Author Archives: Nathaniel Cerf

About Nathaniel Cerf

Nathaniel Cerf is the owner of ThePenMarket.com. He has been a fountain pen junkie since the age of 9, but his addiction got out of control around 2004, when he began to learn the art of fountain pen repair.

In addition to his pen activities, Nathaniel is a professional writer with a master’s degree in journalism from The University of Montana. A former Gannett newspaper editor, he has also been published in magazines as diverse as Montana Journalism Review, Nostalgia Digest, American Fencing (that’s swords not barb wire or picket) and True Confessions. His photography has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Argus Leader and American Fencing.

The blogosphere knows Mr. Cerf from “The Hat Chronicals” at www.hats-plus.com, where he created and currently maintains a blog committed to fedoras, pork pies and the history of headwear. He also originated a movie review blog for DVDPlanet.com.

Nathaniel is currently shopping an expose novel he has written about the children’s mental health industry. (Yep, he has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, too.)

If that isn’t enough to keep him busy, he coaches and competes in fencing. He maintains a national rating in foil, but he also dabbles in epee. (That’s the weird sword crossword puzzles always use.) He also continues perfecting the formula for peanut butter and mustard sandwiches and Flaming Hot Orgasmic Tacos from Hell.

Pen Tip #2: I Flushed My Pen. So Why Am I Still Getting Ink on My Hands?

By on October 14, 2013
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A Q-tip can be one of your best tools for helping to clean out a pen cap and keeping your fingers from getting inky. Even after rinsing this Sheaffer Lifetime cap, you can still see plenty of ink on the cotton.

A Q-tip can be one of your best tools for helping to clean out a pen cap and keeping your fingers from getting inky. Even after rinsing this Sheaffer Lifetime cap, you can still see plenty of ink on the cotton.

Periodically flushing your pen with water often helps eliminate leaks as well as helping to get your nib to start writing well, again, as we discussed in Pen Tip #1.

Nevertheless, after you’ve gotten your pen cleaned and filled, you notice that you still have a little or a lot of ink on your fingers the next morning after you’ve decided to write with it.

The trouble often comes from old ink still inside your cap. Even if you rinsed your cap when you flushed your pen, that is not usually nearly enough to get all the old ink out.

Inside the caps of nearly all vintage and modern pens is an inner cap. It usually seals the nib compartment of your cap when the section (writing grip) of your pen screws up and against it. This keeps your pen from drying out. However, as fountain pens are wont to occasionally leak, drip or see some evaporation with heat, ink gets into these inner caps. Worse, it gets between your inner cap and outer cap shell. Once enough accumulates, your fingers are bound to get inked.

Your best bet is to soak your cap overnight in room temperature water.

Are you sensing a theme? Room temperature water and soakings are our friend.

Make sure the whole cap is immersed, and make sure that there is no air trapped inside the cap.

After a good, long soak, shake the cap empty over a sink. This gets messy in a hurry, so be careful.

Your next move is to hold the cap under running room-temperature water from the tap while scrubbing its insides with a small plastic-brissle brush that is like a toothbrush but smaller. Some hardware stores, tobacco shops and gun shops sell ones that work pretty well. I often use a plastic-brissle brush I found in an air rifle cleaning kit. I don’t have an air rifle to clean, but I spent the money just to get that little brush used on the air rifle barrels. Whatever you do, do not use a metal-wire brush used on regular hand guns and rifles. It will tear apart your cap.

Once the ink stops coming out of the cap in the sink, shake out the cap again. Use a Q-tip to dry out the cap. Odds are good that there is still plenty of ink in the cap, and you will go through many Q-tips trying to clean it out. You will have to keep getting Q-tips wet to keep getting the old gunk out. Pay special attention to the cap threads and the lip of the inner cap. Keep cleaning until you are satisfied.

This process takes a while, but if you only have one or two pens you have to do this for, it is worth just doing this to them once every several years. If you are a hardcore collector, we can discuss inner cap pullers and ultrasonic cleaners on another day.

Click here to see the finished restoration of the Sheaffer Lifetime cap in the photo above.

Please write in with your pen repair questions.

Parker Pens Win WWII–Revised

By on October 10, 2013
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It is hardly ground-breaking news that Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed the “Instrument of Surrender” ending World War II with Japan while using a Parker Duofold “Big Red” (among other pens) on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri. It is a fact Parker touts time and again, even making a commemorative series of modern Duofolds to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower holds up 2 of the pens used to sign the German surrender, ending World War II in Europe in May of 1945. One of those pens is a Parker 51, which is now on display in Paris' Musee de l'Armee.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower holds up 2 of the pens used to sign the German surrender, ending World War II in Europe in May of 1945. One of those pens is a Parker 51, which is now on display in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.

