These fountain pen companies all share some common traits. First of all they are not new companies, many having been founded over 100 years ago. In addition, the vintage fountain pens they manufactured are prized by collectors because of their quality and beauty. Here is a brief history of some of the companies that have made major contributions to the fountain pen industry.

W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company -- Sheaffer is one of the better known names in pens. The company was founded in 1912, but the story of the Sheaffer pen starts five years earlier, in 1907.

At this point in the history of the fountain pen, the way you got ink into the pen was to take an eye dropper and load it a drop at a time into the ink reservoir. Everyone, including Walter Sheaffer, felt like this was an extremely messy way to do it. He started looking at other possibilities and knew there must be a better way to fill a fountain pen.

As he experimented, Sheaffer discovered the best way to fill a pen was by using a little pump lever. He was granted a patent for his invention in 1908. This allowed someone to refill a pen directly from the ink bottle, without the mess and inconvenience that had been previously associated with refilling a fountain pen.

Pelikan -- Since 1838 (170 years!) the Pelikan company has been in business. Gunther Wagner bought the original factory in 1871 when it was first just an ink and paint operation. Wagner's family crest was used as the inspiration for the logo and the name.

The company manufactured its first fountain pen in 1929. They introduced a new system for refilling the fountain pen with ink, called a differential plunger. This was a new piston filling system that was highly reliable. Pelikan is well known for its high standards of workmanship and nibs that are top quality. The nib of each fountain pen is shaped and polished and then for quality control, is written in by hand.

Parker -- The Parker pen company is another business that has a history tracing back over 100 years. Much like the Sheaffer pen company, the Parker pen company was started in response to a complaint. George Parker was a teacher who taught students how to use the telegraph. His students complained that their fountain pens would sometimes provide too much ink flow, and sometimes no flow at all. Parker was already selling pens for another company on the side to earn extra money so he decided to start making his own.

Parker was able to improve the flow of the ink, solving his students problems, and for the next 30 years worked on fountain pen designs. He also designed a lever type filling system.

Montblanc -- A fountain pen company located in Germany, the Montblanc name is known around the world. They have been making some of the best known pens in the world since 1908. In addition to fountain pens, they also lend their name to other luxury items like fragrances and eye wear. There are those who accuse Montblanc of sacrificing the quality of their pens and just relying on their marketing efforts. However, the vintage fountain pens made by Montblanc are still generally very highly sought after by those who collect antique fountain pens.

The Montblanc company believes that there are counterfeit Montblanc pens being sold on the internet, and they will not allow their official dealers to sell this way. Critics of the company maintain that it is just a way that they can artificially inflate the retail price of their fountain pens.

Waterman -- Waterman fountain pens are some of the best pens ever made. The company was started in the USA by Louis Waterman although today the pens are made in Paris, France. His primary contribution to the fountain pen was the development of an ink feed that would direct the ink down the back of the nib and deposit it on the paper, an invention that he patented in 1884.

Waterman fountain pens are considered to be very reliable. They are also said to write nearly perfectly whenever they are used. Until World War I Louis Waterman kept his pens sales to a very small quantity. After the war his sales exploded and now the business has one of the most recognized names in the fountain pen industry.

Omas -- Each pen that comes from the Omas factory is hand made. The fountain pens are thought by many to be among the finest luxury fountain pens created. Each pen can take up to 100 days to be made, and attention is paid to the finest details, so it is no wonder that their vintage fountain pens are so highly regarded. The nibs of their pens produce a high quality of calligraphy because they are extremely flexible. Established in 1925 in Italy, Omas set their expectation of extremely high standards at the point when the business was founded.

Different vintage fountain pen collectors prefer one brand over the other, but one thing for sure, many of these companies will still be around for the next 100 years. They have a long, proud tradition of fountain pen manufacturing, and they all have interesting stories surrounding the pens they created.