Pens In Mad Men

[Bo Bo Olson]

I've not seen this program.

 

It's not about the pens. Pens help characterize. Like what car does he drive, a VW/Volvo, a Mercury, or Impala.

 

What status was the character? Does his pen reflect it.

 

The thin mat black and gold Cross and Parker Jotter were high classed ball point pens in 1960. A black Skillcraft was low class, like a Papermate pen became. If I recollect right, it went from good like a Sheaffer in @ '56/7 to being cheap by '62.

 

 

 

So which character is using something old and obsolete like a Parker Vaccumatic. Is he too poor, or is he iconoclastic old fashioned.

 

Is one using the most up to date expensive still advertised fountain pen. Or something cheaper that takes cartridges, does that reflect his character or his status. That not being totally inclusive.

 

Sometimes a pen would only be something in the back ground, like a cigarette in an ashtray not being smoked just smoldering as something more important happens.

 

How the cigarette is smoked shows character.

I don't think the actual writing would show that, but some can be gotten, with how it's un and re capped and put away.

That's all character bits.

 

Why should a guy be writing with his desk set pen, when he's talking to someone; and that will be more important to the scene than scribbling something on a piece of paper, unless that character is being seen as lower than the scribbler.

[pen2paper]

Watched a few early first season shows.

It was eerily too realistic a portrayal of of the era, sort of zoomed me into "Peggy Sue Got Married" mode.

In other words, the producers, writers nailed "it" too well - for me.

There were still many uncomfortable issues to be remediated. Nice enough era if you were a child, tough if you were a young, and especially bright young woman. (comment not as a libber, just basic human respect for All).

Still, it's always fun to zero in on the writing tools. : )

[omgmalm]

Have you seen this article? It's about the collector who lent his pens to the TV crew of Mad Men.

 

The article lists his top five pens from the 60's and 70's, but the article doesn't reveal if these pens are actually featured in the show. Pity.

[Maja]

Have you seen this article? It's about the collector who lent his pens to the TV crew of Mad Men.

 

You mean this article?

(Tiger Pens took their post content from it)

 

In my first post in this FPN thread, I also referenced the post made by Mr. Fox in March 2010 on his own blog about the pens he loaned:

http://mysupplyroom.blogspot.com/2010/03/pens-for-mad-men.html

 

P.S. Just found these two August 2011 updates by Mr. Fox about more pens he sent to the show:

http://mysupplyroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/mad-men-again.html

and

http://mysupplyroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-mad-men.html

[Jerome Tarshis]

Nobody has up to now addressed Mille's question as to the treatment of left-handed children in the United States, with respect to learning to write by hand. I've never seen an episode of Mad Men, but I am an American in a family that has had many left-handed people, so that I can address what used to happen in schools.

 

It was quite various. My mother was born in the first decade of the twentieth century. She was left-handed but was forced to learn to write with her right hand. That would have been in 1910 and for a few years later. She seems not to have been seriously harmed by the experience, and she wrote beautifully. But not everyone who was left-handed was forced to use the right hand, even then, and we have in my family examples of beautiful handwriting done by people who were using their left hands. My own handwriting wasn't so bad when I took it seriously.

 

By the period of time in which Mad Men takes place, far fewer left-handed children were forced to use their right hands. There is also an issue of social class here. On the whole, people employed in advertising and publishing were drawn from a higher social class than people with some other occupations, and in general the children of the poor are treated more cruelly in schools than the children of the well-to-do. (Here I am afraid I may need to make an exception for American schools modeled upon the English public school system, which could be at once conservative and cruelly disciplined when I was young. Much of that has changed since then, although I imagine the cruelty of the young remains, on different grounds.)

 

In my youth it was thought that the children of immigrants needed to have all the advantages they could possibly get, to compensate for their disadvantages as newcomers. They were often subjected to very rigorous discipline so that they could rise in the world after leaving school. That included writing a good hand, so that one could do office work. In the United States and in at least some Asian countries, those considerations are still in practice. (With respect to scientific and technical education, not handwriting.) Alas, I don't know anyone who was in elementary school in Europe in the past twenty years, so I can't comment on the European schoolroom.

