Filling system

Button and lever fillers

Most American pens before the 1930s kept their ink in a rubber sac inside the barrel. Press a lever on the side, or a button hidden under the blind cap on pens like the Parker Duofold, and a pressure bar flattens the sac. Let go with the nib in the ink and the sac springs back and fills. It's simple and it works, but latex rubber doesn't last. A sac that's decades old has usually gone hard or crumbled, so assume an unrestored pen needs a new sac. Resaccing is routine work for a restorer, and a fresh sac makes these pens dependable daily writers.

2 pens we cover.