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To post or not to post


Richard

If you're old enough to remember when FPs were current, long before they became collectible, did you post, or not?  

20 members have voted

  1. 1. If you're old enough to remember when FPs were current, long before they became collectible, did you post, or not?

    • Yes. I used FPs before Noah came over on the Mayflower, and I posted.
      13
    • No. I used FPs back when Julius Caesar wore footie PJs to bed, but I didn't post.
      7


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This poll is to help me get a picture on the usage habits of FP users back in the days when the FP was the principal writing instrument (not counting pencils). Obviously, most pens were made so that they could be posted, but does that imply that they were supposed to be posted?

 

If you vote No in the poll, please feel free to explain why you didn't post. Remember, this isn't why you don't post today (if you still don't) -- I'm looking for your reasons back then.

sig.jpg.2d63a57b2eed52a0310c0428310c3731.jpg

 

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  • James Pickering

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I seem to recall that most people did post their fountain pens in the 1930s and 1940s -- maybe out of convenience or because maker's advertisements seemed to suggest that was the way to do it (of course they may have just wanted to depict the entire pen). I do know for sure that my mother and father posted their pens as did a favorite uncle (he gave me my first fountain pen!).

 

I have never posted my own fountain pens in 67 years of usage -- I like my writing instruments to be as lightweight as possible.

 

http://jp29.org/cal54s.JPG

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Hi Richard,

 

Maybe I don't entirely understand your question and/or poll, but if you're talking about the period fps were the main writing instrument, you're talking about the time prior to the 1950s approximately, I think. I wasn't born then (hence I didn't vote).

 

However, over here in the NL, everybody was taught to write with a fountain pen at primary school, and still is, up to this day.

 

We did post, but not always, just whenever we felt like it.

 

Most people nowadays gravitate towards BPs and RBs after primary school, and many stick to those all of their lives. If I look a tmy surroundings, where ther are a lot of people who rediscovered fountain pens :lol:, some people post, some don't, some do occasionally.

 

When I restarted with fountain pens, I did post, all of the time. I guess I needed the heft because I was used to the pressure you need to exert with a BP. Gradually I found myself posting less and less, though, where I am now at a point where I only rarely post the cap, and generally only when the pen requires so, because it si uncomfortable otherwise.

 

From what I remember of those early days at primary school, I would post when I really had to write a lot, without having to think or ponder a lot, but the moment that was required, I would take the cap in my left hand (I am right handed most of the time), and play with the cap - it would help me focus for some reason. This lasted all the way through secondary school, and posting and playing with the cap continued over that period of time. After the firs tyear or so of teriary education, I stopped using fountain pens, although I did use Rotring drain pens right up to the late eighties, and again the same pattern.

 

This pattern has emerged again, about 6 months to a year ago now, after about a year and a half using fountain pens again, extensively.

 

I can't remember my father using a fountain pen, my mother yes, and she posted. My grandfather didn't post. The funny thing is my mother always used her fp at a desk or at home, and my grandfather used it mainly while on the road. You would expect it to be the other way around.

 

Anyway, HTH, warm regards, Wim

the Mad Dutchman
laugh a little, love a little, live a lot; laugh a lot, love a lot, live forever

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Richard, I learned to write with a FP in the mid-1950's. My parents and all the adults I knew, including my teachers, posted their pens. When my father demonstrated to me how to use a FP, removing and posting the cap prior to writing was step #1. From 4th grade through high school, I posted my FP's. Sometime during college (the mid-1960's), I stopped posting. I think I was seeing damage to the pen barrels and figured that if I were to buy my own pens, I wanted to increase their longevity. I think that was my motivation.

 

Perhaps, if I hd had a pen the size of a Duofold Senior, I might not have posted that pen. But I had a Parker 51, and a couple Sheaffer school pens, all of which I posted, as stated above.

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Hi,

 

I will just vote for my mom. :) Back here by the way, all of us use fountain pens and most of us don't post.

 

Dillon

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I was brought up in England, and I started using FPs in the early 1950s. Posting was what we did there and then, though at some time I have obviously picked up the habit of occasionally not posting but holding the cap in the left hand when writing a short note. Sorry I can't remember when that happened.

 

Michael

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Both my father and mother posted their pens, and I had been given the privilege of writing a few lines with my father's Waterman provided I did as he did.

 

When we were first taught the art of fountain pen usage in parochial school, we were instructed to place the cap on the desk.

 

However, following my father's example, I immediately posted my shiny new Esterbrook, thereby incurring the wrath of sister.

 

I continued to post and, for the most part, do so today.

George

 

Pelikan Convert and User

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Guest Denis Richard

Same as Wim, I did not vote as I am not a buddy of JC or Noah (I had a lot of fun playing in the gardens of Nero's Golden House though... O boy ! Those were so wonderfully decadent !).

 

But, coming from a FP country and learning to write with it, I never posted until recently, and I do so only with some of my smaller pens. Like James, the cap was always--and is still most of the time--in my left hand. I do not remember anyone posting either.

Edited by Denis Richard
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When I started 'big' school (seniors) at 11, we children had already been using fountain pens for several years for writing practice lessons as well as 'best' work in the junior school. At senior school, fountain pens were compulsory.

 

If you had a malfunction, you were allowed to use pencil and rewrite in ink later - ballpoints were invisible (ie got you no marks at all!) - though some teachers seemed to be allowed to use them. Learn a lesson in life...

 

I posted because I was told it was the 'correct' way to use a fountain pen. My first pens indeed worked best like this. The balance was fine and the cap stayed put when posted.

 

More recently, as my exposure to other pens has grown, I find some pens write better not being posted (especially larger pens) and with others, the cap drops off unless I was to force it on with a twist and a grunt :o eg my Sheaffers - all of them.

 

So, now, I sometimes post and sometimes don't depending on the pen.

 

Chris

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Almost always posted. The Esties - always. When I moved on to a Parker 45, the cap occasionally wouldn't be secure unless posted forcefully, but continued anyway. Seemed to be the way FP use was taught when/where I learned.

 

Gerry

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Hi Richard,

 

When I began using a fountain pen in the early 1950s, as now, I didn't post the cap--but I don't know why! Perhaps it was because my hands were small and the pen felt unbalanced with the cap posted.

 

Though I can very clearly picture both my father's & mother's pens, I can't be sure if they posted, or not. It seems to me that they did, but if they didn't, it could be an explanation for why I picked up the habit of not posting.

 

I'm sure it never entered my mind at a young age that the barrel might be marred if the cap were posted.

 

Best, Ann

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Richard,

 

I recall that I posted up until I was given my first 'decent' pen. My "51" was taken lovingly to school in its case and the cap sat in the case whilst I wrote with it. I think that it was about not marking the body from posting the cap.

 

I rarely post these days if ever, in fact a quick check shows that none of my pens have any posting marks unless they had them before they came into my ownership.

 

Jim

Obi Won WD40

Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert!

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Although I belong to the 15% of the oldest FPN members (according to another poll) I haven’t voted, because I was born into the era of the ballpoint pen (and because I still feel too young... ;)). Contrary to what my fellow countryman Wim observed, at our school we didn’t start using fountain pens: we started with dip pens and continued using these until the sixth form. Then we changed (had to change, as far as I was concerned) to ballpoints. At highschool I used both, a fountain pen if I happened to have a nice one, and otherwise ballpoints. (Fountain pens sooner or later fell on the floor and rarely lived very long.) I did not post, and don’t do it now if it can be avoided.

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