This is a suggestion which I'm following up. I searched in this forum but didn't find any info. I'd very, very much appreciate anything anyone can tell me, or steer me to reference sites. I have ordered Andreas' book but have not yet received it.

Thanks so much.
Namaste
Patti

Silver overlay Swastika pens do exist, although there are only a handful of examples, in several variations. Two things are important to consider about the context in which these pens exist: first, the Swastika was used as a symbol by ancient peoples, most noticeably on the Indian subcontinent and by Native Americans in the Southwest, and second, that these pens were produced LONG before the Nazi Party came into being and adopted the Swastika as its symbol and changed its meaning forever.

I am not aware of a Waterman Swastika pen. The example I have seen and the others I have heard about have all been Parkers. When you consider that Parker also produced the "Aztec" pen and if you look at the total design on one of Parker's swastika pens, it is pretty obvious that Parker considered this another Southwestern or Mezoamerican themed pen design.

There is a photo of a Parker version facing page 56 of Andy's FPOTW. Two Parker versions appear in F&S's blue book, one on page 100 which shows a three armed version with hands at the ends and the same or similar model to the one in FPOTW on page 102.

best, Dan

I may have said "Waterman" in my comments to Patti when I meant Parker. I was typing regarding the Parker pen in FPotW but looking and at other overlays at the same time which were Waterman overlays.

sorry if I created the confusion.

grr... edited for yet another typo - never type with one hand on a Lindor truffle, the other on the keyboard. The mind is easily distracted by the chocolate.

Thanks!

So, Parker made it. Well, no wonder I couldn't find anything about it! Yes, as a student of symbolism, one of the things that interests me most is just what you mention - that the symbol of the Swastika has been so thoroughly corrupted. Someone, I forget who at the moment, wrote a book about that - it's on Amazon. Anyway, the emotional reaction the symbol triggers today, even when we know it's an ancient symbol of wholeness, like the labyrinth or the swirl or other mandala-type symbols, is still intense, though, which is why I'm interested in using it AS PART OF A PLOT LINE - NOT PERSONALLY. (Fits with the rest of my story line.)

Namaste
Patti

Yep, symbols, words and people can be corrupted anywhere from a little to thoroughly! Pity, but that's life!

There's one important thing to consider. While YOU may know the real meaning of the swastika, most people do not and unfortunately associate it with the Nazis and racism. Just be aware that you may attract negative attention if you use such a pen in public.

Oh, heavens - I don't want one! I just want to know about it in re: the mystery novel I'm working on!

By "using it" I mean use it in the book, as part of the plot! See the original post when I asked the question: what pen to die for, or kill for, fictionally speaking! In the Creative/Writing forum - sorry, don't have the exact link.

Is that clear?

Ah, no problem. I see.

In the Chicago suburbs, there is a Bahai Temple of Worship. I think it was built about the turn of the 19/20th century or so...at any rate, it was before WWII/Nazi phenomenon. They have the symbols of major religions on carved in relief on the outside of their building. Along with the Star of David, Cross, Crescent, Tao symbol, they have a Swastika. As a religion that stresses the unity of mankind, they certainly are not promoting Nazism.

Heh. Here in Korea, the symbolic shorthand for Buddhism is a swastika (used much like the cross is for Christianity) - but flipped and presented like a square rather than like the diamond I associate with the Nazis. It pops up all over the place in the urban environment indicating the myriad of small temples and meditation rooms tucked away everywhere. I don't even think about it now, but it sure made the old head snap when I first got here.

Korea's about 25% Buddhist, 25% Christian, 50% I gotta do some neo-Confucian ceremonies with my family a couple of times a year. Much like the temples, there are churches big and small about every block or so in the city, and most have a cross lit up at night. Seven years ago (when I arrived), the prefered colour was red neon.

I'll never forget that first drive in from the airport. Middle of the night, 100% humidity at the tail end of a typhoon, driving through endless rows of massive concrete apartment complexes, the cityscape studded with 'burning' crosses, dropped off in a bustling market district where the first thing I see is a big swastika, thinking to myself "What on earth have I gotten myself into?"

Ryan.

Um, getting back to the actual history of the pen itself... Does anyone know what collectors did with them post WWII - did they dispose of them? Is that why they are rare? What are they made from? How are they filled? Just the facts, guys. Thanks.

Sorry if I invoked the off-topic discussion.

Patti

Hi Patti,

From Your posts, I deduct You are looking for information on FP with swastikas that were original products of a specific brand.

Don't forget that, like with watches, in the thirthies and forties it was possible to ask the producer to fit specific markings on otherwise common production pens, for use as a propaganda or publicity scheme (not to mention to give away has offers to workers ou retired executives).

Therefore there is some parafrenalia, including FPs, that holds the swastika marking without it being produced by a specific brand policy or target marketing, but only because some client asked for it.