In the late 1920s, the Parker Duofold was advertised as being indestructable. Surviving WWII and bringing it to an end seemed elegant proof. Yet, people of the era fussed a bit about the famous general using such and old out-of-date pen–as if years of dependable service didn’t matter.

Rarely, however, is it mentioned what pen General Dwight Eisenhower used to sign the surrender of the German army.

I, myself, would not have known had it not been for a trip to Paris several years ago and a flurry of messages today. I love military history and could not pass up the chance to see “L’ Invalides” where Napoleon rests in his giant sarcophagus. Part of the grounds holds Musee de l’ Armee (a.k.a. The Museum of the Army). It was phenomenal. The swords and armor, the WWI tanks, the early rifles and muskets of the 1600s and a large display about the French Resistance and WWII.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed a peace agreement with the Japanese using a Parker Duofold "Big Red" similar to this one in August 1945.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed a peace agreement with the Japanese using a Parker Duofold “Big Red” similar to this one in August 1945. I don’t believe MacArthur’s Duofold was streamlined, though.

My eyes, long accostumed to spotting vintage pens in cluttered antique stores, instantly picked out a pen among a somewhat cluttered case full of war documents. It was the ugliest Parker 51 I had ever seen. It was olive drab, and the gold cap was tarnished almost beyond recognition. That led me to ask, what was an American fountain pen doing in the French army museum. The answer: It is the pen Gen. Dwight Eisenhower used to sign the documents of the German surrender. Or so I thought…

Several weeks before writing this post I contacted the Musee de l’Armee to send me a photo of the famous Parker 51 and any information they had about it. I did not hear from them until after the original draft of this story posted.

“We didn’t have any pen once owned by General Eisenhower,” wrote a museum employee. “The only one we have in our collection is the pen of General de Lattre de Tassigny used to sign the surrender of Germany in 1945.”

Without the presence of mind in 2010 to photograph the historic pen, I was only left with my memory, which was certain it was a Parker 51 belonging to the future president. If I had only known then that I was going to create a blog in 3 1/2 years.

Later today help came in form of one of the ultimate authorities about Parker pens: Geoff Parker, the grandson of the famous Parker CEO who gave Ike the very Parker 51s used to sign the armistice with Germany!

“The actual story behind that photo is a bit more complicated,” Parker wrote. “My grandfather, Kenneth Parker, and Eisenhower happened to meet in the Philippines in 1937 and became good friends. The two stayed in contact for many years. KP provided Parker 51s to Eisenhower as the end of the war approached. The Eisenhower Presidential Museum/Library in Kansas displays the 51 used in that ceremony which Eisenhower presented to President Truman. There were probably more than one, in order to represent each of the Allies.”

As if getting the rest of the story from Mr. Parker wasn’t already enough to blow this lifetime collector’s mind, he very kindly sent me a photo he took of the actual Parker 51 on display at the Eisenhower Library that ended World War II.

Geoff Parker took this photo of the actual Parker 51 his grandfather gave to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that was used to sign the armistice with Germany ending World War II in Europe. It is preserved in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum.

Geoff Parker took this photo of the actual Parker 51 his grandfather gave to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that was used to sign the armistice with Germany ending World War II in Europe. It is preserved in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum.

This modified Parker Duofold from around 1930 was used by French General de Lattre de Tassigny to sign the German surrender that ended World War II. The photo was given to us by the Musee de l' Armee in Paris. The twist of the story is that this is not the pen that started the whole story in the first place. Where is that Parker 51?

This modified Parker Duofold from around 1930 was used by French General de Lattre de Tassigny to sign the German surrender that ended World War II. The photo was given to us by the Musee de l’ Armee in Paris. The twist of the story is that this is not the pen that started the whole story in the first place. Where is that Parker 51?

The plot thickens: It is now October 17, and I have received a photo of the pen used by France’s Gen. de Lattre de Tassigny. It is a unique Parker Duofold circa 1930 with a glittering red candy finish and black flecks. Those Parkers are rare. Rarer still is the fact this one is missing its original Parker clip and has an after-market steel clip wedged over the broken clip and top of the pen. We actually have an original fully intact version of this pen for sale at ThePenMarket.com.

Now do you think the story is over? Of course not. This is not the pen I saw in Paris at the Musee de l’ Armee! I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I saw a Parker 51 in a case. I am more certain once again it is a pen marked as Gen. Eisenhower’s. Geoff Parker said Ike likely used several Parker 51’s to sign the surrender and gave them to each allied nation. So perhaps that is the pen he gave France. But, why doesn’t the museum have it cataloged?