 

By the way, I was astonished to read in Mille's post that "hence" Betty could not show a beautiful handwriting, because she was left-handed. "Hence"? All it takes to have a beautiful handwriting is to write beautifully. In former times there was a lot of that around. And some bad handwriting, too. I think we now play professional basketball at a higher level of technical competence than was true when I was young, and we write by hand at a lower level. Do the work and you may hope to get the results, as we have seen in postings to the handwriting forum on this very message board. Some of them by left-handed people.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Jerome Tarshis

[phrenzy]

I would be interested to know if anyone could identify the pen Joan wears around her neck. I havnt seen the show for a year or more now but I remember quite vividly some full frontal in focus shots of it...someone I'm sure had something to do with it's home nestled in her décolletage, a deliberate ploy on her art I believe.

 

It looked like a rolled gold modern st.duping, though I'm sure it isn't one. Maybe it's just a pencil...thoughts?

[omgmalm]

You mean this article?

(Tiger Pens took their post content from it)

 

Haha, oops.

[Maja]

I would be interested to know if anyone could identify the pen Joan wears around her neck. I havnt seen the show for a year or more now but I remember quite vividly some full frontal in focus shots of it...someone I'm sure had something to do with it's home nestled in her décolletage, a deliberate ploy on her art I believe.

 

It looked like a rolled gold modern st.duping, though I'm sure it isn't one. Maybe it's just a pencil...thoughts?

Well, in this photo

http://timeentertainment.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mms4ep409_joan.jpg (click to see larger image), it looks like a pencil (due to the lack of a cap), but then again, I don't know if they made ballpoints in necklace form in the early 1960s....

 

I suspect it's a pencil, but having only seen the first 2.5 seasons of the show, I can't say for certain as I rarely saw Joan "working", LOL

[phrenzy]

That's not how I remembered it but it does look like a pencil, then again last time I saw mad men I wasn't very pen initiated...

Edited January 7, 2012 by phrenzy

[Splicer]

Just watched S5Ep5: "Far Away Places" and Don pulls out a pen (at 33:25) to jot down notes in the Howard Johnsons. It goes by fairly fast but my best guess is that its an Esterbrook J double-jewel.

 

I'm thinking that because it's a screw-cap, it has a jeweled end, and the cap is black with a single silver band. The clip appears to be short and rectangular. However, I did not see a filler lever. So I don't know. And a second frame-by-frame is casting doubt on that guess.

 

Anyone have a better ID of that pen?

Edited April 29, 2012 by Splicer

[ParkerNutter]

Just noticed this thread and thought I would chime in...

 

As I have Netflix and can watch unlimited re-runs, I've been watching season one episodes lately.

 

I was not an avid MM watcher when it first appeared, so I guess you could say I am playing catch up....

 

Anyway, I distinctly remember watching season one, episode five in the last week or so.

 

Towards the end Don is in a meeting at the office and he pulls out a pen to make a note. I remember thinking, "looks like a Parker 51".

 

It all happened so fast, I didnt bother to note the time in the episode.

[Dindi]

Just noticed this thread and thought I would chime in...

 

As I have Netflix and can watch unlimited re-runs, I've been watching season one episodes lately.

 

I was not an avid MM watcher when it first appeared, so I guess you could say I am playing catch up....

 

Anyway, I distinctly remember watching season one, episode five in the last week or so.

 

Towards the end Don is in a meeting at the office and he pulls out a pen to make a note. I remember thinking, "looks like a Parker 51".

 

It all happened so fast, I didnt bother to note the time in the episode.

 

In the same episode, Peggy was searching through a desk drawer. I saw some Quink, but the logo looked too recent for 1968-ish. Looks like the packaging we'd find today, in the stores.

 

Whaddaya think?