The history behind those examples, could, nevertheless, be a interesting topic for a novel...

rusty

A while ago I read an article or blurb or something like that for the pen you are looking for. I think it might have been David Nishimura's site http://www.vintagepens.com My second guess would be Jim's site http://www.penhero.com/ but I think it was the David's. Try emailing him and asking about the pen. Tell him about FPN while you're at it

Rusty - Actually, I'm trying to find specific info on the now-infamous Parker Swastika. I suppose I'll just have to wait for Andreas' book to arrive, though.

Elaine - thanks. I'll check it out.

Patti

From: Vintagepens.net



From Soutcoast Today


In FPOTW I couldn't find any text about the pen, but there is a terrific photo of it on page 57. The caption reads "...GF overlay of BHR, Swastika design, VV clip, c.1910"

i'd be curious to know how accurate that # is - IIRC, an Aztec went for over $200K on e-bay 2-3 years ago. I'd have thought the swastika was about as easy to find as an Aztec. But then again, the symbolism might make it less valuable.

Originally I'm from Oklahoma. There you will sometimes see what looks like a swastika on things but as with an earlier post it is not angled but upright as in a cross and the "flags' on the ends point the opposite way to the Nazi one. I understand that it was a Native American sign. Just added this for interest....

The story of an Aztec going for $200K is not accurate. They have sold privately for over $50,000. Someone at the Chicago show this year had both a gold and silver Aztec that he wanted to sell as a pair for $140,000. The swastika pen is not quite as valuable. You'll still pay 5-figures for one.

Unfortunately, none of my early Parker ads show an Aztek or a Swastika pen. If you wanted to use a Parker snake pen as the basis, then I would have you covered. I've got two great ads showing those.

John

interesting because I saw the ebay listing itself and coulda sworn. ah well, wouldn't be the first time my brain failed me.

still, 5 figures for a pen is more than I would spend. the symbol is the key here to Patti's questions though. And the history of the pen in terms of how many were made, where might help. I have read that these overlays were often done by artists not directly associated with Parker. Is this true?

The Aztec on eBay didn't go for anywhere near $200K.

The legend of Parker Swastika pens being destroyed at the outset of WW2 is surely complete nonsense. The only ones Parker would still have had around were those in the archives, and those didn't go anywhere (at least, not until much, much later).

Pen collecting was pretty much an activity restricted to isolated individuals up until the mid-1970s, with no books or references to go by. Anyone who happened to have such a pen at the outset of WW2 would no more likely have discarded it than they would have discarded their Navajo blankets and silver work. Such items would have been less likely to be openly displayed, of course, but their owners would have known full well that they had nothing to do with Naziism.

Fiction is fiction, of course, but if one were to pursue a story where neo-Nazis were seeking some special pen, it wouldn't be a Parker Swastika. If I were writing the story, it would be some extra-fancy solid gold and enamel Montblanc with a proper Nazi swastika in the cap (yes, such pens were made, with the Nazi emblem in place of the white star), and have it be the property of some leading Nazi bigwig -- probably Goering, knowing his love of excess.

Are there any ads that anyone knows of that show these pens? (The Swastika pens, I mean?) Just curious.

My victim/collector actually didn't come across this pen until he was much older, by the way. Perhaps even fairly recently.

Also - is there a pen black market or underground? I can't imagine why there would be, except for a pen like this that is desirable from a $$ standpoint, and because it's rare, but has its baggage, you might say. Has anyone heard any stories or rumors about how stuff like this is acquired, other than in the usual back-room cover-of-darkness ways...

I mean, if there are a handful of these in existence, someone must own them, right?

Thanks
Patti

From Time, Jul. 10, 1933, In a footnote to the cover story on Hitler's rise to power

Time - July 10, 1933 - "We Demand"

"*Modest in other respects, Der Reichsprädsident carrier a monster fountain pen with a nib three sixteenths of an inch wide. With this weapon of vanity he signs municipal golden books in such heroic style that the thirteen letters von Hindenburg sprawl a full nine inches long."

Might be an interesting take for your book.

John

removed

The person David refers to regarding having both the silver and the gold pen at the Chicago Show is a member of our pen club. He told me that the silver pen was one of three in the world.
So, I would say they are very rare, hard to come across and do command a high price.
Robert

Hi David,

for pen collectors I'd agree with you.

But I think you're ascribing more intelligence to that other group of "beings" than is deserved.

Just the "riling up" that I saw when that pen was on e-bay on PT alone - where most (obviously not all) people did understand the history of the symbol and the pen, is enough to give me pause about how some people would behave.

It's obvious that a symbol can be made demonic - it would take little, from what i've seen, for a fanatic whack-job to misinterpret (and misuse) any item with that symbol. The image on the pen stands alone and is not part of a larger design as on a Navajo blanket. IMO, easy to interpret, if you don't know your pen history, as something related to Naziism. I don't know the story being written, but there's no reason to assume that it's made up only of pen collectors. In fact, I'd imagine not as I don't think that would appeal to a large part of Patti's market. Nor is there any reason to assume that someone in that population of whack-jobs would do their research into the pen. But it could quickly and with little intelligence be assessed as potentially valuable and potentially related to their twisted POV.

