Among the finer things in life such as caviar, champagne, and Mercedes Benz, heirloom engraved ink pens offer a historical quality to writing your unique story. No personal journal is the same and as you write yours down, use something as unique as you are. When you sign your name, why use anything but the best, especially for those you love. Use what kings, prime minister and president’s use. Use a personally engraved pen.
Thomas Jefferson use feather pens to write the Declaration of Independence. Would they have been able to engrave their name on the quill to distinguish it from a “common quill”? However, there may have been different levels of feather graded by color, beauty, or thickness, which separated the common from the exquisite. Durability of the quill may have been determined by a certain bird’s feather. Louis XIV may have demanded peacock feathers, while Thomas Jefferson may have preferred a duck feather. The next generations of pens were of a radical new design called fountain pens. They offered different possibilities and were distinguished from the ordinary not by feather quality, but by the precious metals or other fine materials used to make it. Hand engraved pens added another touch of personality to those fortunate enough to afford the luxury.
Once the transition from feather quills to wood or metal fountain pens came along, the quality of materials and customization began to distinguish a difference in the quality of pens. Engraving pens came along with the titans of American industry and politics, as they demanded customized pens with their names or their companies’ name. They were signing documents of great importance and could not see using anything but what would be worthy of a museum. Their documents were sure to become institutions of the American way of life and so must the pen with which they signed their names. Common metals that may have had good paint on them were available, but the upper echelons pens were made of gold, silver or fine woods with custom engraving. Engraved fountain pens are exquisite and uniquely collectible that was no doubt passed on as heirlooms among the family. Sons signed their names to documents of the family business with the same pens as their fathers before them.
As ink was transferred into compartments within the pen, so lead was housed in a fine pen of its own, thus producing the pen set. This was a marriage of sorts and engraved pen sets were to become the gift of choice for graduates of high schools and universities. Each level of achievement had its matching degree of quality materials for proper appreciation. An engraved pens gift would make the occasion more personal to the recipient and be a keepsake for generations to come. In early models, this engraving was done by hand. Penmanship was highly valued among all writers in the 19th century and those who did the engraving by hand had to be a cut above all the rest, even an artist.
The engraved fountain pen was the mark of a person who cared about simple, yet fine things. He tells a story simply by owning the pen, even without writing a single word. The ink well was a necessary part of the fountain pen being the source of replenishing the ink. A fulcrum of sorts was extended to draw the ink into the reservoir where it could be contained and sealed by closing the fulcrum. The ink then flowed only through the tip of the pen onto the paper. Times change and even though fountain pens were used well into the 1960′s, the ballpoint pen offered an ease of writing flow, which gradually replaced the inkwells and fountain pens. Regardless of the method of ink flow, engraving pens were still in fashion and became even more popular as mass production took hold.
While there are still the hand engraved pen and pen sets today, a less expensive, mass produced and inexpensive pen is available on which one can put a business name, address, phone number or web site. Politicians use these advertising methods including sitting Presidents. Harry Truman had a few boxes of pens made with the words, “I swiped this from Harry S. Truman,” printed on them. He passed them out to his friends and it served as a bit of humor in hard times. Such memorabilia have become collector’s items.
Hand engraved pen sets are still the mark of quality and prestige. Laser engraved pens offer the quality of computerized perfection for less money. This form or engraving is mechanical, offering a variety of fonts on wood or metal. Custom engraved pen sets are a lasting heirloom for you to pass down from generation to generation. Write your family name as only you can with a quality engraved pen.
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