I need to buy a pen in the USA in the 1950s/60s

[ericthered2004]

Let's say it's the late 50's early 60's and I'm in a medium sized town in the US and I want to buy a Sheaffer PFM or Parker 51. Where do I go? Are there still independent pen shops in many towns? Stationers? Or should I pop downtown to a department store or maybe a bookstore? How about a Jewelers?

 

Where did regler folks get their pens back in the FP golden age?

 

cheers

eric

Edited October 23, 2008 by ericthered2004

[DRP]

I remember when Emery, Bird Thayer of Kansas City stocked nice pens. I recall seeing them before the new owners closed the store and demolished the elegant building (on the National Register of Historic Places, no less. There is a special place in Hell for these people.) Emery Bird's was downtown's finest department store, with roots going back to the Civil War.

 

So, in a major city, a downtown department store would be the first place to look.

 

Stationery stores would handle upper end pens, especially for the ladies.

 

Bookstores? I don't know. Possibly. Depended upon where you were. I know that in later years, many bookstores added stationery and pens though my memory is not sufficiently good of that era to offer a definitive answer. Perhaps in a college town that would be the place to look.

 

In small towns, a fully stocked drugstore would likely have a pen counter. I recall seeing a couple of these.

[jmkeuning]

ebay

[JimStrutton]

I can't talk about the US but in the UK you went to either one of the big stationers like Pullingers or a big department store like Bentalls or Selfridges. The local newsagent/stationers shop carried things like ink and the lower end school pens and the like.

[inkypete]

On my visits to the States I have always been surprised at how luggage stores often have a good range of pens. That link doesn't happen here.

In Australia all major capital cities have specialist pen stores, often several, and certainly department stores have reasonable ranges. You can also pick up the bottom end of the ranges at newsagencies - not sure what you call them in the States. Newsagencies here carry newspapers and magazines, stationery, sometimes a small range of gifts. In larger country towns they will sometimes have a bigger range. Then there are the traditional stationers like Officeworks (similar to Office Depot) but they also now only carry the bottom end of the range. You would be lucky to find a fountain pen in their stores.

[donwinn]

In small town America in the 1950s/60s, your choices would have been: Jewelry Store, Stationery Store, Drug Store, book Store, Department Store, in decreasing likelihood of fining a high end pen. Variety store would have had the daily user/school pen, e.g., Ben Franklin, Woolworth, Kresge's, et al.

 

Donnie

[richardandtracy]

I deepest, darkest Somerset in the UK you'd go to your local stationers. My mother bought my P61 in 1978 from a stationer's in Ilminster in Somerset. They were having a clearout, and what became my P61 was dug out from the back, and still had a price sticker on it in Pounds, Shillings & Pence (£6, 6s, 0d). That meant the pen had been there since before 15 Feb 1971 when the UK went decimal.

 

Many little market towns had places like that.

 

Regards

 

Richard.

 

[Shangas]

If I want a fountain pen, I buy it from one of...*counts*...three...pen shops in the City, or, I buy it from Peter Ford at Melbourne Vintage Pens.

[Bill]

Two main choices for "good" pens: drug store pen sections, and downtown department stores (remember, that period was just before malls came along). A medium to larger town usually had an office supply store with pens, too. Forget the variety (five and dime) stores as well as the bookstores.

 

I used my paper route money to buy Sheaffer FPs and cartridges at the local drug stores. During that time frame, fountain pens were already on the way out and I was one of the very few kids who used them.

 

But what did I know...I hoarded Norm Cash baseball cards and put the extra Mickey Mantle cards in my bike spokes. The complete 1961 set of cards I had then would buy a few Montblanc LEs today. Aargh!

 

BTW, two points for anyone who remembers the original Stormin' Norman and where he batted in the lineup.

 

Bill

 

 

 

[ekhard]

I remember when Emery, Bird Thayer of Kansas City stocked nice pens. I recall seeing them before the new owners closed the store and demolished the elegant building (on the National Register of Historic Places, no less. There is a special place in Hell for these people.) Emery Bird's was downtown's finest department store, with roots going back to the Civil War.

 

So, in a major city, a downtown department store would be the first place to look.

 

Stationery stores would handle upper end pens, especially for the ladies.

 

Bookstores? I don't know. Possibly. Depended upon where you were. I know that in later years, many bookstores added stationery and pens though my memory is not sufficiently good of that era to offer a definitive answer. Perhaps in a college town that would be the place to look.

 

In small towns, a fully stocked drugstore would likely have a pen counter. I recall seeing a couple of these.

 

Hi ericthered2004,

 

Have a look Exotic wood pens & Handmade pens , Sure you will get some idea...

Edited October 23, 2008 by ekhard

[Univer]

Ah, a time-travel exercise. What fun!

 

Looking back on the experience of growing up in the 1960s, it's very clear to me - even though we all thought we were dreadfully modern, space-age and all that - that day-to-day life was not terribly different from day-to-day life in the 1950s and late 1940s. (A good thing, in my view.)

 

In my home town - which was only an hour's train ride from Manhattan, but which felt very much like a small town - the pen buying experience broke down like this:

 

Inexpensive pens, typically sold on blister cards in pegged displays (think Wearever), were available at:

 

The dear old Five-and-Ten;

 

Establishments we called "candy stores" (possibly a regional thing): they sold candy (naturally), magazines, some cheap toys and novelties, a few personal necessities (combs, aspirin, etc.), comic books (this was the major attraction for me!), and so forth. Some of these stores had small counters where one could order a milkshake or a fountain soda; in some cases, the counters were still in place, but were no longer in operation.

