I recently read that at the height of their production, Esterbrook produced 600,000 pens a DAY! Was that a misprint? Is that possible?
C. S.

Well, that is what Mr Hoban has been lead to when he wrote his book. He did list the exact same number of pens produced at the height of it's pen production (page 5- "The Fountain Pens of Esterbrook")

Well, the book actualy said that they were ABLE to turn out 600,000 pens daily. This may of been 100% production where the main line production run did not run at full steam. It very well may be that the normal production run was half of that and peaked pushing 600,000 at times. I am running on my own thoughts without reaserch, but most production lines will never run 100% for long.

Paul, if you have other proof, I will stand in error gladly as this is just my thoughts.

I was under the impression that the 600K figure referred to was for the dip pens that were stamped out by the thousands, not the fountain pens which were a far more complicated product. I could believe 600K stamped pens per day as high-speed stamping and forming was a well-established technology by the late 1800s.

just my $.02,
Ron