A 1902 newspaper article described Wirt's factory and Wirts pride in manufacturing all of the pen's parts within his factory. This isn't perfectly true, Wirt ordered pre-made pen cases (barrels and sections) from the Day Rubber company early on. However by the 1900's Waterman was taking over more and more of Day's productoin, and would eventually acquire the rubber company altogether. Perhaps as this was taking place, Wirt started to make his own cases.

However, Wirt seems to have made his own nibs from the beginning. He acquired the gold in bricks from the Phildelphia Mint and the iridium from Russia. He had an expert worker shape and solder the iridium to the nib.

Wirt's first nibs are very simple. The imprint simply reads "Wirt N0 X" where X would be the nib size. These nibs were used in the early Overfeeds and then in the early underfeeds.

The latter underfeeds have a nib with a "W" between a pair of olive branches. Many of these pens have no imprint on the barrel, which leads to some confusion. If you search ebay well, you can often find great bargains on these Wirts if the seller doesn't know what he has. Often sellers assume the pen is a Waterman, but the vented feed should leave no doubt that the pen is in fact a Wirt.