Unless I beat you to Paris, pen fans, you have a mission: Find and photograph that pen! Please submit it so that we can share it with everyone on this blog and put this story to bed. It might be like finding a needle in a haystack, but here is where I remember seeing it if it helps your quest to find it. The pen was in a waist high glass case, in a room dedicated to World War II on the main floor. It was a room that I recall having two entrances–one on each side of the room but on the same wall. This case was on the right side of the room if you stood facing the case and the exit. When I was there, the WWII exhibit looked as if it hadn’t been moved, changed or altered since the 1950s. I suspect it is still there waiting for one of us. Good luck on your quest.

Does this Old Sheaffer Ad Disturb You?

By on September 29, 2013
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Vintage fountain pen ads are always entertaining. Often hoaky, and usually too wordy, they wouldn’t hold up in today’s ad campaigns. These days 10 words and an oversized, engaging image is thought of as a solid ad. In the early 1920s, you’d get several paragraphs, if not a complete page of copy, that few people read all the way through.

Sheaffer Lifetime pen set ad

Here is a Sheaffer Christmas ad from the 1920s. Is it romantic or disturbing? Let us know.

Early attempts at more image heavy ads seem to convey odd messages. No doubt this Sheaffer ad was supposed to be highly romantic. The couple sure looks swell in their evening clothes.

However, on closer examination, doesn’t it seem–a generation after the women’s lib movement–highly disturbing that the man is holding the woman’s hand as she writes. First off, who can write with someone holding their hand? Second, isn’t it almost creepy that he could well be trying to control her hand?

With one hand on her hip, it looks as if she has moxie enough to squirt that guy in the eye with her vintage Sheaffer fountain pen. Nevertheless, he’s still there guiding away.

Oddly missing is an obvious price. Only in the fine print can you discover that the rolled gold set is $16 and the solid gold set is $68. Imagine a solid gold pen-pencil set today going for $68. At the time, however, a Model T Ford was going for somewhere in the vicinity of $200. No doubt you could have gotten a used car for less than $68.

In case you can’t read the normal-sized text, the copy is written from the woman’s perspective, thanking the man for the fountain pen and pencil set. She describes the box the set comes in as “cunning.” She also establishes that “all” women hate sharpening pencils and that the companion mechanical pencil is basically making all of her dreams a reality.

To blazes with diamond rings, necklaces, flowers, chocolates and other traditional gifts of love on Christmas. What every woman really wants is a mechanical pencil in a cunning box so she doesn’t have to sharpen any more pencils.

Why didn’t somebody tell me that years ago?! At least I know I won’t be single this Yuletide season.

Comments and responses are welcome.

A Pen for the Highest Office

By on September 25, 2013
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I like to envision elements of this new blog as a cocktail party for pen collectors. Who else would start a conversation with a total stranger by asking, “Did you know so-and-so writes with a ______ pen?” It can’t be any worse than, “Hey, baby, what’s your sign?” (Scorpio)

Everybody uses a pen, but it is interesting to see who uses what. As this blog grows, I hope to identify the pens used by movie stars, politicians (both parties), athletes and anybody else who has made the news. One of the great pleasures of getting to know pen collectors is discovering many share my interest in random trivia.

I fully encourage readers to send in images and ideas for this series of posts.

To get us started, I figured who best to turn to than the person who has the world’s most powerful autograph.

President Barack Obama is well known for using special Cross Townsend rollerball pens to sign bills into law. The stalwart American-made pens are black with silver trim. Official signing pens are custom made with the commander-in-chief’s signature and a presidential seal. The pen’s inner brass barrel construction gives the writing instrument a nice weight and balance. When I used to sell pens at a store in a mall, Townsends were a popular model that wrote just as smoothly as a Mont Blanc Meisterstuck Classique for a third of the price.

Please note in the photo that it does not appear our president is a pen collector, as he posts the distinctive cap on the tail of the pen. Mr. President, that will wear on the pen and ruin its finish. Of course, if any of us were lucky enough to own a signing ceremony pen from any president, it probably wouldn’t matter much that it had a little surface wear.

Parker 21, Parker 45 & Esterbrook Fountain Pens

By on September 20, 2013
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If you have been visiting our vintage pens pages lately, you might find yourself asking, “Self, what’s with all of the cheap Parkers and Esterbrooks?”

We sell more vintage Esterbrook pens than any other brand. These copper-colored Esterbrooks are my personal favorite of the options available, but our most popular colors are blue, grey and black.

We sell more vintage Esterbrook pens than any other brand. These copper-colored Esterbrooks are my personal favorite of the options available, but our most popular colors are blue, grey and black.

It is simple enough my friends. Esterbrooks are the most popular pens we sell at ThePenMarket.com. We generally can’t keep them in stock. As for the inexpensive Parkers, we had so many expensive pens on the vintage pens pages, we thought it would be nice to offer a high-quality entry pen to the site for people just looking to get into writing with fountain pens.

But then there is one more reason.

ThePenMarket.com recently acquired an amazing collection of rarer, harder to find vintage pens dating back to the turn of the last century. We’re talking hard rubber and silver filigree fountain pens. Think Waterman 12, Waterman 52, Waterman 54 and a beautiful sterling silver Waterman 452. We’ve got Parker Duofolds and Vacs. Sheaffer Lifetimes and Balances. Maybe some Mabie Todd. Perhaps some sterling and gold no names. You’ll quiver with delight at the senior Conklin Enduras with remarkable color clarity.

We’ve got 120 classic vintage pens to catalog, restore and post for sale.

Are you salivating yet? When they arrive online would you rather they be the first things you see or have them buried under 2 dozen steel nib beauties. That’s what we thought. In the coming weeks and months, e-fist fights might breakout over the first daily opportunity to buy these glorious fountain pen wonders of yesteryear.

Pen Tip #1: Why Is My Favorite Nib Starting to Skip?

By on September 18, 2013
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If you find that your favorite fountain pen won’t write any more or the nib is starting to skip and have trouble writing, it is quite possible your nib and inkfeed are clogging with old dried ink.

Soaking a fountain pen is often one of the fastest ways to help it write better. Just stick the nib in a cup of water, but not too deep--just enough to soak the nib and the inkfeed beneath it. This leaches out the old dried ink and helps to loosen the remaining ink inside the pen. Once the nib is clean, it likely will write as good as new.

Soaking a fountain pen is often one of the fastest ways to help it write better. Just stick the nib in a cup of water, but not too deep–just enough to soak the nib and the inkfeed beneath it. This leaches out the old dried ink and helps to loosen the remaining ink inside the pen. Once the nib is clean, it likely will write as good as new.

Infrequent use where you let your ink dry out inside the pen can often lead to clogged nibs and inkfeeds. Sometimes heavy use also leads to the same problem. If you fill and write your pen dry twice a week for years on end, the ink still builds up over time.

As a repairman, I find this is actually one of the most common problems pen users face. Whenever possible, I try to save my customers money with this simple advice.

Try to never let your pen dry out. If you know you won’t be using it for a while, empty it back into the inkwell or out in the sink. Of course, even constant use or careful emptying can lead to ink build up, eventually.

Always remember that room temperature tap water is your friend. (Hot and cold water can ruin your pen.) I find many repairs are easily avoided with a little H2O. Simply soak your pen overnight in a small cup or baby food jar, as in the photo. Don’t immerse the entire pen. Just soak the nib up to the section. The section is the part by which you most likely grip the pen. It is the black grip on this Parker Vacumatic. You can already see the old ink leaching off the nib.

After you let the pen soak for a few hours, the old ink remaining in the pen is softened. Empty out the container and fill it with more room temperature water. Then fill the pen with water several times, until the water is a uniform ink color. Empty and repeat until the pen starts running clear.

Empty the pen of water, and then shake out the remaining water over the sink. Be careful, that slightly tinted water sprays all over. Try your best to keep it in the sink. Wipe down the nib and inkfeed underneath with a paper towel. This helps drain out the last of the ink. I usually let the pen air dry for the remainder of the day. This way, when I refill the pen, the ink doesn’t seem watered down.

Welcome to The Pen Market.com’s Blog

By on September 14, 2013
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Hello, and welcome!

It has been a long time coming, but we are very happy to have our very own blog. It is a space dedicated to pen lovers old and new. In it we hope to entertain our readers and customers with pen history, classic–if not somewhat cheesy–pen ads, repair advice and much more.

One of our upcoming favorite features will be trying to identify the pens of famous people. We will also try to identify the pens you see in the movies!

As for further entertainment, we might even add fun musings, short stories, song parodies or more.

Naturally, we’ll keep you up to date on all of the latest and greatest things happening at ThePenMarket.com, to make sure you don’t miss out on great bargains or rare pens.

Last, but not least, we want to learn about you. Ask us questions. Tell us about you. We love better getting to know our customers, and we want to do all we can to make your shopping and reading experience the best one you have online!

Tell your friends, and come back soon.

Yours,
Nathaniel Cerf
President, Repairman
ThePenMarket.com