How/with what did you start writing in the 1960s?

[mke]

I have a few black holes in my memory regarding my start of writing. You might be able to help if you started school in the 1960s or early 1970s. Later starters than 1980, please make a new thread to not mix up too much. Thank you.

 

School start 1967 in Germany (please also write your situation into your answer). The school was called Volksschule and you went there for typically 4 years and then switched to Gymnasium.

 

Did you use a slate in the first year? I remember (very dark) having a satchel with a cleaning rag attached for cleaning the slates.

I think we then switched to fountain pens but I don't remember if it was in the second or third year. I still have images of cartridges and memories of the name Geha and Pelikan. (Wonder if I still have them at my home in Germany?)

 

Probably, we didn't officially use pencils or ballpens - at least, not in the Volksschule. I also don't remember when ballpens sneaked into our pen pouches.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

[dms525]

In California in the 1950's, elementary school writing was with pencils and poor quality lined paper provided by the school. In high school, I believe I wrote with ballpoint pens. I first got a fountain pen in college, and that was an Osmiroid for learning italic handwriting.

 

I do seem to recall some old school desks in my elementary school that had wells for holding ink bottles, so I assume in earlier times students used dip pens.

 

David

[jchch1950]

In many schools the first writing instruments were pencils. I don't remember the quality of the paper, but every student has to provide it for the whole school year. Then deep pens lastly fountain pens or ball pens Scripto, Esterbrook and Wearever are some of the brands. After the end of primary school, Parker was the pen that you wish.

[chromantic]

I started using FPs in junior high, so that would be '65 or so. I wanted a Parker 45 but they were too expensive and I had to settle for a Sheaffer instead.

[corniche]

10 hours ago, dms525 said:

In California in the 1950's, elementary school writing was with pencils and poor quality lined paper provided by the school. 

 

David

Yes. Me, too.

 

I started the First Grade in 1973, in Palatine, IL. 

 

Same thing, you brought your own pencils and the school provided crummy, lined paper. IIRC, my pencils were Empire Huskys. (My older brothers used Laddies, I forget the brand).

 

Around the Fourth Grade, we started bringing our own spiral back notebooks, OR looseleaf paper, kept in a binder... student's choice. We were also allowed to start using ball point pens... I don't recall ANY fountain pens from anywhere. Occasionally, a student would use Flairs, (or other felt tip pens, but those were NOT encouraged). I think I used Paper Mate stick pens, primarily blue ink.

 

In Sixth Grade, I switched over to EraserMates, because they had just come out and were Super Cool.

 

I also liked the way their ink smelled.

 

- Sean

[Wil D]

The first year in school in Amsterdam (1967) we had dip pens. From the second year we had fp's. Used them ever since.

[antares1966]

Entered first grade in 1972 in Washington State, USA.  My experience was typical of probably most any American student in public school at the time, staring with No. 2 pencils and wide ruled paper, then ballpoints around the time cursive penmanship started in third grade (we did have a proper penmanship curriculum then).  Zaner-Bloser method.

[Claes]

In the mid 1950s, we started with dip nibs (Svensk Skolpenna 018) and "school ink" in small bottles from "Barnängen", writing in composition books that were made for ink/nib use.

 

[RedPie]

I went to a Volksschule and I remember that I started with a Pelikan. We also used pencils, but never rollerballs. I did not use slate. After the Volksschule I think I went to a Mittelschule next.

[inkstainedruth]

Pencils in elementary school.  Ballpoints and fine point markers in middle school onward, except when I was taking calligraphy in art classes (then it was Speedball dip pens).  I asked for a set of Rapidographs when I graduated from high school (used those for drawing -- didn't know that they were drafting pens until I got into college (but when I was taking a class involving isometric projections I wasn't allow to use anything but one of those ruling pens that you can get as an attachment for higher end compasses.  Also used a typewriter in high school and college for writing papers.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[Sailor Kenshin]

First?  1960s?  That was my first fountain pen: a Sheaffer school cartridge pen with translucent yellow body and silvertone cap.  Even back then, the blue cartridge ink coming from a yellow pen bugged me.

