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Your First memory of an FP


KendallJ

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First grade.... we had to use FP's. I used and always thought they were the cool pens, the Sheaffer school pens you could buy in a drug store. It was clear red cellophane look, that took cartridges.

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Wow, great topic. My father graduated with his BA in 1953 and bought a Sheaffer snorkel. He used it until his death in 1986. I hardly ever remember it not being in his pocket as he wouldn't use anything else. I have that pen to this day and will never rebuild it, though it badly needs it. On occasion I uncap it and smell the dried ink (always Sheaffer Blue). Its amazing how certain smells will bring back such vivid childhood memories.

 

PeteWK

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My first FP was a black plastic Sheaffer calligraphy set. It came with B, M, and F italic nibs and a selection of colored ink cartridges. I've lost it, but I have three very similar models now, as well as another oddball italic pen that takes standard international cartridges.

 

My first vintage FPs would have been the three I bought at a garage sale for $2 each about a year ago. I bought them on a whim, but didn't ever ink them. Luckily, they have some value, as I'm trading the Waterman to OldGriz for repair on the Eversharp and on my grandfather's Sheaffer Jr., which I recently got from my dad. The third of the garage sale pens is an Osmiroid with an italic nib. I'd really like to get that one inked up and see how she writes.

 

Now I just have to buy some ink. :-)

Professional librarian and yo-yo expert

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I first discovered fountain pens during the 1990's when it was still possible to encounter them in an ordinary bookstore here in Lahti, Finland. My first purchase was a Parker Frontier (red/black plastic with steel cap & gold plated nib and trim) made in USA in 1996. I knew nothing about pens back then but my schoolmate had a nice Parker flighter ballpoint which aroused my interest in their products. I then visited the bookstore and found some funny looking "modern but old-fashioned ink pens".

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  • 3 weeks later...

I enjoyed reading this thread. :)

 

The first fountain pen I remember was the one I HAD to buy for shorthand class in high school. It was a blue cartridge-filled Esterbrook with a metal cap. Unfortunately the cap got thrown away, but I still have the pen and empty cartridge. That pen, and a good friend I mentioned it to, are how I started collecting fountain pens and using them again.

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I still remember vividly how my first fountain pen looks like. I was about six years old and on our elementary school after everyone got a pencil; we were given a fountain pen. We had to learn to write our first words and sentences with our own fountain pen.

It was a green Bruynzeel pen, with a metal cap. Mine was especially made for left handed writers. I loved writing with it and was very proud of my first pen. :rolleyes: When others lost their pen and started writing with colored ballpoints, I couldn't let go of the Bruynzeel.

Later on when I was about 17 years old, my father gave me a black Waterman fountain pen.

Now, many years later... I have to admit, that I lost my Waterman... :bonk: My search for a new fountain pen has started a few weeks ago. :huh:

post-22-1161363410_thumb.jpg

Edited by Rosevecay
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Easy - a Sheaffer school pen. I was one of the very few using them in high school, and I jsut thought they were plain cool. You could also stomp the cartridges for some spectacular patterns in the school yard! I didin't use one again utill, oh, three months ago! When did I graduate you ask? None of your business! :P

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I can't remember either of my parents using FP's; they were pencil and BP users. My first memory of a fountain pen was the cartridge pen I received on entering fourth grade in school, where we were all required to use them instead of pencils. Ballpoints were not allowed. Mine, as were virtually all others, was the $1.00 Sheaffer cartridge pen with the clear barrel to see the ink level. They came in a rainbow of colors, and began my love for Sheaffers that has lasted to this day. I can remember seeing those beautiful color ads in the National Geographic for expensive Sheaffer pens and wanting one someday myself. Well, over time I've owned many Sheaffer pens, but recently I've found cartridge pens on EBay just like the ones I grew up with. I've bought several, and after inking them, have new respect for any company that could manufacture such a durable, attractive, and ergonomic pen for only $1.00. I don't remember any Wearevers, Esterbrooks, or any of those competitors. I lived in a small town and we all used Sheaffer!

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My first recollection of a fountain pen is not all that clear cut in my mind.

 

I was in school, don't remember quite how old. In my time we were supposed to write only in pencil until a certain age and after that we were introduced to pens. I used to write with fibre tips (Pilot V5's, Boxy and such). Ball points were not allowed as they were thought to encourage a lazy hand. Heaven knows what that meant. I wasn't exactly light handed, the nibs of the fibre or micro tips used to only last a few weeks at best.

