Where Were Pens Sold Back In The Old Days?

[Sasha Royale]

The shop was called a "Stationers". Unlike an "office supply store", it did not sell furniture,

or light bulbs or toilet paper. In a department store, such as Sears Robuck, the stationers

was the stationery department (second floor).

 

I love small shops that serve one interest at a time. .

[Florida Blue]

There were fabulous stationery stores, smaller ones in smaller town and cities, huge ones in larger burgs, like Schwbacher-Frey in San Francisco. That's where many people would shop for FPs. Grandma might buy from a department store pen counters; grandpa, a stationery store.

 

Schwabacher-Frey was actually chosen by Parker in November 1940 to be one of the stores to test market the 51.

 

To answer the OP, department stores, jewelry shops, five and dimes or variety stores, drug stores and stationary shops would have sold fountain pens.

[moylek]

I was able to buy Parker, Sheaffer and Cross pens, inks, and cartridges in the everyday office-supply stores in Southern Ontario up to the mid-90s - but the pens started disappearing by the late 90s.

[Fernan]

I was surprised to discover, upon moving to Montreal QC from Ottawa ON, that fountain pens are still sold in a few stationery stores in some areas of Montreal today. But then, maybe that's because we're stuck in the past here, according to some...

Edited February 18, 2014 by Fernan

[Frits B]

 

It could be Belgian but more probably Dutch.

Not really. The text is Dutch but "gedep. merk" (or gedeponeerd merk = registered trademark) is a direct translation of French "marque déposée" which IMO points to the Dutch speaking part of Belgium called Flanders.

[ac12]

Stationary/office supply store (Honolulu Paper Company aka HOPACO).

- Parker 45, 75 and 180

 

I do not remember where I got my Sheaffer school pens from. Might be a drug store (Longs) or a department store.

[threeeye]

S.S. Kresge (5 & 10) also F.W. Woolworth (nickel and dime) store. Why the difference? Probably regional coloquial.

[theexpanciluser]

Ah, the department store. I'm 25, and I remember when I was very young going into some downtown with my mother, and they were all in 200 year old buildings which had all sorts of fancy stuff. The show "Are You Being Served" reminds me of these types of shops, where everyone wore nice suits and you could buy quality merchandise. Today, they've all been converted into Starbucks and sushi bars and restaurants. I miss those good old days.

 

But yeah I would imagine back from the '60s until the late 80's, a department store like that would be where you'd go to find Pelikans and Montblancs, on the floor above where you could get your Rolexes and Omegas.

I love Are you begin served sir, even though I am only 13 and live in Chicago.

[Runnin_Ute]

I bought a Sheaffer cartridge pen in the late 1960's or so at a 7-11 store. I turned 12 in 1970. The pen was blister pack/hang tag packaged. There were two or three cartridges included.

[DBQMary]

I live in Dubuque, IA which is located between Fort Madison, IA (Sheaffer) and Janesville, WI (Parker). I purchased my pens at O'Toole Office Supply in Dubuque which still operaters on Main Street. They would special order XF Sheaffer nibs for me and were always commenting that I was their youngest customer who used fountain pens. No longer in that age category and when I checked in the past year they no longer had fountain pens. But many great memories of earlier purchases, most of which I still own.

[Niberator]

[Ceilidh]

Wonderful photo!! (And reading around from Waterman pens to EZ tablets for constipation made me laugh out loud.)

[SteveE]

When I was in grammar school (in the early to mid-1950's), we could still buy Sheaffer school pens at the local F.W. Woolworth's, and we could get Esterbrooks at the local Hallmark card shop (Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago).

 

Starting in the 1970's onward, the specialist stationers began to close, and by the 1980's the only place I could find my Sheaffer Connaisseur was a mass-merchandiser (W. Bell & Co. - now defunct). There were still a couple of stationery shops in downtown Chicago that sold pens. I think the last to close was Stevens-Maloney on LaSalle Street. IIRC, the pen department managet from Stevens-Maloney opened Century Pens just a couple of blocks away from the old location, and is still in business to this date. Flax used to have a flagship store on Randolph street near the Prudential Building, but they closed it some years ago.

 

We also used to have the Universal Pen Hospital on Wabash Street. The late Sam Himoto was the proprietor, IIRC. He was the first to show me what could be done to properly adjust a nib. He also re-sacced my grade-school Esterbrooks for me, and I still have both of them.

[humblescribbler]

When I was in grammar school (in the early to mid-1950's), we could still buy Sheaffer school pens at the local F.W. Woolworth's, and we could get Esterbrooks at the local Hallmark card shop (Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago).

 

Starting in the 1970's onward, the specialist stationers began to close, and by the 1980's the only place I could find my Sheaffer Connaisseur was a mass-merchandiser (W. Bell & Co. - now defunct).

 

Wow, memories! My wife and I bought our wedding rings at W. Bell, which (in our area) was a "catalog store" where one would enter, see things on display, go to the catalog stand and fill out and submit a ticket number, and the item would arrive from the warehouse out back. As my groom gift she bought me a Cross 14k filled FP which had a (totally random, I had no clue) broad nib, and I bought her a bracelet. This was 1978.

[randomthinks]

There was a stationer's in Ferndale MI back when I was a kid. Cannot remember the name, but I remember Mom taking me there before second grade to buy me my first mechanical pencil. I saw my uncle using one and pestered her for quite sometime before she caved.

 

She unfortunately, started feeding a fetish for cool writing instruments that continues forty years later.

[rwilsonedn]

I'm fascinated at the range of replies. I suppose it's a reminder that fountain pens were once ubiquitous: school pens at the five-and-dime store, pens for everyday at the five-and-dime or the pharmacy, pens for work at the office supply, pens for fine personal writing at the stationer's, and gift pens at the jeweler's or the department store. Of all these, it seems the most nearly extinct is the stationer's shops, which have vanished or turned into office-supply or novelty stores. I guess fine writing at home is only a memory now.

ron

[overwriter]

Agree with the above. Department stores all used to have nice pen counters. In Canada even the downmarket department stores like Woolco(div. of Woolworth's) and Zellers would have some. Drugstores would have some lower end pens then stationary stores but they were very much different from places like Staples. Someone mentioned above that you would not buy toilet paper in them. Hilarious! Even only 20 years ago the mere thought would have been preposterous. Perhaps it should still be.

[estie1948]

I remember buying fountain pens in the Kress's, Woolsworth's, McClellan's department stores. The local Safeway, Humpty Dumpty, and Piggly Wiggly supermarkets even had stationery isles with the blister pack school pen fountain pens at one time. Every book store in town (and once there were several) sold dip pens and nibs of various brands as well as fountain pens from the cheapest brands to the more expensive brands. Seems like there were stationery stores on ever other downtown block and all of them sold fountain pens, of course. Between Walter's Watch Shop (which sold and repaired all manner of clocks, but specialized in pocket watches and wrist watches) and a men's store was an honest-to-goodness pen store, Edward's Pens. It was gone before I was in high school. An appliance repair shop went in there but the sign above the awning was still that of the pen shop. I went to the appliance repair shop on many occasions for my mom and dad, but I never went there when it was the pen store. My loss. There were two news-stands in town and both sold the cheaper fountain pens. All the drug stores sold fountain pens. Sears and Wards both sold pens, their 'own' brands as well as others.

 

Then, this terrible disease hit our little city. It was called "Urban Renewal". It didn't renew anything, but rather destroyed most everything. We don't even have a downtown now. There is a large (and largely vacant) mall and a myriad of strip malls. The only store that even offers a fountain pen for sale here now is an antique store.

 

Ain't progress grand!

Edited February 21, 2014 by estie1948

[OcalaFlGuy]

I lived in Melbourne, Florida from 1969-2001. My Great Uncle was one of the founding fathers of the small town of Eau Gallie just to the North that was later annexed into Melbourne. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jackson_Creel)

 

The main drag in Melbourne is/was New Haven Avenue and Meehan's Stantionery and Office Supplies has been there since 1921. I am pretty sure the Meehan family still owns it. (I remember when they razed the Hardware Store that had been just a couple doors down from Meehan's that had also been there since the teens or twenties. They had to evacuate that whole end of the street as they found a case of deteriorating dynamite in the hardware store's basement.)

 

Meehan's still lists 250 pens and FP related items though most appear priced at near MSRP.

 

http://v501.britlink.com/P705/DesktopDefault.aspx?Alias=meehansofficeproducts&TabID=46980&Search=fountain%20pen

 

[EDIT] I would even go so far as to call Meehan's one of the first "Big Box" office supply stores. The place was one of the largest if not the largest on New Haven Ave and carried everything from custom stationery to desks and chairs. Even up until a year ago we went to Meehan's to get those thin metal watch band calendar's for my Father. They were the only place in town that still carried them.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

Edited February 21, 2014 by OcalaFlGuy

[JotterAddict62]

I remember one time when I was a kid in the mid 1970's when I was in scouts the troupe would go to Galena IL in April to march in the parade that coincided with Ulysses S. Grant's birthday. There was a drug store that had a 4' x 4' foot box with 4" inch sides that held Parker Pen Jotters that were all loose in the box. Now if you have any Jotters with the chalk marks on them like MED 1.98 and so forth in your collection you know what I mean. That was how they were sold. It was a wonder to see that when I was young. You were cool if you had a Jotter to write with in 8th grade. There was one scout that like the 5 finger discount a took his share of pens. I had to share a locker with him in High School so I made sure I did not keep anything of real value to me in the locker. I heard later in life that he spent time in prison. Go figure...