L. Kritzler Pen Co.

[Johnny Appleseed]

Looking for some info on the Kritzler Pen Company, or L. Kritzler Pen Company.

 

A pen of theirs showed up on Ebay recently. There is also an older posting for a Kritler pen on PenBid Here

 

And Bruce Speary lists them on his Pen Profiles page:

 

QUOTE

Kritzler - I never found out the original of this name. I have had some great pens by them. The filigrees appear the same as Morrison or Salz. I am guessing one of the NYC based companies made all of these lever fill filigrees and each company just added their clips, lever and nibs. I have also had some oversize flattop pens, but the quality on those was not as good as the overlays.

 

from Fountain Pen Manufacturers

 

Anyone have any other info?

 

 

Thanks!

[jhmclearly]

Don't know if you saw this on Ebay

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...98906&rd=1&rd=1

 

Very nice pen.. note the waterman style box lever.

[Johnny Appleseed]

Yes, I saw that one, and my Snipe was too low.

 

I see another member around here in the bidder list as well . . .

 

I did notice the lever box. I have also seen a lever-box like that on an Eclipse. The box, on the other hand, looks an awful lot like a Morton box I have - sticker and price and everything. Morton was made by Morrison, I believe.

 

If anyone got that one, let us know if there is any other info.

 

John

 

[jhmclearly]

Yep, I was in there too.... missed it by a dollar !

[Johnny Appleseed]

Well, just to add a little update on Kritzler. I picked up a Kritzler on ebay. It does not add a whole lot of information, but the pen has a remarkable similarity to a Morton in my collection. In addition, the box in the ebay sale linked at the start of this message looks remarkably like the Morton box - including the $7 price tag (which was probably a fictitous price).

 

Morton was a brand of the Union Fountain Pen company, of which the officers were Pauline Joab, Isadora Sanrow and Louis Morrison.

 

The similarities are mainly in the metal trim, so it could be the two companies had the same stamping source, or Kritzler could have been a Union sub-brand, perhaps for a retailer?

 

Here are pictures of the two pens - Kritzler and Morton side-by-side.

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/laridae/Kritzlers-complete.jpg

 

and the lever, which is interesting - the initials on the end of the lever is "LK"

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/laridae/Kritzler-Levers.jpg

 

John

[antoniosz]

Yep, it screams Morton, Roxy, Arrow, etc.

 

 

1930 United States Federal Census

about Louis Kritzler

Name: Louis Kritzler

Home in 1930: Bronx, Bronx, New York

Age: 43

Estimated birth year: abt 1887

Birthplace: Hungary

Relation to Head of House: Head

Spouse's name: Pearl

 

Name: Louis Kritzler

SSN: 325-07-3077

Last Residence: 90210 Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Born: 5 Feb 1880

Died: Oct 1966

State (Year) SSN issued: Illinois (Before 1951 )

 

Lous Kritzler in 1917 NY directory has an address of 215 116W and a cryptic "pdlr" remark next to it, which means peddler..

Also listed is a musician Louis Kritzler on h2105 Clinton av .

 

Looks like Louis Kritzler is our person But we need to find more.

Edited May 4, 2007 by antoniosz

[antoniosz]

Bingo....

 

From WWI registration card...

Louis Kritzler 2105 Clinton Avenue, NYC.

Profession: Gold pens

 

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b325/azavalia/kritzler.jpg

Edited May 4, 2007 by antoniosz

[antoniosz]

Of course, the document I showed above is chronologically remote from the period of the pen that John showed (15-20 years?), but it appears to be a connection that needs to be strengthen. It seems that the musician Louis Kritzel was involved with pens as a second occupation in 1910s. Perhaps, this evolved to a situation in the early 30s where he was buying pens from a supplier (Morrison?) and was putting his own name on them to resell them. Hopefully we will learn more in the future.

[Johnny Appleseed]

Antonios,

 

Thanks for all of your research in this.

 

Yes, the time-frame here definitely needs to be flushed out. But one hypothesis I draw from this is that Louis Kritzler was not a pen maker, but a pen maker - ie, nib maker. The use of the expression "Gold Pen Maker" as his occupation used in 1917 would be consistant with a nib-maker, as they were called pens up until at least the 1920s. Kritzlers I have seen on ebay usually have a Kritzler nib, where as many of the Morrisons have Warranted nibs.

 

Maybe it was his day job.

 

John

Edited May 7, 2007 by Johnny Appleseed

[rhr]

John, and Antonios,

 

From the registration card it appears that Louis Kritzler started as a penmaker for Armeny & Marion, at 90 Nassau St., New York, also known as the St. George Fountain Pen Co.

 

Thanks for all that, both of you.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

:ph34r: