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Hello Estie lovers, My first real "rabbit hole" into fountain pen collecting was the serendipitous purchase of an Esterbrook that had an 8668 palladium-silver nib attached. I have a background as a chemist and have long been in love with palladium; that coupled with the WWII history (another interest of mine) made this a fantastic discovery for me. It writes just beautifully! The first thing I did, being new to the game (and I still am!) was to look for advertising about these nibs and Esterbrooks in general during WWII. I loved finding ads stating that "only a few pens can be made" due to the war effort, and, "If your stationer cannot supply you immediately with Esterbrook Pens we know you will understand why." Just amazing stuff, and a wonderful look into one aspect of WWII American culture viewed through the lens of a fountain pen lover. I wondered if the 8000-series nibs ever showed up in advertising, and I had not been able to find any such ads until recently. I thought the other Esterbrook fans here might enjoy a look at this Argentinian ad I found that shows the 8000 series... I wonder if anyone else knows of 8000 series Esterbrook nibs showing up in ads or being mentioned in period literature? Cheers! Matt

I recently moved into a new house where I have a dedicated room for my office. I'd like to decorate my office with some iconic fountain pen ads. I was thinking something like this: I prefer Pilot, Platinum, Lamy, Parker, Pelikan, and Montblanc pens, but any brand with an interesting advertisement works! What iconic ads do you recommend I use? Thanks for your help!

Hurry, get your free Skrip bottle before the stock runs out!* A 1930 ad little or nothing known and that illustrates to us about the commercial utility that Sheaffer´S gave to their old truck. Dedicated to RedRinger, FPN member, whose yesterday post about these old ads has given me the idea for this topic. *Although Sheaffer´s commercial dept. doesn´t anything for nothing...

Lewis Edson Waterman, as a child he came with his mother and younger brother and settled in Kankakee and it was in the little old wagon shop, conducted by his brother Elisha S. Waterman, where the first model of Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pen was turned out in wood. With ads we will try to illustrate the history of this early beginning in the little wagon-making shop in Kankakee, and the equally insignificant work-bench at the back of a cigar store on Fulton Street, NY, where pen were made by hand –and the total output then was 200 in a year- to 5,000,000 Waterman´s Ideal sold during 1919.

For those who are interested in the history of fountain pens, you are undoubtedly familiar with The American Stationer. This was the major trade publication for the stationery and fancy goods trade from the 1870's through the 1920's. The amount of information from the articles and advertisements is invaluable to researchers and the merely curious. For a while we had some big gaps, and some important ones. Recently we saw the critical 1900-1901 issues digitized, but there are still about a dozen missing volumes. (after 1880, all years were bound into two volumes, one for Jan-Jun, one for July-Dec). I was recently able to get a bound copy of one of these missing volumes, vol. 70, from the second half of 1911. I'm in the process of exploring options for getting it scanned and OCR's so that it can be added to the list of online versions of this critical resource. I received the volume in the mail yesterday all the way from Germany. Yes, it was in Germany. It's in great condition. I took a few quick snapshots with my iPhone on my dining room table last night to send to a possible collaborator and the images are so fun I couldn't resist sharing them with y'all. These aren't great scans, but they give you an idea of what the ads are like. The real surprise were the color inserts. I've found three so far: one for Hardtmuth pencils, one for Hardtmuth tracing paper and one for Waterman pens. These are gorgeous, full-page ads. The Hardtmuth pencil one in particular has a ton of color and even shiny silver highlights. Anyway, here are a few ads from 1911.

A collection of more than 300 ads Parker in the first half of the last century with chronological order approximately PARKER ADS When you pass the mouse over each ad you can see the date YYYY MM DD followed by the publication in those cases I´ve checked it.