203 - WATERMAN Rhapsody Mineral Red Le Man fountain pen, Ideal Paris.

WATERMAN Rhapsody Mineral Red Le Man fountain pen, Ideal Paris. Red and black marbled lacquer barrel. With details and ornamentation in gold. Nib in 18kt yellow gold. Click cap. Cartridge loading. No box. Unused. Good state of preservation. Measurements: 14 cm (length). Waterman is the world's second largest manufacturer of fountain pens. It is a company that produces and markets fountain pens, ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils and rollers. Founded in 1883 in New York by Lewis Edson Waterman (November 20, 1836 - May 1, 1901), it is one of the oldest pen manufacturing companies still in operation. Waterman's main contribution was the side slot filling system patented in 1884. Based on capillary action (capillarity), its application allows the ink to flow steadily into the nib, eliminating the annoying dripping when writing. The Regular pen was the first to incorporate this innovation. After the founder's death in 1901, his nephew Frank D. Waterman took over the company, establishing it abroad and increasing sales to 350,000 pens a year. In 1904, he launched the "clip-cap" pen, with a riveted safety clip that could be attached to a pocket. In 1907, the retractable Safety Pen was noted for its high reliability in resistance to dripping and, in 1913, the "lever and pouch" filling system was invented. In 1927, a French researcher invented a glass ink cartridge (patented in 1936) that was a major transformation for the future of the fountain pen. In 1953, Waterman abandoned the glass cartridge and ushered in the era of plastic ink cartridges, which helped popularize fountain pens. Since 1967, Waterman pens have been manufactured at the Saint-Herblain plant near Nantes in France, where nearly 5 million units are produced each year. Seventy percent of production is exported to 110 countries.