Styling and Substance: Sheaffer and Sengbusch, and One or Two Others: An Overview of Dip-less Desk Sets, Part IV

In the second installment of this series, we saw the R. Esterbrook Steel Pen Company get its start in the dip-less business.

- RICHARD BINDER AND DAVID WATTS

Ranked second after Esterbrook in the manufacture of steel pens in the United States was the Turner & Harrison Pen Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Turner & Harrison also succumbed to the lure of dip-less. The company was founded in 1875 by craftsmen John Turner and George Harrison, both of whom had come from England to the United States to work in steel pen companies (Esterbrook and the Washington Medallion Pen Company, respectively).

They began making their own steel pens in 1876, and they entered the dip-less fray in the mid-1940s with the Regal Reservoir Penset. As desk sets went, the Regal (shown here in the extra-cost Walnut color) was fairly compact. It included its own bottle, with a capacity of about 1 fluid ounce (30 ml). The bottle's cap was keyed so that it would fit into the base in only one orientation, and it had a central hole that acted as a metering device by fitting around a feed-like projection fixed in the base unit. The company held a 1944 patent for a reservoir desk pen base, but we have found no evidence that the patented design was ever produced. We have also found no utility patent covering the Regal inkstand, but in yet another example of "What goes around, comes around," the Regal's internal configuration appears to have been based on U.S. Patent No 1,120,170, issued December 8, 1914, to Roney P. Tompkins.

One of the principal features of the Regal set was the ease of changing pens (nibs). Rotating the front part of the pen holder about half a turn released the nib for easy replacement. A choice of three nib styles was offered: fine (50 cents a dozen), medium signature (85 cents a dozen), and iridium-tipped fine (35 cents each).

The Height of Style