 

Non-fancy drug stores: true neighborhood stores, centered around the pharmacy counter, but also selling a range of other merchandise (these sometimes had counter areas as well).

 

Chain discounters; to visit them, you had to make a special trip to the (non-enclosed) shopping center just outside of town. We had Woolworth's (of course), JJ Newberry, and probably a few others.

 

Medium-quality pens (think Esterbrook and less-expensive Sheaffer) could be had at:

 

The main street stationer: ours catered to local businesses, carrying lots of office supplies. This was also the place where folks ordered custom stationery out of sample books.

 

Fancy drug stores: these establishments had full-service pharmacies (many of them delivered, which seemed like an unimaginable luxury), but they did a thriving gift business as well. This is where children went to buy Mother's Day gifts discreetly funded by Dad: manicure sets, dusting powder, handkerchiefs, cologne. They tended to have more elaborately dressed shop windows and more plush fittings throughout.

 

High-quality pens (better Sheaffers and Parkers) were the exclusive province of:

 

Local jewelry stores: these places had their pens in glass-topped cases (and/or rotating countertop displays). This is where the sterling silver and solid-gold-trimmed pens lived. Custom engraving and fancy gift-wrapping were part of the package, and plenty of Cross pen/pencil sets were sold. (Footnote: I've come across several Sheaffer sell sheets from this era, specifically aimed at local jewelers, promoting 14K-trimmed pens as gift items.)

 

Local department stores: here, again, a visit to these establishments would have required a special trip out of town. The pen buying experience was much like the jewelry-store experience.

 

Interestingly (in retrospect), even though we lived so close to New York, I don't recall any thought being given to the notion of going to the big city to seek out even more expensive pens. We knew that Manhattan had the fanciest clothing and jewelry, but that awareness did not extend to writing instruments. The Mont Blancs, for example, didn't enter our consciousness until well into the 1970s.

 

Anyway: probably lots more detail than you wanted, and very likely a personal recollection with limited relevance to other places and childhoods. Thanks for giving me an excuse to relive all of that!

 

Cheers,

 

Jon

[Pengrump]

Back in the fifties and sixties when I was a kid and teenager (a big city kid, but limited to a neighborhood for pen shopping because I wasn't allowed to ride public transit by myself until I was a teenager), the places for kids and teens to shop for pens were mstly drugstores, school supply sections of the local branches of department stores, and Kresge/s/Woolwworth's five and dime stores. For adults who had access to cars or public transit and could afford "grown up pens," the first choice was the jewelry store for "nice" pens, the stationer downtown for pens that could be left by the telephone or in other places where anyone in the household might pich them up and use them, and the central branch of the large department stores downtown for pens to give as gifts.

[thibaulthalpern]

I can't talk about the US but in the UK you went to either one of the big stationers like Pullingers or a big department store like Bentalls or Selfridges. The local newsagent/stationers shop carried things like ink and the lower end school pens and the like.

 

Ooo...did they sell fountain pens at "Grace Brother's". I want to be served by Mr. Granger. :roflmho:

[ANM]

I also remember growing up in Kansas City and taking the street car to Emery Byrd Thayer and Wolfermans. We had to cross over the stockyards.. what a stench!

 

I also remember pens being sold in drug stores (Katz), Kreskies (modern day K Mart) and Woolworths, etc, BUT 50-60 was hardly the golden age of FP's. Rather it was nearly the age of the death knell of them. The 30's and 40's and I'll concede the early 50's, in my opinion, were the golden age of classic fountain pens.

 

P 51's were somewhat popular but PB's had all but replaced them by the late 50's and PFM's were sort of an expensive novelty. I would have liked to have one but they were way out of my price range as a young college student.

Edited October 23, 2008 by ANM

[Joe in Seattle]

................think I bought my Esterbrook in the five and dime (Woolworth's)

[toms252]

I love the way everyone is discussing this in the present tense. Did I miss the press release about the functioning time machine?

[adair]

In the 1960's, you could find the higher end pens---the Sheaffer PFMs and Parker 75's, for example---at department stores, which really had departments in those days, from stationery to toys to a tea-room. Drug stores and five-and-dimes like Kresges, Woolworth's or McCrorey's sold the cheaper school fountain pens. However, these less expensive stores were wonderlands for pencils---you could go to them and choose from such legendary pencils as the Blackwing, the Venus Velvet, the Mongol or the Pedigree. It is depressing to see how little there is to choose from today.

[RevAaron]

Have a look Exotic wood pens & Handmade pens , Sure you will get some idea...

 

I'm a bit confused- was Lanier Exotic Wood Pens a large chain of pen shops throughout small-town USA in the 50s and 60s? Musta slipped under the radar!

 

Aaron

[J English Smith]

My earliest pen stores out in Los Angeles - where I grew up - were McInerney's Stationers on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City and a large architect's supply store (darn, I'm blanking on the name) that was further out on Ventura, closer to Van Nuys. McInerney's was a lovely very traditional stationery store, unchanged from the late 40s. That's where I bought my very first Parker 75 and Mont Blanc Noblesse and classic series ballpoint around 1969 or 1970. Studio City was a nice, slightly sleepy place in the 60s, a great place to be a kid. There was also a great jewelry store not far from the stationers' that I am sure carried Sheaffers and some of the more "jewelry-like" pens. An era that has passed, alas...

[gyasko]

Let's say it's the late 50's early 60's and I'm in a medium sized town in the US and I want to buy a Sheaffer PFM or Parker 51. Where do I go?

 

I grew up in a town too small to have a pen shop. The nearest medium-sized town was Janesville. I think they had Parkers there back then.