Waterman vintage leaflet, 1903
More from the book “Fountain Pens” by Peter Twydle, published in 2009.
I love this old-fashioned verbiage. Sometimes wonder if the copy writers were paid by the foot!
Quoted here for ease of reading in all its glory:
“The stronger the faith the greater the need of a prophet to express it.
This little paper is the prophet of the Waterman Ideal Fountain Pen.
Its mission is to proclaim pen truths - to spread around the world the complete knowledge of the most perfect pen that has been developed in the whole history of the art of writing.
(A prophet does not have to be modest for fear of being thought egotistical. He is not talking about himself, but of something in which he thoroughly believes, and cutting the truth down for the sake of appearing modest would be as reprehensible on the part of a prophet as wilful exaggeration).
Some prophets have a lonesome time of it at first because nobody is ready to listen to what they have to say. The PEN PROPHET is of the more fortunate sort that finds a large following already created. The people who make the pen, the people who sell it and the vast number of people who use it are staunch believers in what he has to say.
PEN PROPHET-PEN PROFIT. What have they to do with each other? Just this: A firm belief in the excellence of an article is a very important factor in success in selling it.
Suppose the matter in hand is a pen. Your real attitude toward it is revealed in the way you pick it up, the way you handle it, in the very inflections of your voice as you speak of it. Unconsciously your customer is influenced by these almost imperceptible things as much as by your spoken statements. Haven’t you found it so?
It is the special pride of the makers of the Waterman Ideal Fountain Pen that the thousands of retailers who handle it have a deeply rooted faith in its superiority, first as a pen, and second as an article of merchandise, so that each in his way is a Pen Prophet and not merely a seeker for Pen Profit.”