The issue might be that they are in people's attics or dep in drawers so that no one has seen them for years. Then the person dies and an estate sale happens a picker for a pen collector comes and buys up all the pens then it hits the pen collecting flow. I have heard or at least seen people offering to sell a particular pen because they have contacts for a premium.

I guess just like in the art world there are 'whales' who's gravity of money sort of draws the unusual to them.


K

This is very much the case. It reminds me of a situation a couple of years ago on eBay. A very rare Parker Red Giant popped up. I contacted the seller and it turned out that her grandmother had found it in her grandfather's dresser drawer after he had passed away. It ended up going for about $3,500, actually not a bad price for a pen where less than 6 examples exist.

John

I finally turned up an ad that shows a Parker Aztec. I've attached a scan, which is a little dark. Please see the third pen from the left, the model 57. It's a partial Aztec.

Sorry Patti, still nothing on the swastika pen in an ad or catalog.

John

Apologies for the belated reply -- summertime vacations and all that.

The big argument over at PT was NOT over an original, old, Parker Swastika pen, but rather over an old Waterman on which Nathan Tardif had placed a newly-made metal overlay adorned with swastikas. Tardif saw this as an hommage to the Parker original; many others saw it as a ghastly faux pas. Indeed, despite all protestations of innocence here, one simply can't turn back the clock: a pre-Nazi swastika is one thing; a post-Nazi example quite another (at least in the Western cultural context -- but Tardif isn't Native American, or Korean, or Indian).

Those of you who regularly read the pen discussion
websites such as Pentrace (http://www.pentrace.net/mboard.htm)
or Fountain Pen Network (http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/), may
have noticed that about a month ago a fiction writer
by the name of Patricia Frankel began
posting research questions for an upcoming mystery novel
she was planning, which would center on the
disappearance/reappearance of a famous fountain
pen make by Parker almost 100 years ago (I won't
give away more of the plot).

Anyway, Patti and I have subsequently become email
friends and I asked her to contribute to my Writers
page on the website -- where authors comment on
the importance of using/collecting fountain pens in
their work. Not only did she contribute the story of
her recent exposure to fountain pens, she's included
the prologue to her novel -- as yet untitled --
featuring her heroine Aurora Parker!

The beginning of her comments:



"My interest in fountain pens began about three
months ago, when I acquired someone's fairly small,
and fairly odd collection. At that time the only
fountain pen I owned was a pretty blue Cross which,
amusingly, I had purchased a couple of months
earlier because I was tired of writing all my notes and
ideas and journal bits with crummy ballpoints that
made troughs on the paper and bled greasy ink blobs
onto the page. I had no idea what they were really
about. When I purchased my Cross, my rationale for
impulsively spending $70 on a pen went something
like this:

"Ooooh. This is pretty!"

As I have since learned, in pendom, this is a
perfectly acceptable rationale, for spending $70, or
$700 And why not? As the British designer, poet and
craftsman William Morris said, "Have nothing in your
house that you do not know to be useful, or believe
to be beautiful." Fountain pens, it seems to me, are
both, and that makes them unique, particularly in
these post-post-modern-new-millennial times when
instruments and conveyances are so often weighted
toward the former at the complete expense of the
latter."

Read more here, along with the prologue... -
http://www.hisnibs.com/writers.htm

Hi nibs,

Read the notes and prologue of patti's novel and I'm very much looking forward to get it and enjoy it - the original set up of the plot is very interesting and i look forward to see how patti links the last century uncle and pen to the celular tooting girlie.

rusty

Hi all,

As we are dealing too with earsay on this subject, there is some more gossipy stuff I have found to add to that pile:

"1915 - Parker Suástica: com o antigo símbolo da sorte dos índios americanos, as canetas que estavam em estoque na fábrica, juntamente com outras recolhidas pelo mundo, foram enterradas na fundação de uma fábrica em construção da Parker pelo próprio fundador em protesto contra Hittler, já que George Parker era judeu. Há informações de que existem apenas 15 unidades pelo mundo hoje."

taken from:

http://www.hansa.ind.br/site/pg_interna.asp?area=00068,00069

It's portuguese from Brasil, and it means more or less:

"1915 - Parker Suástica: with the old symbol of luck of the American indians, the pens that were in supply in the plant, together with others collected by the world, had been embedded in the foundation of a plant in construction of Parker by the proper founder, in protest against Hitler, since George Parker was Jewish. It has information of that only 15 units for the world exist today."



rusty

Hi Rusty,

I look forward to it too! She'll certainly have a bulit-in audience.

Amusing how an apocryphal tale gets yet wackier in the telling.

David,

I'd be very interested in seeing a post with the most factual description and/or history of the pen. Have you written one, posted it on your web site or know of a source?

Please consider posting or linking to any material you can recall.

It may be appropriate to start another thread, but continuing with this one is fine also.

Regards,

Gerry

Hi,

I think everyone of us would like to read some facts on this "thing", apart from the interest in Patty's novel, which started us off...

...in here or in other topic.

has this here is for Patti's novel, lets take to one other new topic. :doh:

rusty