[Ernst Bitterman]

Well, I don't think people who aren't mental like us ( :clap1: ) will notice the anachronistic Quink boxes; they're definitely modern. I wonder what the typewriter community would make of the ribbon box, although it looks about right, and I find myself thinking "1980" looking at the pencil box, too.

Edited April 30, 2012 by Ernst Bitterman

[Mille]

In the same episode, Peggy was searching through a desk drawer. I saw some Quink, but the logo looked too recent for 1968-ish. Looks like the packaging we'd find today, in the stores.

 

Whaddaya think?

 

The package looks exactly the same, (as far as I know), now as it did in the eighties. So if it hasn't changes the last thirty years, maybe it hasn't the previous twenty years?

 

Hmmm, what kind of watch is Peggy wearing?

Edited April 30, 2012 by Mille

[chomann]

In the same episode, Peggy was searching through a desk drawer. I saw some Quink, but the logo looked too recent for 1968-ish. Looks like the packaging we'd find today, in the stores.

 

Whaddaya think?

 

The package looks exactly the same, (as far as I know), now as it did in the eighties. So if it hasn't changes the last thirty years, maybe it hasn't the previous twenty years?

 

Hmmm, what kind of watch is Peggy wearing?

 

 

That watch looks like a Gruen. Hard to find info on those guys. If that is a Gruen its a slim line or "veri thin" possibly precision (i see a seconds hand). Which would put the 420ss movement in it, so its time period would be correct (roughly the 30's - late 50's

 

I may be as nuts about watches as I am about Fountain Pens! :blink:

[Ernst Bitterman]

The package looks exactly the same, (as far as I know), now as it did in the eighties. So if it hasn't changes the last thirty years, maybe it hasn't the previous twenty years?

 

I've got a bottle of Super Quink from a little before Mad Men started, and also used it in the early '80s before the change to more or less the modern. The overall shape of the bottle hasn't changed a lot, but the box and label in the picture are substantially amended even from the early '80s one; the background was white, and the swoopy P was absent. I expect in the early 1960s, we should expect to see the pierced oval logo, while on my earlier bottle, there's just the name of the company in slightly brutalist lettering.

 

...and yes, I should take a picture.

[torstar]

Lefty list includes Bert Cooper, Betty, Betty's shrink, two other women whom I cannot ID by name.

[Dindi]

You're the best!

[StudyAnimal]

The most recent episode actually directly mentioned a "fountain pen". Bobby was helping Emile fill his fountain pen (and getting ink all over the carpet). I could not see what sort it was or what sort of filling mechanism it had.

 

I did think at the time, would they really have had to mention "fountain" pen, or would they have just said "pen", as fountain would be redundant, especially in the context of filling a pen.

 

But what do I know, I wasn't around back then.

 

Then I saw Joan with a pen hanging around her neck, and I was pretty sure it was a ballpoint, so I thought yeah it was well into the ballpoint era so it probably would have been normal to qualify pen with fountain.

 

Probably the best show on TV.

[pen2paper]

In the same episode, Peggy was searching through a desk drawer. I saw some Quink, but the logo looked too recent for 1968-ish. Looks like the packaging we'd find today, in the stores.

 

Whaddaya think?

 

The package looks exactly the same, (as far as I know), now as it did in the eighties. So if it hasn't changes the last thirty years, maybe it hasn't the previous twenty years?

 

Hmmm, what kind of watch is Peggy wearing?

 

 

That watch looks like a Gruen. Hard to find info on those guys. If that is a Gruen its a slim line or "veri thin" possibly precision (i see a seconds hand). Which would put the 420ss movement in it, so its time period would be correct (roughly the 30's - late 50's

 

I may be as nuts about watches as I am about Fountain Pens! :blink:

It's an Elgin, and far too large, masculine for a woman of that era.. but, is making a clear statement.

Still cannot view more than a few minutes - it's too real for one who observed - touches raw nerve of the era's negatives.