711 Boylston St
1900
168 Devonshire
St 1902-1916
110-14 Federal St.
1921-1925
63 Franklin St. 1931
.Boston Mass.
The original name of the company
was the American Fountain Pen Co.. They sold a fountain pen called the
Moore's Non-Leakable Fountain Pen. In 1917 the company was
incorporated as "The Moore Pen Company".
Morris W. Moore was born in 1854. He was a violinist and a music
teacher. He started his own fountain pen company in the early 1890s
with another musician and some friends but it failed quickly.
Eventually his patent for the safety pen fell into the hands of
William F Cushman. Cushman then made a deal to manufacture the pen with Walter F. Cushing
who was a stationer in Boston . The American
Fountain Pen Co was owned and run by Cushing who was also a partner
of Adams, Cushing and Foster - one of Boston's leading stationers.
Cushman stayed on as an employee, probably based on his ownership of
the patent. In 1899 The American Fountain Pen Co. began selling eyedropper fill
safety pens with a retractable nib. Some of these had beautiful
overlays. This pen was a huge seller and they continued to sell this same
pen with minor changes up to at least 1925.
One of Moore's problems
was that they didn't move ahead. They seemed to be at least 5 years
behind in everything they did and in the case of the safety pen,
they were selling a pen in the 1920s that was outdated by about 10
years. Moore also did not like to advertise. They preferred to
offer their pens through mail order catalogues which is a good way
to sell pens but it probably does not lead to brand loyalty. In the 20s and 30s they sold
lever fill pens that were typical of the time period, but they were nothing
very special or notable. When Sheaffer and Parker started selling
colorful pens, Moore was still selling black hard rubber pens. They
did start selling a dark red hard rubber pen, but it wasn't until
1926 that they
finally gave in a started selling some celluloid pens.
Their next failure was sticking with flattop pens well into 1930.
Their sales and their quality slipped in the 1930s and at some point
the pens seem to have been farmed out to another company. Their last interesting pen was the Fingertip which had a very unusual nib
and grip that was probably designed to get the attention of people
who were thinking of buying a Parker 51. They had a
lower line of pens called the Servo and they made pens for the
Rexall Drug store chain which sold under the name Belmont and
others. They went out of business in the late1950s.
