Famous peoples pens

Eisenhower... Parker "51"
Einstein.... Pelikan 100 and a Waterman taper cap
MacArthur... Parker Big Red
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle..... Parker Duofold
LBJ.... Parker "51'
Disney... Sheaffer
Mark Twain.... Conklin Crescent Filler


Who else can name some more ?

JFK used Esterbrook dip writers. 2668 firm medium steel nib.

The Queen also uses a "51"

It is reported Anne Frank used a Montblanc to write her diary

Sir Winston Churchill, a Conway Stewart

I have no names to add but find this very interesting! Hopefully many more names will get added. Thanks for starting it!

George W Bush--AT Cross Townsend midnight blue Lacquer Selectip pens

Woodrow Wilson--Waterman 42, one of the pens within the Waterman Safety pen series

William McKinley--Waterman Ideal Fountain Pen

Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland--Caws Dashaway #130

Neil Gaiman (author/screenwriter) uses a whole mess of fountain pens. He wrote at least one of his novels with a Lamy 2000.

Mao Tse-tung - Hero

(one assumes, as the Hero Pen Company was started as the Huafu Pen Factory in 1931, and renamed Hero in 1966).

During WWI, Sir Winston S. Churchill used a Onoto...'the British Pen'!



[FONT=&amp]"Send me a new Onoto pen. I have stupidly lost mine"." [/FONT]Sir Winston S. Churchill

nemo said:

The Queen also uses a "51"

It is reported Anne Frank used a Montblanc to write her diary

Sir Winston Churchill, a Conway Stewart

Click to expand...

The Queen uses a 51? Hmm...I was under the impression that Conway Stewart supplied the royal family, or at least that's what a recent news article -- regarding Conway Stewart being bankrupt and going into administration, yet again -- said.

But I guess the Queen uses her Parker and everyone else uses CS pens.

Shame about the company, though. I read somewhere that the Japanese FP market is thriving, and that 4 times as many fountain pens are sold there than in the west. I have no idea how accurate that information is, but maybe it's because most people here see them as "luxury items"? And looking at the CS website, it seems to me that they've priced themselves into bankruptcy. IMO some pen companies need to stop acting like "resin" is something special and ebonite is some sort of precious material.

Apparently the manufacturing machinery has been sold off and they closed the factory. Doesn't sound good. Perhaps if they had different ranges of pens for different income levels they could've sold more units and wouldn't be in this position? Maybe they used to at one point...I don't know enough about the brand.

In any case, I don't wish to derail the thread. Carry on.

BrianW - Parker "51" flighter

luvmysuper said:

BrianW - Parker "51" flighter

Click to expand...

I was waiting for this one to turn up

Kevan said:

The Queen uses a 51? Hmm...I was under the impression that Conway Stewart supplied the royal family, or at least that's what a recent news article -- regarding Conway Stewart being bankrupt and going into administration, yet again -- said.

But I guess the Queen uses her Parker and everyone else uses CS pens.

Click to expand...

Yep, the Royal Warrant for the Queen as well as the Prince of Wales were given to Parker in 1962 and the Queen has used her "51" since 1959. Apparently she is quite a writer.

http://www.royalwarrant.org/

nemo said:

Yep, the Royal Warrant for the Queen as well as the Prince of Wales were given to Parker in 1962 and the Queen has used her "51" since 1959. Apparently she is quite a writer.

http://www.royalwarrant.org/

Click to expand...

Wonder if it is the same 51 that she first used in '59...

nemo said:

The Queen also uses a "51"

It is reported Anne Frank used a Montblanc to write her diary

Sir Winston Churchill, a Conway Stewart

Click to expand...

It would not be surprising if Winston Churchill used Conway Stewarts, but he also used Onotos. Or at least, that's what Onoto claims in their advertising.

August West said:

JFK used Esterbrook dip writers. 2668 firm medium steel nib.

Click to expand...

Actually he used a Mont Blanc 149. There is a famous photo of JFK helping the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer out of a predicament by offering him the use of his "Meisterstück 149" when Adenauer's pen would not work.

LouieGrandie said:

Actually he used a Mont Blanc 149. There is a famous photo of JFK helping the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer out of a predicament by offering him the use of his "Meisterstück 149" when Adenauer's pen would not work.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. I will vet my source. Perhaps he only signed 'bills' with them and his everyday carry was a Mont Blanc 149.

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10254032

With different reports on what pen a specific famous person might have used, we could wonder which ones were collectors or accumulators, with many different types. Even without easy online shopping to feed the frenzy, there must have been some.

Neil Gaiman definitely is one of us. He's got the bug. But he's alive and we have evidence of his FP and ink-collecting via his quotes and booksignings. We can only speculate about those in the past. But Churchill strikes me as someone who probably collected some pens.

Going back to US Presidents, though, I know that Cross currently supplies pens for the White House and has done for a few years now, but how long have they been? Must have been after JFK and LBJ if they used Montblanc, Esterbrook, and Parkers.

I'd assume the White House was supplied by pens made in the USA.
But maybe Cross makes an exception and specially assembles the President's pens in Rhode Island.

There was a set of Parker 51 both local and on ebay .. with Marshal Tito signature on it (ex Yugoslavia for those who recall it hehe) that apparently he gave away as presidential gifts to people back in the days. So I guess he used them as well