plays in the operation of pens. Furthermore, most inks were highly corrosive and full of sedimentary inclusions. The first English patent for a fountain pen was issued in May 1809 to Frederick Fölsch, with a patent covering (among other things) an improved fountain pen feed issued to Joseph Bramah in September 1809. John Scheffer's patent of 1819 was the first design to see commercial success, with

20139-550: The symbol could deduce the actual owner. The term has been extended to mean a strategic personality for a product or company, so that "brand" now suggests the values and promises that a consumer may perceive and buy into. Over time, the practice of branding objects extended to a broader range of packaging and goods offered for sale including oil , wine , cosmetics , and fish sauce and, in the 21st century, extends even further into services (such as legal , financial and medical ), political parties and people 's stage names. In

20286-637: The term "ball-point fountain pen," because at the time the ball-point pen was considered a type of fountain pen; that is, a pen that held ink in an enclosed reservoir.) This period saw the launch of innovative models such as the Parker 51 , the Aurora 88, the Sheaffer Snorkel, and the Eversharp Skyline, while the Esterbrook J series of lever-fill models with interchangeable steel nibs offered inexpensive reliability to

20433-476: The trend. By the early 1900s, trade press publications, advertising agencies , and advertising experts began producing books and pamphlets exhorting manufacturers to bypass retailers and to advertise directly to consumers with strongly branded messages. Around 1900, advertising guru James Walter Thompson published a housing advertisement explaining trademark advertising. This was an early commercial explanation of what scholars now recognize as modern branding and

20580-400: The way in which consumers had started to develop relationships with their brands in a social/psychological/anthropological sense. Advertisers began to use motivational research and consumer research to gather insights into consumer purchasing. Strong branded campaigns for Chrysler and Exxon /Esso, using insights drawn from research into psychology and cultural anthropology , led to some of

20727-453: The wetness and flow of a particular pen. For this reason, feed material alone and its surface roughness may have a significant effect on the way two pens of the same nib size write. Pen feeds are crucial to preventing ink from dripping or leaking. Feeds often feature finned structures intended for buffering fountain pen ink. Buffering is the capacity to catch and temporarily hold an overflow of ink, caused by conditions other than writing. When

20874-417: The world's oldest in continuous use. A characteristic feature of 19th-century mass-marketing was the widespread use of branding, originating with the advent of packaged goods . Industrialization moved the production of many household items, such as soap , from local communities to centralized factories . When shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or company insignia on

21021-413: The writer's fingers. The nib and feed assembly fit into the barrel's end like a cork stopper. In 1908, Waterman began marketing a popular safety pen of its own. For pens with non-retractable nibs, the adoption of screw-on caps with inner caps that sealed around the nib by bearing against the front of the section effectively solved the leakage problem (such pens were also marketed as "safety pens", as with

21168-577: Was able to establish himself as the sole pen manufacturer in the US and changed the company name to "The Esterbrook Steel Pen Mfg. Co.", with just 15 employees in Camden, New Jersey . At the time, two of the four pen companies located in the United States were situated in Camden. Besides Esterbrook, the first in the country, the C. Howard Hunt Pen Company at 7th and State streets produced pens, pencil sharpeners and allied products and employed 125 workers. At its height,

21315-507: Was erected that nearly doubled the size of the plant. Machines gradually replaced hand work and greatly increased output. Quality was a key factor in his success. Esterbrook's steel pens were versatile, long lasting, and came in many different styles to fit the varied writing styles of the public. Richard Esterbrook did not see the "empire" his company was to become as he died in Atlanta on October 12, 1895. Just one year after his death, in 1896

21462-582: Was patented in 1890 by the Eagle Pencil Company, using glass cartridges. In the 1920s the John Hancock pen featured cartridges made from thin copper tubing. From the 1930s on, Waterman sold pens in France that used glass cartridges. Cartridge-filling pens only became truly popular in the 1950s, however, with the advent of plastic cartridges. The first was the Italian LUS Atomica in 1952, but it was

21609-435: Was the brand name. With the rise of mass media in the early 20th century, companies adopted techniques that allowed their messages to stand out. Slogans , mascots , and jingles began to appear on radio in the 1920s and in early television in the 1930s . Soap manufacturers sponsored many of the earliest radio drama series, and the genre became known as soap opera . By the 1940s, manufacturers began to recognize

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