Anyone else remember the song Barbie Girl by Aqua? (There I go, dating myself.) I can't stand the song. That's what makes it so funny it's in my head right now.
Anyone remember Sheaffer Pen Company of Fort Madison, Iowa?
I'm a Sheaffer girl... in a Sheaffer world.....
My first fountain pen was a Sheaffer No Nonsense, bought at M&R Drugs. I still remember that day. I was 12, it was 1987, and I still don't know why I knew what a fountain pen was or why I wanted one. I had a choice of two -- red or green translucent, and I chose red. I also remember there being jars of ink, but I didn't bring one home. Wish I had, now.
That pen didn't survive the move to Richmond 4 years later. I'm not sure why. Neither did my two No Nonsense ballpoints, pale yellow and the Christmas one. But by then, I had gotten a Parker Vector calligraphy set from Arbor Drugs. Those were the days when little towns had real drug stores where all sorts of things could be purchased without needing to travel to large centers.
In 1996, I remember drooling over the ads for the Christmas pen Sheaffer put out. That was way too expensive for my pocketbook at that point. And then..... nothing. No more pen ads. I was in college and busy and no longer came across fountain pens anywhere.
When my grandpa died in 2012, I had a little break from the dying people in my family. I started writing again and listening to music, and memories of the fountain pen came back to me. For fun I started looking them up just to see if they still existed, and I found that there was a world beyond my dreams...
Not long after I rediscovered there were still fountain pens, I found a pen that reminded me of that first red one. But the memories of the first one haunted me... but what was it? A lot of leg work and hours and I found something similar thanks to PenHero. I was sure that the picture he had up wasn't quite right for what I remembered. However, it gave me a place to start and I haunted used pens until I found it.....
Exactly as I remembered. It even had a dried cartridge of Sheaffer Jet Black in it.
And then the rabbit hole appeared, as everyone knows in the sewing machine world. At least these are smaller than sewing machines. I am NOT trying to collect all the colors. (I am NOT going to collect all the colors....I am not going to.... oh, that Bicentennial No Nonsense looks cool... ) Some of those have fine nibs, which I had no idea they came with. And the blue one is the latest variant of the No Nonsense, meaning ca 2000. That one has an italic nib.
The red and black No Nonsense pens belong to this kit:
Parker makes good pens, and I'm very fond of my Edisons .... but I keep coming back to my Sheaffers.
I remember buy a fountain pen in 6th grade (back in the early 1970's). It had a ink cartridge. I know I kept that pen for years and years. Not sure if it is still in a pen drawer or not. I did all my homework with that pen.
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