The Long Road Home

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The Parker Pen Company made fountain pens and pencils for the Zaner-Bloser Company of Columbus, Ohio.  They are exceedingly rare, but I have managed to find a few examples:

These are easy to spot with their coke-bottle shaped, ergonomic form, which was protected by design patents.  The earliest patent was for a dip pen holder only, and was issued to J.F. Barnhart on September 10, 1891 (design patent 35,059, pictured in Volume 1, page 380).  

Parker Z. Bloser secured design patents for other variations on the Zaner-Bloser shape.  On April 17, 1928 he applied for one for a double-ended pen holder, which was granted July 17, 1928 as Design Patent 75,772:

On August 5, 1930, he applied for a fountain pen version, issued October 21, 1930 as Design Patent 82,309:

And on May 13, 1936, he applied for a patent for the shape applied to a mechanical pencil, issued August 18, 1936 as Design Patent 100,845

Even if I weren’t writing this blog and documenting finds as they arrive, I’d remember where all but one of these originated.  It started with the Modernistic (“True Blue”) set at the bottom, which came, complete with a bit of smoke damage, from Ginger Welch – she was liquidating Stan Pfeiffer’s collection after the house fire that took Stan’s life (see Volume 2, page 2).  

The green one in the middle came from Dan Zazove (see Volume 4, page 135), and the pen just above it was sold to me by George Rimakis.  The only one of these for which I don’t recall the source is the black ringtop at the top.

That leaves that greyish green example, in a plastic that resembles Parker’s “Zephyr” plastic, but the color is just a shade more green.  I wrote about it in Volume 3, page 83 – it was a long wait for that pencil, with a couple of years intervening between when its owner first posted it online and when he took me up on my offer to take it off his hands.

I couldn’t remember his name at the time I wrote the article, but in the last year he has resurfaced: Gabriel Galicia Goldsmith is now a prolific collector, and he’s been sharing many of his new and interesting finds on Facebook over the last few months.  He reached out to me to ask about the Parker Zaner-Bloser pencil he had sold me . . . he wanted it back.

We’ve all been there - selling something, regretting it, then buying it back again.  He explained that the pencil had belonged to his grandfather, which added an extra helping of pain to the story.

I wanted to help him, but there were a couple problems.  First, things don’t usually leave the museum after they arrive . . . I really wanted to keep it. Second  is that prices on these have gone up significantly, and I figured it was probably worth twice the hefty price I’d paid Gabriel for it a few years ago.  Third was my quandry about the price – I subscribe to the Rob Bader philosophy regarding pricing: my price is the amount it will take me to find something I like just as much.  But selling grandpa’s pencil back to its prior owner?   Geez, I really didn’t want to sell it for less than it is worth now, but I didn’t feel good about charging that amount given the circumstance. 

I knew where another example was and that would solve both of our problems: Larry Liebman had one, and a little birdie (should we call him Larry bird?) told me Larry might part with it.  I contacted Larry, and the deal was struck: Gabriel would pay Larry whatever Larry wanted for his example, Larry would ship it to me, and when I received Larry’s replacement, I’d ship Gabriel’s pencil back.  Everybody wins: I don’t set the price, I get something I like exactly as much as what I have, and I even would have the chance to photograph the two together and see if there are any differences between them.

There were: the clip on Gabriel’s pencil has a plain, Depression-style Parker clip with sans-serif lettering, while Larry’s example has Parker spelled out in serifed letters, like an earlier Duofold . . . but without Parker’s 1916 patent date.  Also, note that Gabriel’s pencil has a domed top, while the cap on Larry’s is flat:

There’s one other little difference on the side.  It has the same imprint – but running the other direction. 

After these shots were taken, Gabriel’s grandfather’s pencil was back in his hands – seven years later!