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Your First memory of an FP


KendallJ

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Good topic, I've found the posts here very interesting.

 

My first memory is being about 7 or 8, and finding a fountain pen (capped so I didn't see the nib) and a bottle of ink in my father’s desk while getting him something. It was different enough that I remember it, but that's about it. I still remember the smell of old wood, and the shape of the bottle. Which leads me to believe that it was either a black or a blue/black Sheaffer ink.

 

My second memory comes from when I was about 19 and is of being in the bookstore of the university I attended, trying to find a new pen to replace one I had lost. If I remember correctly I was between classes and was trying to avoid studying. They had a section of pens with something I had never seen before: a fountain pen with the nib showing. It was cheep, had no manufacturers name (at least on the pen), and took international sized cartridges though the side of the pen which opens by twisting the barrel. I bought it because it was so different than what I was used to and wanted to know what it was.

 

What stands out the most is taking it to the local coffee shop, and meeting some friends. I put the cartridges in, but no ink came out so I gave it a good shake. The people I was with apparently knew more about fountain pens then I did and basically hit the deck. That's where I learned that vigorously shaking fountain pens is a bad idea.

 

I still have the pen I bought in university, and was given the Sheaffer School Pen that I saw as a child. I've got no idea as to what happend to the ink.

 

Kris

New favorite: Quink

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My first experience with dip pens goes back to Elementary school, in 1994, at a private academy here in Canada, where we learnt Monoline Spencerian.(Spencerian, but without the thick-thin variation.) This was done using rigid, or nail nibs.

 

My first experience with Fountain Pens comes back to around 1995-1996, when my dad bought an S.T. Dupont in a trip to Paris, and a red Sheaffer "School Pen" with a 304 nib, which is a pen I still hold on to up to this day. Then came the calligraphy writing. Blackletter, Italic, Roundhand, and such, which I have learnt with some Sheaffer Calligraphy fountain pens, then I moved to Dip pens once again for calligraphy, but I still hold on to my FPs for daily usage.

 

Yes, I am a 17 year-old which has had interests in beautiful writing since he was 8-9. A (rare?) particular characteristic, I have found.

Current pens:

 

Sheaffer Javelin

Parker Flighter Jotter (?) BP

LAMY Vista

3 Sheaffer School Pens

Unknown Hero FP

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My earliest recollection of the exsistence of fountain pens, sadly, was from an old Tom and Jerry cartoon. Jerry squirted ink in Tom's eyes using a lever filler. I asked my mom what that was and I rember her telling me stories of leaky pens and girl's braids dipped in the inkwell of their school's desks.

 

My first memory of an actual FP was while I was in college in Kansas. The president of the local Amateur Radio club used a FP, though I'm not sure what kind (I believe it was a Parker). I was facinated. I didn't know they still made them. I never got to know him well enough to ask about the pen.

 

Kevin

Beaker606

"Your library is your paradise."

--Desiderius Erasmus c.1466-1536

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And you guys wonder why I am a total "51" junkie, it is genetic I tell you.

 

Jim

Hey Jim, you Parker 51 Junkie, you. I have a question that you might be able to answer. How does one tell if a wartime 51 gold filled cap is Vermeil or gold over brass? I have one that I would swear is gold over sterling. I collect silver and would say it feels like it is but is there any other way to tell?

 

PeteWK

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My earliest memory was Christmastime, sometime back in early 1960s. My mom was writing out Christmas cards on a card table in the living room, and on the table was a bottle of Sheaffer blue-back Skrip.

 

Somehow I jostled the table--I may have been wrestling with my brother--can't remember--and that bottle fell onto the carpet. The resulting large stain stayed there until the carpet was replaced in 1970!

 

Regards,

dj

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  • 3 weeks later...

My first memory of an FP came about the time I was 9 or 10 years old in the early 80s. My great-grandparents were still alive, and we visited them at least once per week. They had a small antique writing desk at their house, which they allowed us to sit at and draw or write while we were there. There were two fountain pens in one of the drawers. Seems like one was green-striped celluloid and the other seemed to be orange. I thought they looked pretty, but wasn't allowed to do much more than look.

 

When my great-grandparents died, the pens disappeared.

 

A few years later, I noticed my grandmother writing with what turned out to be an inexpensive Sheaffer FP with a steel nib. She explained that it was a fountain pen and that those were the type of pens that everyone used to write with when she was younger.

 

I brought the topic up to my parents, and looked at the pens that were offered for sale in the Service Merchandise catalog. My mother said those pens were a bit pricey for someone who had never had an FP before, but offered to buy me a Shaeffer like my grandmother's. I took her up on it, and she let me pick one out at Woolworth's. I still have it. It's served me in some fashion for at least 18 years.

 

When my grandmother died, my mother gave me that pen that I first saw her using. It might not seem like much, but to me it's a precious thing. Dad gave me his school Esterbrook, and his father's Duofold Jr. It's nice when people care about you and want to help you with your hobbies.

 

I just can't help but wonder what happened to those pens that I saw in that drawer.

Thank you,

-William

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Thank you, William, for your story. I know my father had a green and black striped Sheaffer when I was little, stayed in a drawer with his WW II stuff. It disappeared after his death and I think it got accidentally thrown away.

 

Isn't it terrific when you can use something that a loved one had before you? I still have the wristwatch, a gold Mido, that my mother gave him on their first anniversary in the early fifties. I still wear it on occasion.

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  • 1 month later...

I tried a Sheafer fountain pen that used cartridges back in high school...not a good experience...I got more ink on my hands than I ever got on paper....

