Atlas Stationers
It’s pen and paper bliss in Chicago.
It’s pen and paper bliss
Bic Accountant Fine Point
The BAFP hasn’t been manufactured for some time, and I haven’t written with one in many years. I rediscovered these two in a cup of neglected pens. They’re so old that their caps lack the vent hole that’s meant to reduce the hazard of choking.
Greta Gerwig’s luxury item(s)
From Desert Island Discs.
“Writer-y”
From Zits.
Nancy, writing by hand
Nancy has beautiful handwriting. And she’s using a dip pen.
Black inks
From Jet Pens, a guide to black fountain pen inks.
“A Pantomime Pen Talk”
Store-window automatons with fountain pens.
Misheard
“Every pen is different.”
The best pens?
The New York Times Wirecutter offers recommendations for the best ballpoint, rollerball, and gel pens.
Pencil vs. pencil vs. pencil vs. pen
Which lasts longer: a cheap pencil, a better pencil, a mechanical pencil, or a ballpoint pen?
Orange Crate Art: Schoolboyish
Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth, Antibes, 1931, indulging in stationery.
A leaking pen
Nancy dances. A pen leaks.
Pen and paper and
From Judith Flanders’s A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order: everything that used to be needed for writing with ink.
A letter from Oliver Sacks
To Austin Kleon. And it’s handwritten. Bonuses: the note-taking effort that prompted the letter, and a tour of Sacks’s desk.
Then, Voyager
A complete kit for writing V-Mail, with everything but fountain pen and mechanical pencil: ink, leads, stationery, pen wiper, calendar, ruler, and instructions for pen care.
Pen wipers
It’s 1955, and Nancy is selling pen wipers.
Obama pens
Black Uni-ball Vision Elite rollerball pens with a micro-point.
CW Pencil and
“After almost six years exclusively selling graphite, the notoriously niche CW Pencil Enterprise is soon to become a full-service office supply shop.”
“No Cap!”’
A 1946 ad for the Reynolds ballpoint pen.
The ballpoint pen
The BBC tells the story of the ballpoint pen.
Analog rising
“Sales of stationery and cards are actually up among younger and youngish people”: so says Marketplace Morning Report.
Nadler’s Jotter
Representative Jerrold Nadler (D, New York-10) signing draft articles of impeachment with a Parker T-Ball Jotter.
Fountain Pen Day
“A time to embrace, promote, and share the use of fountain pens.” They forgot “sell.”
“Fountain pen nostalgia”
“What did people click before th’ Bic?” Zippy wants to know. And Griffy begins to explain fountain pens.
Bic
It belonged to Gwendolyn Brooks.
Still more pencil cups
Elaine Walizer shared these photographs.
More pencil cups
From Elaine.
Pencil bear
My friend Sara shared a photograph of a 3-D-printed bear holding Mirado Black Warriors, a pen, and a screw. A stationary stationery bear.
More pencil holders
George Bodmer, who draws Oscar’s Portrait, shared a photograph of his bamboo pencil holders.
Boop, Twinings, jars
A Betty Boop cup, Twinings tins, and jars holding some of my pens and pencils.