School Pens

[Deb]

My husband is a fountain pen fanatic too but unlike me he was brought up in Scotland. Here's what he has to say:

In those long-ago days when I was a kid teachers took it upon themselves to limit the writing instruments we could use. Horrible dip pens were permissible as were pencils and latterly fountain pens. Ballpoint pens were, it appeared, instruments of Satan himself and were viewed with deep distaste which made them all the more attractive to us kids. If you turned up with a clicky ballpoint and used it to make an irritating noise it was sure to be confiscated.

Most of our school work was done with a pencil. I liked pencils – still do. They allowed you to erase and correct your work, a handy attribute. And, of course, you could take a trip out to use the sharpener on the teacher's desk. Some of us, mostly boys, had a prized pocketknife with which we preferred to sharpen our pencils. You'd probably be expelled for bringing a pocketknife to school now but it was completely accepted then. I would stand over the waste paper basket whittling away at my pencil to produce a needle-sharp point. I loved the smell of the cedar-wood shavings of the pencil.

For certain exercises we had to use a fountain pen. Most of the better fountain pens were really expensive. My parents weren't well-off so there was no Conway Stewart or Blackbird for me. Some of the other kids had those enviable instruments but I – and most other kids – had cheap Platignums or Queensways. My first Platignums were lever fillers followed later by cartridge pens. Whichever they were they shared certain properties: a tendency to leave the user with inky fingers and even to drop a blob of ink on the page, a true disaster!

After I "lost" or rejected a couple of these fountain pens from hell my mother shopped around and found an Osmiroid. This was still a cheap pen but much better made. It came with an array of nibs and was intended to be used as a calligraphy pen. I settled on the "fine soft" nib and didn't use any of the others. I think I was eleven when I got it. It lasted me until I left school, never once inking me or my work. I wish I still had it.

By time I hit high school ballpoint pens were permissible. I had a succession of cheap ballpoints, never one of the Parkers that the snobby kids had. I never respected my ballpoints. Unlike the fountain pen, they were throwaway trash.

[oldstoat]

I too had Osmiroids and Platignums. On one occasion, having mislaid my own pen, I borrowed my grandfather's Parker 51- and lost it! I wasn't very popular at home.

[Jon Szanto]

Over on this side, I still have a fondness for the old Sheaffer School pens, cartridge affairs that were bomb proof (save for dropping, nib-down) and I still have a passle of them for fun. Wrote with them starting in junior high school and only had lapses in fp use, never really stopped.

[oldstoat]

I remember having an Osmiroid that I dropped nib down. Despite looking like Concorde on landing approach, it still wrote.

[Deb]

Oh my goodness! I imagine that caused some difficult silences!

[Deb]

Over on this side, I still have a fondness for the old Sheaffer School pens, cartridge affairs that were bomb proof (save for dropping, nib-down) and I still have a passle of them for fun. Wrote with them starting in junior high school and only had lapses in fp use, never really stopped.

Good pens. I have a few and enjoy them.

[Deb]

I remember having an Osmiroid that I dropped nib down. Despite looking like Concorde on landing approach, it still wrote.

They are tough pens and Osmiroid nibs are the kind you can reshape with a ball peen hammer.

[Paddler]

The year I started school was the year the nuns switched over from dip pens to Sheaffer cartridge pens. In the third grade, everyone got a clear pen and a little package of five cartridges (there was to be no fighting over pen colors). The ink was washable blue Skrip. We were only permitted to use these pens for handwriting class. We couldn't take them home or use them for journals, diaries, etc. I still have the old Sheaffer pen and it still writes well.

I so wanted to keep a journal that my aunt gave me a maroon-colored Wearever Pennant pen and a small bottle of blue Sanford ink. The Sanford ink didn't last long and was replaced with a bottle of washable blue Skrip. I still have the journals I wrote with that pen; the ink has nearly faded to palimpsest quality. I still debate transcribing those journals with better ink -- it is kid writing, after all.

[Jon Szanto]

BTW, here's the last gathering I did on a lot of Sheaffer school pens:

[Deb]

The year I started school was the year the nuns switched over from dip pens to Sheaffer cartridge pens. In the third grade, everyone got a clear pen and a little package of five cartridges (there was to be no fighting over pen colors). The ink was washable blue Skrip. We were only permitted to use these pens for handwriting class. We couldn't take them home or use them for journals, diaries, etc. I still have the old Sheaffer pen and it still writes well.

I so wanted to keep a journal that my aunt gave me a maroon-colored Wearever Pennant pen and a small bottle of blue Sanford ink. The Sanford ink didn't last long and was replaced with a bottle of washable blue Skrip. I still have the journals I wrote with that pen; the ink has nearly faded to palimpsest quality. I still debate transcribing those journals with better ink -- it is kid writing, after all.

It would be a pity to lose it.

[Deb]

BTW, here's the last gathering I did on a lot of Sheaffer school pens:

When I said I had one or two, I meant one or two. You have rather a lot more. Sixth from the top in green is the same as one of my favourites.

[Jon Szanto]

When I said I had one or two, I meant one or two. You have rather a lot more. Sixth from the top in green is the same as one of my favourites.

Before that buy I hadn't had any for quite s few years. This is the auction photo (part of the lot, anyway) and they all came in one bunch.

[Marsilius]

I love this thread. I started with No-nonsense and Wearevers from the local 7-11 like store when I was 8. Then Sheaffers, too. My mother bought me an Osmiroid calligraphy set when I was about 11 or 12 and I loved those pens. I think I even had a similar Platignum set. Of course now I dream of having them still, but I think none of them fared well in the end under constant use (and likely abuse).

[Fermata]

I think I used a Parker 45 for most of the time, although I remember owning a Sheaffer, that I now know as a Dolphin.

The pens were treated very badly, thrown into a leather satchel with excersise books, jotters and text books for homework which was then secured over the crossbar of my pushbike for the 3 mile ride home.

I was talking to a pen shop owner a couple of weeks a go and it has become a popular thing to do for two school children to go into his shop and buy a Lamy Safari each in different colors, they then swap the caps to show the world that they are best friends.

If anyone has an Empire State cap for a p51 to swap for my regular cap I will promise to be your new best friend.

[jmccarty3]

Back in the '50s we all had the original Sheaffer school pen with the clear barrel. The colors came later. I have two of them, one a fine and one a medium. It's amazing how well they write.

[View from the Loft]

For us in another Scottish school, it was pencils until we were 7 or 8, and then we moved onto FPs. I had an Osmiroid lever filler for four years until it went missing. It was replaced by my trusty P25, which took me through uni as well.

[Nathan Weston]

In the 80s in England it was all Parker Jotters or generic WHSmith "Cartridge Pens". I feel I missed out

[grainweevil]

In the 80s in England it was all Parker Jotters or generic WHSmith "Cartridge Pens". I feel I missed out

In the 80s I was all about Stypens. They didn't last, but their folded nibs did offer a fine line. For a while. No-one told me Sheaffers and Parkers could be had with a fine nib - it was, as now, mediums everywhere - or I might have had a pen worth recalling. My remaining school age pens are a no-name German knock-off of the No-Nonsense and a couple of rotring Art Pens.

Regarding Conwy Stewart envy, my dad apparently aspired to one in the 40s. No joy then, and it seems his experiences with the lever fillers he did have put him off them for life or I'd have happily fulfilled his ambition now. Sadly CS button fillers are few and far between.

[inklord]

....wish I still had my old 1968 Pelikano, or at least my first Safari from 1980 when I left school to go to college and the Safari was the coolest student pen imaginable!

[An old bloke]

My dad used Sheaffer pens and Parker black ink exclusively. It goes without saying that more than a couple of my school pens were Sheaffers as well. That said, I for some strange reason preferred Platignums, and Osmiroids.