Pen Collection History? Early collectors?

[VacNut]

On 1/10/2025 at 7:40 PM, inkstainedruth said:

@es9 and @VacNut My first computer was a little old original Apple (one of the ones that's about the size and shape of a small box).  We bought it from a friend of my husband's, and then another of his friends gave me a backup drive for it to increase the storage/memory space.  When we moved to Massachusetts, we left it in our old house, on the grounds that after we moved we'd buy a more modern computer for me, figuring that it wasn't worth anything....  A few years ago?  Found out what that stupid little box was worth to a "collector"....  -- I think it was a five figure amount!  Who knew? 

Now, when I'm at estate sales and finding insanely good deals on vintage pens, I sometimes wonder whether the estate sale people (or their clients) have ANY idea as to the value of the items (and not just pens!) would be to a collector (someone I know slightly used to sew doll clothes and sell them at doll conventions and the friend from whose estate I bought the red Cross Solo from went with the doll clothes maker to a show -- and Helen said to me, "Those people are NUTS!"

Ruth Morrisson akainkstinedruth

 

 

4 hours ago, AAAndrew said:

 

American Stationer was the main trade publication for the stationery and fancy goods trade. There were a couple, with Geyers being the next biggest one, but American Stationer, by being located in NYC, was the largest and most well-connected. American Stationer published from 1873 up past 1928. There are tons of great ads and announcements of new products, etc... as well as reports of the various territories for salesmen and company news.  

 

Geyer's Stationer was a little more focused on just the stationery trade, with a little on the fancy goods stuff. You tend to find longer articles in Geyer’s as well as a lot of attention to the activities of the National Association of Stationers, Office Outfitters, and Manufacturers, and their concerns, like the latest in window displays.

 

David Nishamura on his Vintage Pen blog has a list of online copies of most of the volumes. I've got links to his pages out on a page dedicated to these resources on my website. https://thesteelpen.com/2017/10/15/research-resources-for-steel-pens-american-stationer/

 

 

Thank you to you and David. This is interesting reading. 
The writing style is a bit different from contemporary English, but it does put things into context.