Out of sheer desperation my father bought me a really cheap fountain pen (no wonder he would not let me use his). It was a make called Camel or something. you had to unscrew the nib end and fill it using a rubber dropper or syringe, it wasn't a self filler. It had a steel nib, which leaked a bit but by God was it great to write with. I fell in love with ink pens since. I still have it and it still writes but it leaks so I don't use it all that much. I also remember a few years after my dad bought me my first ink pen he bought me another one, a converter type pen so that I wold not get my fingers messy each time I filled my pen, it was a make called Miawadi or something. This pen got stolen form my pencil case one day at school, I was never to see it again.

 

My love for FPs has grown by leaps and bounds. I will not touch a ball point if I can avoid it. My collection is big and still growing.

Edited by Jazz
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Hallo

 

I used a Parker Slimfold in the 60s at school in England. I graduated to a Parker 51 and over the years continued using a fountain pen. As the only member of the family still using a fountain pen, I scavenged most of the family's fountain pens, which served as the basis of my collection. Since there are no more to scavenge, I now expand my collection at open markets, etc.

 

My best pen is a Parker Vacumatic, from the early 1930s, which belonged to my grandmother. It cost me a fortune getting it put back into working order.

 

Yours

 

Chaim

Chaim Seymour

David Elazar 8

Givat Shemuel

Israel

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I remember grey fountain pen in my parents' desk - the hooded nib (which I definitely remember) and the the arrow at the tip (which I think I remember) would make it a Parker 61. I remember looking for it each time the desk was opened and it never wrote - I don't think they ever filled it.

 

I've just now really gotten into fountain pens.......my dad never throws anything away so I'm hoping the next time I visit my dad the pen will still be about somewhere!

"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'Cunning plans are here again'"

 

Twitter: @CasmiUK

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I can remember sitting in 5th or 6th grade using a Sheaffer FP, it was (I think) clear blue and a metal top. I remember writing with it upside down. Ahead of my time? I am fairly sure it is the same pen I found during a storm some years ago and is responsible for my love of fountain pens today. Now all I need to do is re-learn some decent penmanship, and to sepell. :D

Please visit my wife's website.

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My first memory of a fountain pen is inextricably linked to the Sheaffer inlaid nib. It's the nib I remember and somewhere in the back of my mind, there's a little voice that still says "real fountain pens look like that."

 

I don't know whose fountain pen it was, or where I saw it. But I still have a thing for inlaid nibs and the look of integrated nibs. Probably why I'm so crazy about the Edson, the Verve, the Carene and the Waterman CF pens. Sexy nibs! I still think we should have a forum just for nibs... :eureka:

 

 

/:)

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  • 2 weeks later...

When I was in fourth grade back in the 70s, I found a Shaeffer fountain pen for sale in a local five & dime. I think it cost less than $2, took cartridge ink (blue), and was probably a medium point. I wrote with that for a while, and can recall buying a second one for black ink.

 

Saw the same type pen not long ago in an antique shop in NH for $5. Came that close to buying it for purely nostalgic reasons. B)

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My first memory is of my father's black "51" with a lustraloy cap that was always in his desk drawer along with a bottle of Blue/Black Parker Quink. He always kept his pen in the Parker case, I never saw him carry it in a jacket pocket.

 

I really coveted that pen until 1962 when my parents bought me my own Parker "51" B) And you guys wonder why I am a total "51" junkie, it is genetic I tell you. :bunny1:

 

Jim

Obi Won WD40

Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert!

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My dad had a hooded Parker of some sort, I have no idea what to this day. I only realized that it was a fountain pen when I started coming here.

 

The first I ever used was an Osmiroid I bought at the Art Attack in Ypsilanti when I was at university (Eastern, not U of M). I wanted something I could load with any color of ink but smoother than a technical pen, and the proprietress suggested a fountain pen.

 

Shortly after I found at Kmart some (mostly) white plastic item with a red painted nib and graphics that seemed to have come from Look. It took international cartridges and I was able to fit it with the piston converter from that orange Osmiroid. I stopped using it when I dropped out of college, and the next FP after that was a blue Phileas many years later.

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Greetings all,

 

When I was 8 years, (I was messing with dip pens and India ink since the age of 6), I had discovered my dad's old Sheaffer PFM from the late '50s buried in the back of a desk drawer. My dad cleaned it up, taught me how to load it and clean it and gave it to me.

 

Unfortunately, it was stolen in late 1978, but my dad replaced it in early 1979 with a Sheaffer (Triumph) Imperial that I still use today. As I write this, it dawned on me that while ink has always been my passion, I have my dad to thank for my affiliation with fountain pens.

 

From many of the posts in this thread and elsewhere, this seems to be a common practice- a lot of us were introduced to fountain pens through our fathers.

 

Best wishes,

 

Sean

 

:)

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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