HISTORY

Nathaniel Cerf became a fountain pen junkie at the age of 9, when his grandmother gave him his late grandfather’s 1928 Sheaffer Lifetime -- a pen he cherishes and uses to this day.

As an adult, Nathaniel befriended a former fountain pen repairman who eventually taught him the art of restoring vintage pens. Obsessed with a new hobby, Nathaniel learned to fix lever-fillers, button-fillers, Vacumatics, and Touchdowns. (Snorkels still bedevil him.)

With more restored pens than he could possibly use, Nathaniel opened a booth at a Sioux Falls, S.D., antique mall called the Proud Panda. He sold nearly 75 pens, ranging from Esterbrooks to a Parker True Blue, in several years.

Having finally returned to his native Chicago, Nathaniel developed the idea for the ultimate internet pen site. Teaming with web gurus at Computer Friendly Associates, Nathaniel hopes to keep the site a continuously improving place for pen fans everywhere.

And if you really wondered what he does with all the pens he collects, he really does write with them. He’s been published in magazines ranging from Montana Journalism Review to True Confessions. If you are a book editor, he’s currently shopping two books: a dark-comedy murder mystery and an expose about the children’s mental health industry much akin to Upton Sinclair’s "The Jungle." (Did we mention he’s a shameless self promoter?)