With Pen in Hand
The practice of putting pen to paper may be severely stunted, but it’s far from dead. People still use pens to take notes, write letters and append signatures to documents of all sorts. Of course the kind of pen used depends on the kind of person and the task at hand. Can you imagine President Bush signing an important treaty with a 79-cent ballpoint? Or the flashy Trump inking an artful deal with less than an 18-karat-gold nib? Do corporate titans jot notes with pens less distinctive than they imagine themselves to be?
Of course not. You can tell there’s a huge market for upscale and vintage pens by scanning glossy pen publications, or the high-powered pen activity on the Web--or by eavesdropping on the approximately 2,000 pen aficionados who packed the Manhattan Beach Marriott ballroom at the recent 14th annual Los Angeles International Pen Show.
These are not the sort of men and women who’d ever buy shrink-wrapped models at the market. They are collectors, folks who started with one fine pen and suddenly found themselves stockpiling as many as they could handle. If you’re imagining a group of fusty ink-stained codgers, you’re way off base. The place was jumping with technophiles so invested in the future that they seemed to have a heightened appreciation for the fleeting present and the hallowed past. Many say they have thought long and hard about civilization, about the fact that knowledge has survived largely because it has been passed directly by hand, via writing on stone, then parchment and then paper. They are not about to let the tradition die.
Some of the 158 booths were showcases for top-of-the-line pen firms, but the real draw, the reason collectors traveled from 15 countries to be there, was to meet and greet pen lovers as passionate as themselves, with whom they could trade, sell and swap--or just brag a bit.
Chris Odgers, a show co-sponsor, is the director of technology at Warner Bros. He collects early Parker fountain pens, made in the 1890s to 1920s. His wife and little boy were with him at the table where he displayed elegant examples, some of which he was willing to sell or trade. Mostly, he was there to buy, he said. He kept his real treasures hidden beneath the display table in a plastic tackle box, each individually wrapped in cloth. Among them, a Parker “bullet pen” from 1917, used by soldiers to write letters home during World War I. It looks like a real bullet, but opens to reveal a nib.
Soldiers filled these with ink from eyedroppers before going into battle, Odgers said, then attached the pens to their watch chains for use in the trenches at quiet times. Just looking at the well-worn metal casing makes you hear guns of war in your head, makes you wonder whose hands held this pen, who its owner wrote to, and whether he survived. This one was not for sale. For his daily writing enjoyment, Odgers has a selection of more modern writing instruments, he said. He pulled from his pocket the Agatha Christie, made by Mont Blanc in about 1993. It’s a reproduction of a 1920s model--a full-bodied shape in gleaming black, with emerald eyes staring from the head of a sterling silver serpent that coils down the cap to form the clip.
There are two kinds of pen people, it turns out: those who collect to save, and those who collect to use. Many at the show were both kinds rolled into one. They own valuable vintage pens that they display but never use, and a different set they rotate for use on a daily basis.
“We’re all little kids in this room,” said Bert Hurlbut, a construction manager for the new UCLA medical center building in Westwood. He was carrying some vintage pens from his collection so he could play a favorite game. “I go up to a guy and flop one of my pens on the table. He flops down a better one of his. I flop down an even better one of mine. We go on like this until he says, ‘You’ve got me.’ At that point, I’ve won.”
Hurlbut opens his jacket to reveal a shirt pocket packed with pens and two huge patch pockets sewn into the jacket on either side, each of which is packed with pens. They are individually wrapped in chamois and in little plastic bags. “I’ve got at least 30 in here, he says, patting a huge pocket. I’ve got one that’s astronomical--a Parker ribbon pen from 1905. And a Waterman filigree, 1911.” Pen people never need to utter the word “pen” when referring to their stash. It’s always a specific make and style, as in: Parker “Big Red,” a Parker 51, a Pelikan Green, a Sheaffer Legacy. Hurlbut says he’s partial to Parkers.
Stephen Overbury, originally of Toronto, is a self-described “expert dealer” in Japanese lacquer fountain pens. “These pens cannot be forged,” he said. “The art of lacquer is 9,000 years old. It takes up to six months to make one pen. For an artist to learn lacquer, it can take up to 30 years.” He has written a self-published pen book, “Namiki: The Art of Japanese Lacquer,” and has even established residence in Japan to be closer to the source.
