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Boardwalk Empire's Fountain Pens


BillZ

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I watch B.E. on HBO. The set designers are very careful to make everything peroid-correct to reflect everyday life in the early 1920s. The actors use FPs as a matter of routine. Has anyone identified any of the pens?

Pat Barnes a.k.a. billz

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I'm a big fan of the show. Unfortunately, they have yet to use a period correct fountain pen in any of the desk/writing scenes. The ones I remember offhand include a Parker Vacumatic, a Parker Streamline Duofold junior, and an Esterbrook dollar pen.

 

Regards,

George

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I thought that I saw an old Waterman last season but they always shoot the pen at a distance!!! I am glad they are including FPs but they probably don't have a deal with a pen company to actually spotlight a pen. Out of curiosity, what pens were correct for that time period?

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I love Boardwalk Empire and I have always tried to identify the fountain pens they use but I don't have enough experience it seems. I think one of the best chances to see one up close is the nib on the pen with which Margaret signs the land deed at the end of Season 2 Episode 12. (I don't think the way I wrote that will be a spoiler for anyone)

 

http://images.wikia.com/boardwalkempire/images/4/4f/Margaret-Thompsons-Deed.jpg

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Unfortunately, they have yet to use a period correct fountain pen in any of the desk/writing scenes.

 

Regards,

George

 

I tried to figure out a way to send an email to the show's set designer to ask this but not savvy enough. They seem to try to get the details peroid-correct so I was hoping the FPs were too

Pat Barnes a.k.a. billz

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you have the email for a set dresser from BE?

My two best writers.

http://s2.postimg.org/v3a1772ft/M1000_Black_L_R.jpg..........http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/1217/85960889.png

.........I call this one Günter. ......... I call this one Michael Clarke Duncan.

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I emailed Terence Winter's father in law who is a friend of the family and pointed out that they have got their pen era wrong. I also forwarded a picture of the prohibition pen and an article on them. His father in law was amused and said he would pass the word along. They really do try to get it all period correct. Along with the pic of my Waterman 20 I sent an article on the history of that pen. Maybe next season the docs won't be carrying Sheaffer balance pens (again from the 30's) The Duofold with the boobytrapped cap was a nice touch although I have never seen an example of such a thing has anyone else?

 

Happy pen spotting :thumbup:

 

 

Fern

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hahahaha nice.

 

That will probably go in the production designers folder :D well done dude :P you should get a credit ;)

My two best writers.

http://s2.postimg.org/v3a1772ft/M1000_Black_L_R.jpg..........http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/1217/85960889.png

.........I call this one Günter. ......... I call this one Michael Clarke Duncan.

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What Ron says is essentially correct.

 

In the 20s, fountain pens were more or less luxury items. Granted, there were cheap, user-grade pens around, but pens made by companies like Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Wahl-Eversharp, etc, were generally expensive and hard to buy for ordinary people.

 

If you owned such a pen, it was because it was GIVEN to you. It was a present. A promotional gift. An award. Or, you worked damn hard, saved up enough money, and bought it after hard slog.

 

For most big institutions and so-forth, and for most people, the dip-pen remained the norm. It was cheaper and easier to use. It saved money. Why spend $5 on a fountain pen when you can spend 10c. on a box of nibs and a wooden pen-shaft?

http://www.throughouthistory.com/ - My Blog on History & Antiques

 

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In the 20s, fountain pens were more or less luxury items. Granted, there were cheap, user-grade pens around, but pens made by companies like Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Wahl-Eversharp, etc, were generally expensive and hard to buy for ordinary people.

 

Which is why Nucky would have owned a fountain pen. Whether you call it style, flash or bling - that was Nucky. He wears a fresh flower in his lapel every day. You rarely see him without a three piece suit. He is driven around by a chauffeur/valet or a chauffeur/bodyguard in a blue Rolls Royce. Nucky is all about appearance. If a fountain pen was expensive than he would definitely own one.

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In the 20s, fountain pens were more or less luxury items. Granted, there were cheap, user-grade pens around, but pens made by companies like Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Wahl-Eversharp, etc, were generally expensive and hard to buy for ordinary people.

