Defining “Vintage

How you delineate between vintage and modern writing instruments may be based less on your age and more on when you began collecting.

- Defining “Vintage

Fountain pen collector Tess Wigginton poses with some of her favorite modern and vintage fountain pens, including vintage Parker and Sheaffer fountain pens that once belonged to her father.

Calling something from 1970 “modern” is way off base. I love the proposed designation of “post-vintage,” and I especially love “fountain pen revival.”

--Tess Wigginton C

In Part 1 of this discussion (PW Vol. 35 No. 2, p. 52), 1 spoke with four highly respected members of the pen collecting world, all of whom were foundational in building the hobby into what it is today. Some believed truly vintage pens were pens made before World War 11, others presented a cut-off date at the switch to modern cartridge/converter-filling systems, and another pegged a date at pre-1970, when fountain pens fell out of favor for daily use. Many of these collectors and dealers could trace their pen collecting back to the 1960s and '70s.

Going into this story, 1 reached out to interviewees with the same questions asked of the people in Part 1. My operating definitions going into this story were “antique pens,” which are considered pens made prior to 1920; and “vintage” versus “modern” pens, which we are asking people to help define.

Also bandied about were terms that were kicked around in Part 1: “post-vintage pens," which were discussed as being from 1970–2000; “late-century vintage," proposed by FranklinChristoph CEO Scott Franklin and also referencing 1970–2000; and “fountain pen revival era,” referencing from 2000 to now.