Waterman Phileas | Waterman Hemisphere | Waterman Expert

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sigh....

 

:(

 

 

I remember my parents had a Parker pen about 40 years ago. It sat for who knows how many years in a box after they started using ballpoint pens.

 

I, eager young engineer, decided one day to try this interesting gizmo. It would not write, and my mother suggested I flush it. I did, for what seemed an endless time until it flushed clear.

 

It worked great, but I made a huge mess. So I put it away. A few years later, I found it again, and this time, I decided (remember eager young engineer?) to find out how it worked.

 

So, I methodically opened it, and began to disassemble it. I remember tugging

:bonk:

 

at the metal bars along the sides of the sac until..... well, you get the picture.

 

:bonk: :bonk:

 

 

It was unceremoniously disposed of. Since I was assimilated into the FP collective, I have regretted my experiment many times.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb238/lmederos/logos/luissignatureicon.gif

 

-- Luis

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I was around 6 or something. My dad was writing something with some Parker. He showed it to me. I, seeing something unknown, touched the underside of the nib, and got ink on my hands.

 

He gave me a Vector sometime later.

Edited by Renzhe

Renzhe

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I found a colection of dip pens in my fathers desk and thought they where neat. then in highschool i bought a realy cheap sheaffer caligraphy pen, and used it every day at school for the next 5-6 years. It was 4 years after that, i bought my first real fountain pen, a Parker fronteer

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Got a Parker 75 Ciscele as a high School Graduation present in 1967. Still have it, dented of course, but wouldn't trade it for any other pen.

Sensitive Pen Restoration doesn't cost extra.

 

Find me on Facebook at MONOMOY VINTAGE PEN

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Hoy Smokes....uhm, that I can actually remember. :D

 

Middle School.....geez, that would have been in the late 60s. I bought one of those Sheaffer Cartrige pens.

 

Like the green one here:

 

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c319/FLZapped2/IMG_1931_enh.jpg

 

-Bruce

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I didn't use FPs as a kid. I liked Parker ballpoints. My mom used a Sheaffer snorkle and touchdown and my dad used an early Parker 75. I got my dad's 75 about 15 years ago and used it daily. Over the last few years I've been getting other family heirlooms restored and working- assorted Sheaffers and Parkers. I'd started to do this years ago but never followed through. With the internet coming of age and information readily available, I found out what a good starter collection I had. My mom had a first year 51 pen and pencil set, there is a green PFM IV from (I think) my grandfather, several Parker vacs, another 51 DJ and assorted other's from the 40's and 50's. I've picked up other new and vintage pens since then, but I really enjoy using the family pens- it links me back to them. Jeff

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My father pulled out a fountain pen with a hooded nib to sign my very first report card. That was first grade and I was six (1954). "What's that?" I asked, reaching for it once he'd signed. He grinned, capped it, and put it back in his pocket. I looked at his signature, which was illegible, but it looked very cool with lots of line variation. The color of the ink was bluish gray and the basic line it laid down was quite fine. I later learned he used Quink Blue Black ink. I didn't get my own fountain pen until I was seven-and-a-half, a cheap lever filler. My father gave it to me. The lever fell off the second time I tried to fill it. My father passed away when I was fourteen and I never saw his fountain pen again after that. But by that time I was hooked on Sheaffer cartridge pens with translucent barrels and lavender or burgundy cartridges. :bunny1:

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I remember, from about age 5, pulling out the drawers of my father's desk and finding ('way back at the bottoms some of the drawers) what I now recognize as Esterbrooks.

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We were given Shaeffer cartridge pens in the fifth grade when we were taught cursive writing. I have used that pen ever since then (1957?).

 

My parents bought Shaeffer Snorkels at about the same time. My mother's pen is gray and has a fine nib. My mother was a school teacher and she used that pen to death. I still have it. The cap is missing (replaced with a cap from another pen that just slips on), the barrel is cracked and the o-ring in the piston is shot. She filled it with blue Skrip and used it to grade papers. She also had a green Waterman Hundred Year Lady's pen. She kept that one inked with red Skrip. I have that one too. The sac is missing. I have one of the old Skrip bottles she used. It is the kind with the ridge around the bottom and the shoulder. The cork has a composition cap with the word "Skrip" modled into it.

 

My father's Snorkel is black and has an M3 nib. He had his name engraved on the barrel. This pen still works well. I ink it and use it sometimes.

 

My parents thought a long time before they bought those pens. They were an expensive luxury for them. My father was a foreman in a machine shop and made $21 and change per day.

 

Paddler

Can a calculator understand a cash register?

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When I was in elementary school, I got my first iridiumpoint FP. Before that, I always used pencils to write characters.

 

I remembered that the nib of the pen was hooded. The barrel was made of black plastic and the cap was metalline. I have already forgotten the model of the FP, but I think it may be the Hero 616, which is similiar with the Parker 51. It wrote smoothly, and I very loved it.

 

Now it had been worn out. Because of that pen, I love the Parker 51 and its analogues. And I already have more than ten Hero 100s, which are gold nib pens and also like the Parker 51. Although I have plenty of Hero, Parker and Pelikan pens now, I still yearn my first pen.

The pen is mighter than the sword.

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  • 3 weeks later...

When I was 8 or so I found my dad's Parker 21, I brought it to school, it was 2000 so ballpoints were all over the place. Guess what happened, I dropped the Parker 21 on the floor, sadly the nib got bent just a little, but I have managed to get it back to its original position now.

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