Some of the most valuable lacquer pens were made in the ‘20s and ‘30s for Alfred Dunhill, he said, and were known as the Dunhill-Namikis. The costliest example he knows of sold for $500,000. Overbury says he sold seven “very expensive vintage models to dealers from Europe” who flew in for the show. But that was not a lacquer pen sticking out of his pocket, however. It was Diamond Jim Brady’s very own hand-sculpted solid-gold scrollwork fountain pen, dotted with diamonds, made at the turn of the century and taken on consignment by Overbury from its current owner for possible sale at the show.
Also on Overbury’s table, in its original case, was a comfortingly simple plastic Parker pen and pencil set. It was beige--as bland and benign-looking as the man who allegedly once owned it: President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Overbury and others at the show declined to state prices for their most valuable vintage items. They all wheel and trade--and no price is firm until a deal is made. In one transaction, a French pen dealer who had flown in from Paris for the show was seen handing over a stack of hundreds a few inches high.
The Parisian, Christophe Larquemin, wasn’t just buying. He was also hawking his own innovation: a limited-edition fountain pen made from a “genuine meteorite” mixed with powdered gold. “There will be only 20 of these for the whole world. They will cost $6,000 each,” he said. To whom would he sell them? “Oh, there is no lack of buyers for such things,” he said. Scott Summerfield, a communications consultant from Newark, Calif., brought his son Zachary, 6, to the show. “This is my grandfather’s Parker 51, from the 1940s, with his name engraved on it,” the elder Summerfield said. Then his little boy piped up: “I have a Pelikan, a Parker, a Sheaffer and a Waterman.” Yes, but you’re not allowed to use pens in school--only crayons, right? “I keep them at my house and use them there. I never take them out, “ Zachary said. His father gives a fountain pen to all the children in Zachary’s and his older sister’s class every year. “They’ve never heard of fountain pens, never seen one, certainly never used one. I want them to know,” he said.
Norman Fenton, a retired superior court judge, flew in from Tucson with his 15-year-old grandson. “I use pens, I save pens, I enjoy it all,” Fenton said. “I wanted to give my grandson a taste of it.”
Jonathan Steinberg, who has homes in London and New York, hit Manhattan Beach with what he called “the only pen like this at the show.” It is an Omega gold pierced and engraved safety pen from the 1920s, with extraordinary little cupids sculpted all along the barrel. It is “signed by the artist and will sell for around $60,000 to $70,000,” Steinberg said.
Stan Pfeiffer, a Houston medical and legal malpractice lawyer, brought part of his eclectic collection, including an onyx and pearl Parker from the 1920s and a modern Waterman roller ball that he uses every day. The bulk of his collection is in a safety deposit box, he says. An Parker Aztec, made in 1905, which is in pre-plastic days, is made of hard rubber covered with gold overlay design. “The pens I most treasure, like that one, are not really good writing implements. Before 1915, everything was beautifully made by hand, but they hadn’t yet perfected the nibs. In 1915, they began adding iridium to the top, so that the pen would write smoothly and not scratch the paper any more.”
Holding court along the back wall was Susan Wirth of Milwaukee, a collector, seller and specialist “in pens that write a certain way.” Although her vocation is market research--”everything from ovarian cancer to lightweight concrete”--she says she’s known in the pen world as “an expert in nib extremes.” She fits pens with needle-grade nibs for super-tiny script, extra-broad nibs for more flamboyant writing, knows all about nibs for italics and other specialized tasks, she says. “This is a great postcard pen,” Wirth told an inveterate traveler. “This one’s not a beauty queen, but it’s a great performer,” she told a man who asked for “something dignified and simple” for everyday use. She cares not a whit for the exotic or unique--unless it really works. “Think how sad a little pen feels if it’s not doing what it was meant to do,” she explains.
One of dozens who flocked to her table was Dennis Lawton of Los Angeles, whose sentiments echo her own.
Lawton says he has 20 collectible pens and uses all of them all the time. “I sell insurance, and every day I use a different great pen. I wouldn’t own one I couldn’t use. I’ve already started my kids using pens. That’s because they use computers every day and they’ve lost all connection with paper. I want them to connect.”