Just found out that my favorite pen store in Asheville, Origami Ink, was completely destroyed in the flood. I assumed that was the case because they were located in Biltmore Village, but the owners posted an update today confirming the sad news. Such nice people. I’m devastated for them.
It’s funny to see how a post shows up when crossposting. In Micro.Blog, it’s a link with some tiny thumbnails. In Bluesky, a link with all four images. In Threads, a link with a preview, but the featured image is my Micro.Blog fish avatar.
My dad texted me one afternoon that he’d found some fountain pens at a local auction and asked if I wanted to bid on them. He’s shared links in the past and I’ve never seen anything that looked interesting. From the look of the pictures, most of the listings looked well worn. But one of the pens was actually in the original packaging — a Parker 25B. It was impossible to tell what condition the pen was in, but I decided to take a shot on it. Dad placed a $7 bid. And won.1
When I got the pen, it was in great shape. The package contained two dried up ink cartridges and a squeeze converter.2 The pen had been used — there was dried up black ink in the feed — but I was able to clean it up fairly easily. I inserted a modern Parker black “Quink” cartridge3 and the pen started writing immediately.
The Parker 25 was an entry level metal pen that the company introduced in 1975 and sold until the late 1990s. My new acquisition was a Parker 25B, a matte black version that was only sold between 1979 and 1983. The body of the pen is a little bit thinner than many of my favorite pens with a stepped down section at the back that allows the cap to be securely posted while writing. Apparently the matte black finish can be easily damaged, but the surface of this pen looks like it’s barely been used.
The nib section is simple and beautiful, with no markings to indicate what thickness it is. The 25B was only available in a fine or medium nib, and this one writes like a medium nib.
The Parker 25 was designed to look modern and that’s how Parker marketed the pen. In one ad, they referred to the pen as “Space Age Design.” One major shift from traditional Parker pens was the clip design — squared off with a Parker badge on it instead of the traditional Parker arrow.
The pen is stamped “Made in England,” but I don’t know what year this pen was manufactured in. Many Parkers have year codes etched into them, but I can’t find one on my 25B. Given that it was only manufactured between 1979 and 1983, I know the pen is between 41-45 years old.
Bidding on this pen was a gamble because we couldn’t inspect it in person. I’ve been intimidated by vintage pens, worried that I’d overpay or get something that doesn’t work. My dad loves these kinds of auctions and has been looking for pens for several years. This is the first I felt good about. If you are interested in picking up a vintage pen like this, my best advice is to be patient and know what you are looking for.
My Parker 25B writes beautifully and fits my preference for modernist fountain pen designs. I haven’t decided if I’m going to add it to my daily carry yet, or just use it at home. But I’m thrilled that I have it in my collection and look forward to using it.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Dad has found some some great stuff over the years, like 100-year-old litho stones and a tiny Hamilton Type case. ↩︎
The squeeze converter didn’t work well, so I ordered a twist converter from JetPens that should fit it. ↩︎
One benefit of the Parker brand is that cartridges are available everywhere. I picked up the ink cartridges at an Office Max near my office. ↩︎
In general, I avoid Twitter and Facebook. But Twitter is still useful for live sports. And Facebook is useful for checking on people after natural disasters.
Really enjoyed The Armageddon Protocol by Dan Moren. 📚
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Hurricane Helene hit us in Columbia, South Carolina this week. Early Friday morning, we lost power with 60+ mph wind gusts. Trees down everywhere. In Columbia, we weren’t prepared for a storm of this magnitude. We got power back 12 hours later, but many people in the area are still without power.
As bad as it was here, it was much, much worse two hours north in Asheville. Western North Carolina is devastated. Asheville is in many ways a second home and it’s heartbreaking to see the devastation and flooding.
Expected Helene to be bad, but we don’t normally get hit this hard in Columbia. Lots of trees down and power outages across South Carolina.
Tree at the front of our neighborhood fell into the creek and took the power lines with it. Dominion has cleared enough so we can leave the neighborhood if we need to, but it’s going to be a while before we have power.
For several reasons, I decided to work from home today. I know that many (most?) people love it, but I really, really don’t enjoy working from home.
The NY Times on the White Sox’ historically bad season:
Baseball is a cruel game. Other sports cap your suffering at a reasonable number. In the N.F.L., the most games you could ever lose in a season is 17. In the N.B.A., you could theoretically lose 82. (The record is 73.) But baseball’s season is relentless: 162 games long… If you lose your grip, as the White Sox did immediately… you can fall through an eternal void of losing. And every day, in the middle of that falling, reporters will stick microphones in your face to ask you how it feels to be plunging through the eternal void.
Academics: A CV and resume are completely different things.
On their websites: “Click here to view my CV/Resume.”
Got a revise and resubmit with minor revisions on a journal article today. Excited to get this one out in the world. I wrote the paper for a Ph.D. class a couple of years ago, presented it at a conference and then improved the paper. Happy with how it’s turned out.
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
This week was a little more relaxed than the last few. I took Friday off and spent some time working on projects. The weeknights were busy, and our middle child had driving lessons on Saturday and Sunday. Next week looks to be reasonable.
Humorously, I wrote, but forgot to upload, my Now page from last week. I’m trying to use this as a weekly journal. It’s more for me than anyone else, but if you missed my weekly update, I’m sorry.
Today was my 10th race watching F1. I started with the Canadian Grand Prix. Since then, we’ve had 7 winners from 4 different teams. I think I picked the right time to start watching. What a fun sport. I’m hooked.
Friendly neighborhood spider
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
A very busy week. I had a significant work event on Wednesday, and needed to help my daughter with some of her homework in the evenings during the week. Completely wrecked my sleep schedule. Need to be better about going to bed at a reasonable hour. I feel it when I don’t get enough sleep.
The week ahead looks a little more typical… which is still relatively busy with classes, lacrosse and homework.
Date night. (And Liz loves having short hair again.)
I’ll never pass up an opportunity for a selfie with Cocky.
Blind copying people on emails is silly. There is really no good reason to do it.
17! Happy birthday, Jilly.
