Vintage Pen News

Collectors are talking about the pen shown above, coming up for sale at Rock Island Auctions later this month. That is, unless it gets pulled from the sale -- which might well happen, as I'll explain.The pen is a Wirt slip-cap dropper filler in black hard rubber with a gold filled "filigree" overlay. Normally worth several hundred, this one carries an auction estimate of $15,000...

Laughlin is not one of the better-known American pen manufacturers, though they came up with some unusual and innovative designs -- not so much in the way of styling so much as gadgeteering.When I saw this Laughlin at a show earlier in the year, it caught my eye as a somewhat oddly proportioned screw-cap dropper-filler. And then I noticed that the cap was two-piece.After unscrew...

This ad is from a 1910 issue of The Bookseller & Stationer, a Canadian trade periodical. It nicely illustrates how stationery stores would contract to have fountain pens (and other products) made under their own names, and that many pen companies were happy to supply them. Most were like Sanford & Bennett in being New York based and not in the top rank when it came to ma...