Vintage Pens: Eagle Aluminum Cable Twist

Our Eagle Aluminum Cable Twist fountain pen was among the very first cartridge pens--ever. We found a copy of the Eagle wholesale catalog dated from 1900. These pens were officially known as the Eagle 1470. Retailers could buy them for about $1.88 a piece back then, which is about $74 a piece today. We assume they were retailing them for around $3.99, which would be around $160 today. In those days, aluminum was a somewhat exotic metal. People couldn't mass produce the metal until 1890. Even then, it would another decade before aluminum would start becoming more commonly used. The tail of the Eagle Aluminum Cable Twist is imprinted "Eagle Pencil Co. / New York / Pat. April 29 1890." That is the date of Eagle's glass-cartridge patent. Unlike today's disposable plastic cartridges, these used glass cartridges with cork stoppers. Our pen appears to be new old stock. The ink dried out ages ago, but the pen does not appear to show any sign of use. Aside from one little mark in the cap, there is only light wear from rolling around a bit wherever it was hiding for the past 130 years. The nib is marked 1471, and we don't think it is a solid gold nib. We did not dip it to write, as it does not seem to have written before. A museum-worthy pen for the vintage pen collector. 14.2cm capped.