 

We moved shortly after and I don't know what became of the pen.  But I do recall earlier classes, with that hideous yellow lined paper and gouged-up desks.  When your fat pencil lead hit a furrow, it tore up the paper.

[rjv]

Catholic school in Southern California, 1958, 2nd grade, 1st gen Sheaffer school pen.  I bought one a couple of months ago.  Still a great writer.

[yubaprof]

I began school in the SF Bay Area in 1951. During the elementary school years the desks had holes for inkwells, but by then fountain or dip pens were no longer used . We used pencils through 6th grade, both pencil and ink (ball point) in 7th and 8th, and then ink in high school. When I was a senior one of my teachers used a fountain pen and I thought that was really "cool", so I went into town (my family lived on a ranch out in the country) and purchased a Sheaffer at the Rx. I've been using a fountain pen ever since.

[Bo Bo Olson]

In 4th grade 1958...after waiting months, we started writing with fountain pens.

Which one was my first, I don't remember it could have been a lever Shaffer school pen. It wasn't a cartridge pen. It was stolen, as were all fountain pens and Jotters until I got my first Bic @ 1965. Keep the cap in mouth, prevented theft.

I did have lever Wearevers, a couple times in between  expensive as all hell cartridge pens. A P-45 once I think. The worst pen I had was a lever Venus, no matter how I left it out to be stolen, it took months before fate struck for my side.

(I have a couple lever Wearevers, no matter how cheap the nibs look, they were nice springy regular flex nibs. Worker's pens, or the wife's pen...in many families, like ours was a one fountain pen family...in our case a black and gold Snorkel. Used to write checks for the monthly bills.)

 

Once I was able to get a 10 pack...of government surplus BP stifts/sticks for ten cents, and had a year of ink for what ever cheap pen I had...Playmate?....often a 'free' from my parents government work. black Skill-craft pens.

We were always told one way or another how nice it was of Skill craft to hire the blind....it wasn't until 40-50 years later I found out they paid much less than the minimum wage...starvation wages. Modern slave labor.

And the Government the biggest buyer, did nothing.

[ruby.monkey]

Mid-to-late 1970s I started with a pencil in A6-sized exercise books that were one very small step up from newsprint, then on to a ballpoint once I was judged capable of using one without stabbing myself to death; and then to a fountain pen towards the end of primary school. I went to boarding school at 11 with a Parker 25 fountain pen and ballpoint set and a bottle of permanent blue Quink.

[fabri00]

I started writing at elementary school in 1971 with a Pelikan cartridge fountain pen, cheap model strongly requested from the school.

I still have that pen !

The dip pens where taken out from the school few years before, probably 5/6 years.

[fabri00]

I started writing at elementary school in 1971 with a Pelikan cartridge fountain pen, cheap model strongly requested from the school.

I still have that pen !

The dip pens where taken out from the school few years before, probably 5/6 years.

[jthole]

Primary school in the early 1970s here; we started with pencils, and after that I had a blue Pelikan Pelikano.

 

No idea where that pen went ... back then it was "just a pen".

[PJS_prog]

I started public elementary school in 1971 in Granite City, IL. As I recall, we were mostly only allowed to write with a #2 pencil, except in Kindergarten, where we used those big, fat pencils. I don't think I really wrote with a pen at school until junior high school, and those were the hideous ballpoints popular at the time (mostly Bic). I didn't get my first FP until I was a senior in high school, a Sheaffer No Nonsense and some calligraphy nibs.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Bic's were great, as long as you kept the cap in your mouth, no one stole one.

All my pens were stolen. The beginning of the year school FP, the Jotter, the playmate replacement**...even Wearevers (which have better nibs than they looked) ....god it took ever so long for some magpie to steal my Venus FP.

 

The better Wearevers were solid second tier pens like Esterbrook. Wearever was the biggest producing fountain pen company in the world.

 

**Even the Black Skillcraft pen would vanish. We thought we were helping give a job to a blind person, not knowing they were slave labor well under the minimum wage.

 

Had I been not a worker's kid, I could have had my FP's engraved with my name. Hell, even a Jotter....then I'd not been so glad for the Bic Age.