Hey! Any of us Cadiphiles collect fountain pens?

[Red_October_7000]

Not so much "collect" as "Inherited a double handful". That said one of them, a cheap Sheaffer's, became my everyday pen because it writes very smoothly and produces a line finer than a Japanese-made archival-grade ceramic-tip drafting pen, not to mention is easier to use than the latter, which requires a very precise touch, and will either damage or be damaged by certain types of paper. My grandmother's Esterbrook got me through highschool with all the writing I had to do, since my hand cramps up very easily when writing and the ease of using a fountain pen helps this problem since you basically glide it over the paper. I have several cheap Sheaffer's, the Esterbrook, a Parker Duofold (a black original type unique to the year 1928), some weird old knock-off pen, a few Sheaffer's caligraphy pens, a couple Parker "51"s and Vacumatics, and so on. Most of them write or just need a cleaning, only the Duofold and the old knock-off need a new sac, and while the Duofold will definitely see repair, the knock-off is so poorly made the I don't really care. It's an heirloom, though, so I'll hold onto it. I did dip the Duofold to see how it wrote; there is nothing on earth like a fountain pen from the days when this was how 90% of the population wrote.

[dkozloski]

Anybody besides me remember the good old days of fountain pens before pressurized airliners? You get to your destination and find that your pen unloaded itself into your pocket all over your white shirt.

[orconn]

Originally Posted by dkozloski

Anybody besides me remember the good old days of fountain pens before pressurized airliners? You get to your destination and find that your pen unloaded itself into your pocket all over your white shirt.

Gee whiz, Koz, you mean they were still flying Ford Tri-Motors into Fairbanks in the early 1950's! Even the DC-3s and DC-4s that I was flying around Brazil at that time were pessurized. I do remember the sleeves the airlines used to hand out, along with the gum, to put your fountain pen in to protect your shirt during flight. But even three years ago I cautioned people against taking a partially full fountain pen with them when they fly. Either full or empty is the best way to avoid a leaking fountain pen when there are changes in the air pressure.

[dkozloski]

There is no such thing as a pressurized DC-3 or DC-4. They don't have the structure for cabin pressure. The first of the Douglas Commercial series of aircraft to have cabin pressurization was the DC-6. The first pressurized airliner was the Boeing Stratoliner, a B-17 derivative and only ten were built. The first pressurized airliner in post WWII service was the Lockheed Constellation flown by TWA.

[orconn]

Come to think of it, I don't think we flew that high in those days. Even when I flew back to the States on a Douglas DC-6B (Braniff) we flew through the Andes and not over them (I have the pictures to prove it). Guess that's why we always got chewing gum to clear our ears from the stewardess before take-off. However the gum bit carried on long into the jet age. Flew a lot of DC-3s around the Mid-West in (Piedmont and North Central) DC-3s and even the ballpoints leaked. Actually, I enjoyed those planes and the Super G Constellations and Convair 340s of that era, they flew low enough so you could actually see something interesting on the ground, after the 707s came in looking out the window lost a lot of its fascination. However, the Grand Canyon, on the L.A. to Chicago flight always caused me to look.

[dkozloski]

I remember flying over the midwest in the summertime in a DC-6 and it was rougher than hell. 2/3 of the passengers were tossing their cookies. The best ride around was the Pan Am Boeing Stratocuisers. Northwest had some too.

[orconn]

My first fliight was in 1956. It was on a Convair 340 from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. I remember the plane took off at a really steep climb after leaving the run way, which I thought was really cool, my Dad, who had flown a lot during the war and commercially in the early fifties was not impressed. He was even less impressed when the plane failed to stop at the end of the runway upon landing at Santos Dumont Airport in Rio. Dumont Airport sits on a spit out in Guanabara Bay (similar to Midway in Chicago) and they had to bring boats out to unload us from the plane. My Dad had brought me along to the dedication of the new Radio do Brasil transmitter, so I could meet the President of Brazil. We did make it to the dedication, but my Dad was not a happy camper.

The flight back was even more exiting as the DC-3 (Cruzeiro do Sul Airlines) took off from Santos Dumont rounded Sugar Loaf and flew directly into a horrendous thunder storm ........... I didn't loose my cookies but a lot of the other passengers did. The bounced and shuddered its' way down the coast to Santos where it had to turn inland and climb over a high escarpment before landing on the plateau where Sao Paulo was located. The pilot was having trouble attempting to get over the escarpment and was back and flying back and forth parallel to it, I quess, trying to find a pass. I remember looking out the window a seeing the mountains above us when the lightning lit the sky. It was a real "white knockler" for my Dad and the his staff members who were with us. Obviously we made it and all was well. I don't think my Dad would have flown again, but in South America flying was the only way to get around; the trains were next to none and the roads bad and distances long. In the 1950's Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo was second only to Chicago's O'Hare in the amount of air traffic handled.

[orconn]

Like some of you my first pen was an Esterbrook fountain pen. These were great pens available at any drug store or stationary store. They came in variety of great colors and had a super wide selection of nib types. Not just fine, medium or broad but all kinds of special widths and obliques for left handed people. I don't remember how much they cost, but they were inexpensive, good writing and attractive ......... a triumph of American mass production and design. I probably got mine first one as a hand-me-down from my older sister.

Ofcourse, in school we began our adventures in handwriting with a dip pen and an inkwell built into the desk ( believe it or not this was the 1950's in Pasadena, CA). It's no wonder that graduation to a fountain pen was a time that you knew you had arrived on a new plateau in life.

I don't remember when ball points began to be used. I think at first they were quite expensive. I know many of my teachers would not accept papers written in ballpoint but require work to be handed in to be written with an ink pen. Ofcourse, running out of ink in class was an ever present evil ........ how come the girls never seemed to run out?

By the time I got to college the Parker T-ball Jotter had become my writing instrument of choice and my fountain pen used only for special correspondence: love letters, asking the folks to send money and Thankyou notes. Long distance phone calls were too expensive and students were just beginning to get their own typewriters.