 

Which is why Nucky would have owned a fountain pen. Whether you call it style, flash or bling - that was Nucky. He wears a fresh flower in his lapel every day. You rarely see him without a three piece suit. He is driven around by a chauffeur/valet or a chauffeur/bodyguard in a blue Rolls Royce. Nucky is all about appearance. If a fountain pen was expensive than he would definitely own one.

 

I rest my case.

 

The comparison may not be entirely valid, but a fountain pen in the 1920s was like an iPad or a powerful laptop today. They were expensive and new and sought-after.

 

They weren't just thrown around and treated like junk, like ballpoint pens are. And neither were they sold willy-nilly like ballpoints.

 

If you wanted the 1920s equivalent of a Bic Cristal, then you had a dip-pen with a 1-cent steel nib. That was your throwaway everyday, dime-a-dozen (probably literally) writing instrument back during the Prohibition era.

http://www.throughouthistory.com/ - My Blog on History & Antiques

 

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Ads I've seen showed fountain pens in the 1920s starting around $1 for a low-end Wahl and about $3 for a decent Parker. More expensive pens were, of course, available for gifting and for the more affluent. For comparison, in the 1920's a loaf of bread was about ten cents and a pound of coffee about fifty cents.

 

So,fountain pens weren't cheap but neither were they out of reach for most average people. Certainly business owner's or successful tradesman would have been likely to regularly use fountain pens rather than dip pens.

Edited by PatientType
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  • 2 weeks later...

I love Boardwalk Empire and I have always tried to identify the fountain pens they use but I don't have enough experience it seems. I think one of the best chances to see one up close is the nib on the pen with which Margaret signs the land deed at the end of Season 2 Episode 12. (I don't think the way I wrote that will be a spoiler for anyone)

 

http://images.wikia.com/boardwalkempire/images/4/4f/Margaret-Thompsons-Deed.jpg

 

 

You must have watched this Episode a second time. I have to admit, when I watched it the first time I was so much in shock given what Margaret was doing with the land deed that I forgot to notice the pen!

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In the 20s, fountain pens were more or less luxury items. Granted, there were cheap, user-grade pens around, but pens made by companies like Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Wahl-Eversharp, etc, were generally expensive and hard to buy for ordinary people.

 

Which is why Nucky would have owned a fountain pen. Whether you call it style, flash or bling - that was Nucky. He wears a fresh flower in his lapel every day. You rarely see him without a three piece suit. He is driven around by a chauffeur/valet or a chauffeur/bodyguard in a blue Rolls Royce. Nucky is all about appearance. If a fountain pen was expensive than he would definitely own one.

 

I rest my case.

 

The comparison may not be entirely valid, but a fountain pen in the 1920s was like an iPad or a powerful laptop today. They were expensive and new and sought-after.

...and yet, look at how very many people one sees today, staggering around while poking at an iPhone/Android/Tablet thingie. High-end FPs were expensive at the time, but middle of the road items were accessible even to struggling writers like H.P. Lovecraft. The Waterman 52 mentioned above went for much the same money as a Lamy Safari feels like to us, and one finds pens selling for a dollar or so in the 1920s which are more or less like the $10-$20 Heros. Institutional pens will be dippers, no doubt, and a lot of people will have stuck to that for writing about the house and a pencil for mobile writing needs, but let's not declare FPs inaccessibly grand.

Ravensmarch Pens & Books
It's mainly pens, just now....

Oh, good heavens. He's got a blog now, too.

 

fpn_1465330536__hwabutton.jpg

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I'm guessing that many people must have been able to afford found pens if there were so many companies making everything from Parkers to Salz pens and Waterson and so many other companies with a factory in Manhattan.

 

Yes, eager grad students, here is a thesis topic: what made mass communication possible in the '20s? Fountain pens? Multiple mail deliveries per day (at least I've read about that)? Public schools and increased literacy? If the medium is the mass-age, what about the pre-McCluhan eras?

 

Just for fun, how many people used typewriters? When did professional typists appear?

Edited by welch

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