My dream was to buy an electric pencil sharpener but I could never really justify spending that much money
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No, it’s true.
Had a quick look and found this
Manuscript Left Handed Nib Italic Pen https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002KGETEK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_i_A37DZWTMR03EBZQ5RA7X
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Me too. But I think I’d just grind the pencils down to a nib playing with the electric sharpener.
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Thinking back I remember buying A3 pads of blotting paper and putting one down on my desk at home so it looked like a proper desk and cutting up other sheets to fit into the metal geometry set my school gave out to us and which helix still make, but our free ones didn’t have the printing on them. I remember buying one for my son when he was younger. I also remember having a wooden pencil box which had a sliding lid which meant you could slide it back and swivel the top half round to uncover some extra pens and pencils in the bottom half.
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The clever ones must have had some sort of switch in them so it turned off when the pencil was sharp enough.
I hope that we’re not taking the thread off track too much
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Crikey well you live and learn I guess. It’s funny but looking at the price I think it hasn’t changed since the 70s. I recall they were very pricey and you didn’t want to lose your pen. Do you remember Parker pens Melgal? They had a special stylish looking arrow type thingy (not sure what the thing to hook it on your pocket is called). I remember yearning for a gold one.
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I remember parker pens but my parents bought me a Shaffer when I started secondary school. It had cartridges but also a special cartridge with a lever so you could fill it from a bottle of Quink ink.
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My lovely aunty gave me a gold Parker for my 21st birthday - not a faountain pen thoough, just a biro. I still use it often.
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Ah yes those were also very nice, were they not pricier than parker? We had bottles of quink in the house because my brother would use the stuff to draw his engineering plans for his degree. He had a massive board with clips and we always had tubes full of painstakingly created scrolls of tracing paper with very neat diagrams. The ink graduated to special pens with very fine tips the like of which I have never seen since. He had books on concrete and minerals, it was quite an education (for me!) a voracious reader I would pick up every book when he was away from home in halls.
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We’re those rotring pens? One of my uncles had to do tec drawings and had a set. Think you can still get them.
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Ah yes you might be right it rings a bell now you mention the name. They were black and the tip was almost as thin as a needle.
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Funny but that first cheap pen was a Parker. It’s plastic. Best pen ever. Smooth as butter. But I’m afraid to use it much now because the plastic turns brittle over time. It does have the arrow on the clip. Didn’t know that was a thing.
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They used to be made of metal, not sure which type but they were not lightweight. Possibly gold plated. They had a special case too.
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i certainly remember the ink wells even in my primary school I also remember a girl who sat it front of me called Geraldine Blanche. She had the most wonderful long pigtails and as a sign of my undying love for her I dipped as much of her pigtails into my inkwell as was possible.
Alas it was unrequited love and she didn’t speak to me for days afterwards.
I do remember those cartridge pens, I never had one myself my pens always had a rubber reservoir and a little lever on the side of the pen, but it was possible to refill the cartridges with ink from a bottle by squeezing them and sucking the ink up into them. I think you immediately had to put them into the pen.
As I said I don’t miss fountain pens at all, the nibs were far too fragile for school kids. A retired lawyer friend recently described them to me as being for lawyers, artists and wankers.
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lol I wonder what those people have in common besides fountain pens.
Here, you have to have a bit of money to really get into it. You can’t just go to the local store and buy a fountain pen. They don’t carry them. Not even in stationary stores anymore. So people go to pen shows or order them online. Specialized stores aren’t cheap, for the most part.
Amazon carries some cheap pens along with eBay but you don’t always know what you’ll get.
Many people on fountain pen forums are doctors and lawyers. Business people less so, it seems to me.
there are fountain pen forums?!
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Completely off piste but we’re being nostalgic, but does anyone remember proper tobacconists? We found one a few years ago in Bolton of all places, long story don’t ask. But it smelt lovely in there and my husband decided to smoke a pipe instead of cigs, so for a few weeks our house smelt nice without the need for our usual sprays.
He gave up after a bit since the gunk coming out of the pipe was a bit scary. Strangely, it was one of the few times that we actually used pipe cleaners for there intended purposes lol.
Haha. Several. With some of the nicest people around.
There was a guy who had to sell his pens when he lost his job during covid and posted to say he just bought a new pen. Within a few days, he had a sizeable collection from people sending him pens. Wasn’t that unusual for that forum. People there are savvy about scammers. They didn’t care either way.
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We are lucky - there are two shops in town dedicated to fountain pens - prices ranging from £4 to £400 - and more!
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My writing is atrocious and a fountain pen won’t improve it, but I remember them well from school if I recall correctly a Christmas present used to be one from an aunt.
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