Richard’s Pen Collection : Vintage American Ballpoint Pens & Pencils

Writing instruments on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. Click the magnifying-glass symbol () next to any pen to view a zoomed image for more detail.

What pens am I carrying today?

Next are my Parker Big Red pens (clip-type men’s and ringtop ladies’ versions) from about 1972. The Big Red, an obvious tribute to the Parker Duofold of the Roaring ’20s, played heavily on the wave of nostalgia that swept the U.S.A. in the early ’70s. It’s patterned after the Streamlined Duofold that appeared in 1929, and advertising for it featured a “Roaring Twenties” cartoon that is a virtual copy of “Teaching old Dogs new tricks,” a February 18, 1926, Life Magazine cover by John Held, Jr., that shows a couple dancing the Charleston. (The Parker version subtracts about 30 years from the couple’s ages and adds a ringtop Big Red flying at the end of the rejuvenated girl’s necklace.) My men’s Big Red is 5¹/₂" capped and 5¹³/₁₆" posted. Including its ring mount but not the ring or chain, the ringtop is 5⁵/₃₂" capped — distinctly shorter than the men’s version — and 4¹⁷/₃₂" uncapped. (Posting a ringtop makes little sense…)

This little gem, a Kimberly Pockette by Eversharp, is my smallest ballpoint; it’s only 3²⁵/₆₄" capped and 5³/₃₂" posted. Eversharp bought out the Kimberly company and began marketing this Tuckaway-like short/long pen in 1947. The Kimberly used a refill that was completely different from that in the CA, and the pen didn’t suffer the reliability disaster that almost put Eversharp out of business. In fact, it must have sold reasonably well because there are a surprising number of trim variations. Mine sits at about the middle of the range, and I bought it because it’s cute. It also lacks the Eversharp logo, suggesting that it was one of the pens that were already in inventory when the buyout happened.

No, this isn’t the first mechanical pencil in my collection. But this 5⁷/₁₆" Scripto K780 Classic pencil is probably the archetypical school pencil of the 1950s. It’s a 1988 reissue of the first mechanical pencils I ever owned, the great “spiral” pencils I bought every September when it came time to trudge back to school after the all-too-brief summer hiatus that had seemed endless in June. Along with new Foremost jeans (Penney’s house brand, featuring a roomier cut in the crotch and extra-dark indigo dye), a 3-ring binder wtih 3-to-the-inch ruled paper, a new 12-inch ruler, a Pink Pearl eraser, and a shiny box of 32 fresh Crayolas (64 if you were rich), those Scripto pencils were de rigeur at the Whittier Elementary School. The only difference between the pencils I got then and this one is that this one was made in Mexico, not the good ol’ U.S. of A. Oh, and they had red erasers back then. Ah, nostalgia…

The 1930s saw the birth and death of Rhode Island’s Tri-Pen Company, which produced pens and pencils with a triangular cross section. They were elegant pens, but the cap design was problematical, and pen manufacture was very short lived. Pencils lasted longer. This pencil was probably used as a promotional giveaway by the Thurston Manufacturing Company, whose name is engraved on the barrel. The absence of the Triad name and logo that were prominently imprinted on the clips of both pens and pencils marks it as one of Tri-Pen’s lesser models. (There was for a time some doubt in my mind as to whether my pencil was even a Tri-Pen product, but its pedigree has been confirmed by two of pencildom’s most knowledgeable collectors.)