Was A Fountain Pen Used To Write This?

[pawnraider]

Recently I was browsing through the Margaret Thatcher Foundation website and I came across a couple of documents that looks like they were written using a fountain pen but I couldn't be sure. I would appreciate it if those with more experience than me would mind taking a look and giving me their opinion. Those documents can be found here and here.

 

Thanks!

[Chthulhu]

From the look of the scans, either a fountain pen with a stiff nib, or a rollerball.

[hari317]

felt tipped pen/fine liner.

[New_Falcon]

First thought is not what it was written with, but more why haven't I seen this website before. Going to spend a lot of time reading over there.

 

Thanks for the link.

[Wahl]

I would say rollerball.

[BookCat]

Either a fountain pen or, more likely, a felt tip.

[New_Falcon]

A quick internet search leads to a telegraph article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9947180/Thatchers-squiggly-lines-marked-her-disapproval.html , where the historian Chris Collins, from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation states:

 

Baroness Thatcher did not adopt the use of a fountain pen until later life, instead preferring a felt tip, chosen for economy.

 

So now to see if we can find out what fountain pen she then used.

[sidthecat]

A cheap one, I suspect.

[ArtemisFowl]

It was written with a mont blanc diplomat 149.'she was given one and paid to use it by mont blanc. Just as was jfk to sign the golden book for his German tour and all other leaders you see with the mont blanc. There is actually video reel off all the above using the mb diplomat. This document was one written with the mb diplomat.

[ArtemisFowl]

Even the Japanese prime minister was/is paid to be seen using a mb diplomat. I know for a fact that Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone always carried one in his pocket. He was paid to. Just as Kennedy, Thatcher & others. Now, her biographers will say she used cheap pens and cheap pens were her preferred writing utensil. Especially in times of economic tension. That way she was seen as, "an everyday smuck". She herself has said she preferred a cheap pen or a felt tip, but when cameras were around, out came the mb diplomat.

[jchch1950]

Even the Japanese prime minister was/is paid to be seen using a mb diplomat. I know for a fact that Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone always carried one in his pocket. He was paid to. Just as Kennedy, Thatcher & others. Now, her biographers will say she used cheap pens and cheap pens were her preferred writing utensil. Especially in times of economic tension. That way she was seen as, "an everyday smuck". She herself has said she preferred a cheap pen or a felt tip, but when cameras were around, out came the mb diplomat.

Do you have information about the payments by Mont Blanc?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Free $$$ pen??? (I believe it was insulated that those were paid to use those pens but not proven.

For important signings in Germany, a free MB used for signing would be given........actually a US President would have had to turn that pen into the Government and it would be buried in the 40 mile wide underground government warehouse just outside Washington, with all other gifts. Like for JFK....

Being rich he could well afforded to have such a overly long clunky MB, instead of the King of Pens a Snorkel of one type or another...or a P-51/P-75 The Princes of pens.

Having lived in the American Ghetto in Germany in the '60's.......In a HS of some 300, 500 counting JH, One geek Col's son had an MB. One 8th grade girl was supposed to have a Pelikan....and one teacher had a Pelikan also. Both were pug ugly pens. My god do you know they wanted a dollar more for a Pelikan as for a Snorkel...............and that 149 Why they wanted more for gold plated trim, than a Snorkel with rolled gold. Foreign junk.

 

The only thing worth a dam in Germany besides the beer and good food then in the Gasthous's was a Mercedes diesel...as underpowered and slow as it was one could get 5-6 or 700,000 miles off of one. And they were cheap...especially used which a draft time soldier could afford. A car for life.

The only car made in Europe that ever made 'middle size' of American make, was the SAAB. The Mercedes is not full middle size....or what once was middle size back when we had the big Lincoln Town Car. Parked a rental Town Car next to a 7er BMW and that BMW was missing a full meter of size.

 

So don't think JFK used that MB. He more than likely signed and distributed Esterbrook pens when he signed a bill into life.

(At that time......MB nor Pelikan were 'known' in America, neither was the small underpowered Mercedes or even smaller and weaker BMW.

 

Like a 'free' Rolex by sports stars????

As a child....the high class watches of the early-mid 50's it was Buliva or Omega, until Arnold Palmer started wearing a free Rolex & then Jack Nickleson. I don't think golfers won enough to buy an expensive watch....or one more expensive than an Omega.

 

 

No other sports stars were paid to wear a Rolex, but Golfers in that era.......tennis was played by shamatures so couldn't get a free watch. In early pro days, Poncho Gonzales made more playing poker all Saturday night than he could have won had he saved a bit of energy for the final. The ruling bodies....looked down on the pro's (who got no media time) so it would have done nothing for the product image to have then second class Pro Tennis players wearing one's free watch.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson