School Pens And Pens For School - Who Used (Uses) One?

[AAAndrew]

Recently I won a lot identical to my school pen at an auction.

The name is AR-9

 

 

That's cool! Maybe we should start a new thread showing just "student pens"

 

besides Sheaffer student pens and a couple of Parker 45's, I have a small, black, piston-fil, student pen made by Montegrappa. I got it in a box that's marked Bi-lus 62, still in the box. Maybe I should ink it up and see if the piston still works.

[fromthecrowd]

 

 

That's cool! Maybe we should start a new thread showing just "student pens"

Great idea!

 

Of current school fountain pens I was impressed by German Meisenbach . Increadibly cheap (around $1), but surprisingly reliable in a way.

[tinta]

In the early 1950s I remember using cheap & mostly unreliable "school pens" of Hungarian, USSR, DDR or Czechoslovak make. Can't remember their names now,... just that many were scratchy & often leaked. These pens, of course, received hard use & probably abuse. By the time I have arrived in Canada "school" fountain pens were being phased out in favour of ball-points (also unreliable).

 

Fast forward to the 1970s.

As soon as I discovered Scheaffer No-Nonsense cartridge pens at a Grand & Toy stationers in Toronto, I ordered some for my own grade 4, 5 & 6 classes. In addition to the standard M nibs, I had an assortment of italic nibs-units available. These No-Nonsense pens became an immediate hit with my students, who vied for the opportunity to use them.

As school pens, they were extremely reliable.

[Dronak]

I'm curious about those who used pens in the past:

1. Were they required? In what grades?

2. What pen or pens did you use? (specifically student pens? fancier?)

3. What pen or pens did your friends use?

4. Was ink provided by the school, or did you just fill up at home?

 

1. No, fountain pens were not required during my time in school.

2. I probably used basic, cheap ballpoints most of the time. I didn't get into fountain pens until either late in college or early in grad school, when I bought a Waterman Phileas. I don't remember at what point it or other early fountain pen purchases became my primary pen type, but it has been since I finished grad school.

3. I don't think I paid much attention. My guess is that others probably fairly basic ballpoints and/or rollerballs. I can't think of anyone else in my circles (family, friends, schoolmates, co-workers, etc.) that regularly use fountain pens like I do.

4. I bought my own ink. I could probably get ballpoints, and less likely rollerballs, from a department/office supply cabinet, but for my fountain pens, I've always had to supply my own ink.

 

Since I've been out of school for some time now, I'll skip the other set of questions.

[jar]

Omas had a line of "School pens" as well, the 620 and 630 series.

http://www.fototime.com/D373FEA9CAE0257/xlarge.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/69F4A32C1F19BA2/large.jpg

It is a piston filler with a gold plate nib that has the same tipping as the upscale models. The 620 was a solid color and the 630 a semi-demonstrator. They were slightly shorter than the standard Omas Ogivas.

 

Here it is on the far left:

 

http://www.fototime.com/368F86F721487D0/large.jpg

[AAAndrew]

Here's the Montegrappa school pen that, according to Giovanni over in another thread, is one that is so cheap that most Montegrappa collectors prefer to forget it was ever made.

 

It's cute, but the plastic reminds me more of some of the not-so-nice Chinese pens. And the nib, while I have have nothing inherently against steel nibs, they can be quite nice, is very cheap with the folded over tip and a very light wash of something gold-colored on the nib.

 

It would be one of those student pens that would wear out in a semester. The Preppy is there just to give you an idea of the small size.

 

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

I don't ever remember using a fountain pen in school, other than possibly one of my own, for fun. Mostly it was BIC ballpoints or (by middle school) Flair pens; when I was around 10 I had one of those fat pens that has 10 different colors of BPs refills in it (as I recall, the yellow never was a calligraphy class. Also, by the time I was in high school I typed a lot of my papers.

I was cured of using the Flair pens for my checkbook when I went camping in the mid-1980s, several years after college, and the suede bag it was in ended up under one of those blue plastic dining flies which got dropped before a bad storm hit. The bag got soaked anyway, and my checkbook likewise. Another person in camp was a CPA and he made fun of me no end for using something non-permanent in my checkbook (although, fortunately for me, the last entry had been with a BP).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth