Each pen has a story. Some are long, complicated, emotional and moving. Some might be. Most we never know. Who, at the Charles G. Kolesch Grain Company, owned my oversize lapis blue Carter's Inx pen? Who are the "Anna & Maria" whose names appear, together, on the indicia of my Waterman 452? And then there are the anonymous pens; the ones without a name at all, but which have just as much history as any pen more fully documented.

This month, we have stories from two collectors about pens that are extremely special to them. A newer collector, Chris Hamilton, had such a pen in his hand when his thoughts turned to the greatest American of my lifetime and imagination took over. Mark Blumer also has a pen -- one that's anything but just a ballpoint -- with a story. Even a ballpoint can sometimes soar into the realms of the sublime, as you'll see.

My Parker In History

By Chris Hamilton

My experience with fountain pens is very limited, spanning only a year, or possibly less. I did not have the opportunity to use fountain pens in school, as it was an unknown instrument. As far as I had known, the ball point had been around forever, preceded only by the quill. The majority of collectors and enthusiasts I converse with are usually 20 years my senior. The 'old pens' in my collection are often times twice as old as I am. Despite these 'set backs' I still have an appreciation for the written word, history, and the sheer aesthetics of the script produced by the senior pens.

We often think of history in broad, general terms. General so-and-so won battle X on date Y. We get history as the big picture. Individual or personal level history is the most intriguing however. That is the stuff that makes movies, that's the subject of our literature. Individual stories are the ones that touch us the most. As I said, the old pens in my collection are far older than myself, and thus am not privileged to know their history, except to the extent that someone with high feedback from the Midwest purchased it in a lot from an estate sale.

I was writing a letter to a friend on a snail mail list with my trusty Parker 45, explaining my newfound affinity for the vintage pen scene. The performance and reliability are great, but the individual characteristics of each pen, the characteristics of each nib are what make it worth while. I then realized, and wrote in my letter, that it is amusing and somewhat intriguing to think of the individual histories of these pens. Conjuring in my mind, the scene of owner and pen, conveying an idea. What thoughts did they communicate with this instrument? Did the owner write their thesis, establishing groundbreaking new ways of thinking? Maybe Samantha used it to write Johnny of her undying love for him, and her promise to wait for his return from Viet Nam. Perhaps it stayed next to Mrs. Smith's telephone and only was used to compile grocery lists. Or maybe it could be placed more prominently in history, the broad general history that everyone knows.

"July 6, 1963

Martin,

I received the draft of your speech last week. First, let me tell you this shook me to my very core. I read this to my wife, we sat speechless for nearly an hour, contemplating in our minds the world, the dream, for us that you have created. You have captured the essence of the times, you have put into words what "we the people" are feeling and what, by God, we deserve.

I am quite confident Martin, this, of all of your speeches, will be the one that stands out, this will be the one that stands UP throughout history. If they do not hear us now, then Heaven have mercy on us all.

Please say hello to Coretta for us. We are behind you, WE all are. Take care of yourself and be careful down there in the South. Best of luck, may God bless and keep you always.

Your Friend,

Jacob"

While not an actual letter, and probably not historically accurate, that is not to say that it is not a possibility. I will never know the history of this pen, or any of the other old pens in my collection at present. It may have changed hands 27 times, it may have only had one owner. I, however, pledge to create my own personal history with it, so the tradition may live on. The next owner will most likely not know of its history with me, but should set about to create her own.

The personal history of your pens, I'm certain, have some interesting and wild tales to tell, if only they could talk. You may not know the past, and that's OK. Don't look back for too long, or you may stop moving forward. Create your own history.

It's Just a Ballpoint with My Name on It
By Mark Blumer

I have to admit, I have one of the most interesting jobs in the world. I'm the chief trial prosecutor for the Michigan Attorney General and have been for a quarter of a century. Remember the movie "Anatomy of a Murder"? It was a true story and I am the modern heir to the position played by George C. Scott. The difference is that neither the character in the movie nor the real person (who retired from the office the year before I joined the staff) was a pen enthusiast. I am. I'm in court a lot and every day that I'm there I use a different pen. I don't really think about it, it just has become a part of my courtroom persona.

Much of what I do is prosecute murder cases. Now, murder is the stuff of high drama and always has been. Cain murdered Abel. Shakespeare often wrote about it and movies show it. Murder cases release the most intense emotions we are capable of. The fact, however, is that technically a murder case is usually not that difficult. A complicated embezzlement or securities fraud is vastly more difficult to present competently. But they don't seize your heart like murder does. What makes the murder case so tough for the prosecutor is the constant high intensity drama that invariably involves the family of the victim. The prosecutor becomes their champion carrying the banner of their loved one into battle in the foreign territory of the courtroom. If a prosecutor tries to isolate himself from this emotional tie, his effort is doomed to failure. It cannot be done. They look to you at every moment for reassurance that justice will be done and that the case is unfolding according to your brilliant battle plan. Just how closely they watch you is sometimes amazing. I have had victim families learn to read my body language to the point where they almost become psychic.

A few years ago, a teenage delinquent overpowered an elderly gentleman who volunteered to drive him from the youth detention center where he was being housed to a medical appointment in another city. The old man did this just to keep busy in retirement and because he loved kids and thought he could make a difference. He was wrong in this case. The youth strangled the old man and hijacked his car. We finally caught him three states away because he used his victim's credit card to pay for his motel room. The Attorney General took over the case because the crime crossed so many county lines and no one was sure where the murder actually took place. I prosecuted the case for the state. For two weeks of trial the widow, her adult sons and daughters and her multitude of grandchildren filled that courtroom and never missed a minute of the proceedings. They also watched every move I made. Somewhere during this process, it dawned on them that I liked pens. I played with my pen like a worry bead when things weren't going right. I absentmindedly studied how the light played on the different colors or shapes when I was really concentrating on what a witness was saying. Sometimes I would overtly play with a pen if I wanted to distract the jury from something my opponent was doing. There were even times when I actually used the thing to take some notes or to pen a message to one of my assistants.

After two weeks of trial, the case went to the jury. This is absolutely the worst time in a trial for anyone who has an interest in the outcome. Always in the past, a family would gather around me to soak up my profound theories of what the jury was thinking and doing. Never mind that in over a quarter of a century of doing this, I have never once correctly guessed what the jury was actually thinking and doing. Just as I expected, this family too surrounded me in the courtroom as soon as the judge left. Something this time was different. Instead of peppering me with questions, one of the adult sons stepped forward from the crowd holding a gift-wrapped box. He said that they wanted to give me this gift before the jury returned with its verdict so that it would be clear that this was not a gift for winning…if that were to be the result. Instead they wanted me to know how much they appreciated my efforts, irrespective of the outcome of the trial. I opened the gift and there, inside was a black and gold Colibri ball pen with my name engraved and gold filled on the cap. He said, "We know you like pens. We hope you like this one." I couldn't speak, which was probably a first for me in my life. The jury came back four hours later and convicted the kid of first-degree murder. Under Michigan law he will spend the rest of his life in prison with no parole. I packed up and went home with that pen. It has a place of honor behind a glass door of my barrister bookcase.

I have about two hundred pens in my collection. Many of them are valuable vintage pens. Some of them are inscribed with names and I often wonder why they were given to their owners. Did they shelter as much heartfelt meaning for both the givers and the receivers as my little black ballpoint pen did for those of us in that courtroom? I probably will never know. I have pens in my collection that easily cost twenty times as much as that ballpoint but none of them have as much real value as that ballpoint with my name on it.