Sunday is traditionally a slow day at most pen shows, and today was s-l-o-o-o-o-w. Was it a total disaster? No. I worked on pens for about half a dozen people in addition to the usual tuning of the new pens we sold.
But because it was such a slow day, there was time to schmooze, not only with those who sat or stood at our table, but also with several of the other dealers. And when there’s time to schmooze there is inevitably time for show ’n’ tell. Which brings me to this pen, which Hirsch Davis thought I’d enjoy seeing. (Please excuse the poor photo quality; I didn’t have my drafting-table setup and had to use what lighting I could rig on my table in the ballroom.)
This looks like a relatively ordinary third-tier pen from the Golden Age until you take note of the clip’s location. Okay, so somebody had a little too much to drink after work Friday and made a major oopsie Saturday morning. Right? Well, not so much. Think of the pen shown above in terns of this pen:
Yup. Contrary to popular opinion, Pilot did not invent the capless fountain pen after all. The first pen above i a Pen-O-Matic, and if you push the barrel into the cap the first thing that happens is that the flat end of the barrel, which looks like a nice tassie with a black center, flips open. Keep pushing, and you get this:
(You can see part of the little door peeking out from under the lower side of the section.) To fill a Pen-O-Matic, you unscrew that big black “cap crown” to reveal that what you’re holding is an ordinary button filler.
So, tell me, was this wicked cool and very rare pen worth hanging around until Sunday to see? Never mind, I’ll tell you that — at least for me — the answer was “Very much so!”
After the show packed up, a bunch of us migrated to the home of a dealer couple who live only a few miles away for some more schmoozing. And wine (or harder stuff). And delicious munchies. What a great way to close a show that has been weird yet still, in may ways, very rewarding!
As Porky Pig says, “Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”