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Your First memory of an FP


KendallJ

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Thank you all for the varied stories and memories of your first encounter with a fountain pen. Great reading that one can go back again and again to savor and enjoy. My first recollection of a fountain pen was when I was given a Sheaffer cartridge school pen to use in the Third grade (1958). I ended up having several of them, clear and a clear blue my sister had a clear red one I think. Being left handed I had great difficulty with smearing my work. That was carried over from even using a pencil. I always had graphite or ink on the side of my palm by the end of the school day. My folks used ball points. I never ever remember seeing either one of my parents use a fountain pen. My mom brought home Bic’s one day and that’s what I used through the rest of my school days until I went to college.

My grandparent’s however both used fountain pens; Parker 21’s. My grandmother’s was red and my grandfather’s was blue. I found them several years ago when I moved to my current home and got the blue one to work. That started my current fascination and use of fountain pens along with radio talk show host Denis Prager’s love of them. I have since given my grandfather’s Parker to my youngest son.

One other note: I used Rapidographs for note taking and writing while I was in college. I was an art major and liked the way they felt in my hand and they way I would letter with them. I have always hated ball points. Messy, cramped your hand and blobbed.

PMS

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty -Thomas Jefferson

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I was in grade school--might have been the early or mid-1960s--when my father gave me a couple of lever fillers, the pens of the day, that he had discarded. I filled them messily with Skrip; I still remember the ink around the inside edge of the metal cap. Just last week I asked him what types of pens he had used, and at ninety years old he did not hesitate for a minute in saying, "Waterman. I used Waterman." I don't know whether the lever pens he gave me were Waterman, or whether he discarded them because they were not Waterman.

JN

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My mother wrote with a Parker 51, always with green ink. But I think my most vivid memory of a fountain pen was my pediatrician's pen back in the early 1950's. He wrote with an extremely broad nib, and I remember being just fascinated by his writing. I'd never seen anything like it. I would stare at his prescriptions and ask him to show me the notes he wrote in my chart. He must have thought I was a really strange kid.

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It was early 1970s, the summer before I started my first year in grade school. My mother was sitting at her desk, writing. As my father walked passed her (on his way to the kitchen), my mother handed him the pen that she was using. My father opened the top-left drawer of the desk, pulled out a bottle of ink, and filled the pen. Next, he reached into his front-right pocket for a handkerchief and gently wiped the pen. He handed the pen back to my mother, and she smiled without saying a word. My father then continued on his way, whistling, and made himself a sandwich in the kitchen.

 

I found out years later that the pen was a Parker "51" (Aero-metric Version).

Edited by girlieg33k

Talking about fountain pens is like dancing about architecture.

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Primary school in New Zealand 1983. When we reached what we called Standard 4 (about 10 years old -5th year at school), we were allowed to write with a pen instead of a pencil. Not just any old pen; it had to be a FOUNTAIN PEN! I remember my mum taking me to the stationery shop to buy my first one - a Stypen. I've loved them ever since.

 

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

 

-- Epictetus (55-135 AD)

 

 

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/606/letterji9.png

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My mother writing Christmas cards in the early 60s with an old copper Esterbrook, loaded with green ink. I destroyed it by gutting the innards in my vain attempt to make a Man from UNCLE secret radio. ¨Open channel D!¨

 

I had a duplicate put together last year. A pen, not a radio.

 

Fred

Edited by FredRydr
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It was 2 years ago. I was 12, I saw an FP on some movie, and said to myself: "how cool" (I was into really good uniball and pilot rollerballs). I saw on at office depot for 12 dollars by Yafa. I went in the car, tried to write with it, and found out that I needed to put the cartridge in. I put the black on in, and it didn't write. :headsmack: So... I punched the nib into the pad I was trying to write one, and got a drop, and it started to write smoothly, but it did skip alot. I thought to myself: "I wonder how it would look with this red cartridge..." so I stuck the red cartridge into the pen, and it still wrote in black. I was exceptionally angry. I threw the pen into a bag because I had broken the section by now trying to get it to "work properly", and it leaked like a faucet. That was my first memory. Later I found a 20 dollar one "Aldo Domani" at office depot, gave the FP thing another try, and I was hooked. I then got a Waterman Phileas, a Lamy Al star, Pelikano (green), a pelikan future, a Lamy 2000, a Sheaffer Javelin, and other nice pens. The rest is history!

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My first memory of a fountain pen is at school, too many years ago to know exactly what age I was! Being left handed I can remember be severly told off for the amount of smudges that I had created, I had to adapt my writing style and quickly, the rules changed not long after this and therefore the need to use a fountain pen... that's life. I then purchased a cheap and nasty fountain pen to write my wedding invitations 6 years ago it was not an overwhelming success as knowing what I know now the paper and ink used were not the ideal match. A new MD was appointed at our company and he was still using a Parker Vector (among others) from his school days which inspired me to try fountain pens again as he showed me that a fountain pen could be used as a practical alternative to the ballpoint. After such an auspicious start it is amazing that I still have a passion for fountain pens. My collection is small but growing at a pace that is far from healthy to my bank balance :roflmho:

Edited by andyg30
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My memory is hazy, but I always remember my mum having a black Parker Duofold (50s style). It was the coolest thing. As a youth I inherited my Grandfather's Osmiroid 65 cartridge pen, which I could never find cartridges for, and so used as a dip pen, ignoring the fact that there was bound to be ink going back into the barrel. years later when the penny dropped, the nib section took a fair bit of persuasion to come loose from the barrel!! :headsmack: For my 18th my dad bought me a Parker Classic, yet the first fountain pen I bought was a Rotring Art Pen, which I used for almost ten years until I happened across the FPN and since then, I've bought a few more!! :thumbup:

 

Sadly the Duofold is long gone!!

 

Good idea for a thread this. Good memories too.

They cannot look out far.

They cannot look in deep.

But when was that ever a bar

To any watch they keep?

-- Robert Frost --

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It was a Parker 51 many years ago. But didn't know what it was then.

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right

to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers,

and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Revelation 22:14-15

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It was a Parker 51 many years ago. But didn't know what it was then.

 

 

i was four or five and i got ahold of my dad's MB Meisterstuck and drew on myself before i relieved it of its ink :-P

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  • 2 weeks later...

My first memory of a Fountain pen was when I was 11.

 

I had gone to a supermarket, and bought a pen (no brand made it) and I was expecting to be a ballpoint pen. But it was a fountain pen. Much to my pleasure, once I saw it I only wanted to use fountain pens and it is the same to this day. Anyway I went to school, using it and alot of people were complimentinng it. But about three weeks with it, the pen got lost (I suspect someone stole it). So I went on to buy another (a Parker pen) Until I pressed to hard on it and bent the nib back. Now I have no special pens but have plans on buying some in the near future.

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It was when I was 13 or 14. My then-stepfather got a fountain pen branded 'Apis'(a Korean pen company), and he was kind enough to give it to me. Knowing that 'great souls'(that is, writers or famous figures in books. I'd never heard a great writer used a ballpoint pen or machinical pencil!) always wrote with a fountain pen, I was deeply interested in that thing, ran to the stationery shop and bought a bottle of Parker ink. I found that the lines it made were too thick compared to those of a ballpoint pen or pencil, so I didn't bring it to school. But considering from my scribbling on my childhood books, it seems that I did enjoy using the pen. :) Unfortunately it broke into two pieces (now I know that the 'barrel' and 'section' were tragically seperated) after expiriencing a falling accident.

 

My second fountain pen was from my real father(after I had come to live with him). He suggested that I could choose one item for middle school graduation gift. I wanted a fountain pen. He bought me a Parker Jotter. But I didn't use it so often because most of my school textbooks & notebooks' paper were not FP-friendly.

 

My third, and *serious* fountain pen was a Pelikan Technixx. :) I fell in love with the pen and brought out my old jotter. I got to know this forum, and became a FP nut!

Because lies sound so nice

and like soil to seed

it goes to casting my fears aside...

- BT, 'Satellite'

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