Part II. Advice to Pen Collectors: Know the Brand

As a holocaust history buff I was intrigued by Anne Frank's fountain pen, and later by the paucity of information about other diarist from this period who used fountain pens whose brand went unrecorded.

I got the bug to try to own one.

I did try.

I probably bid on dozens upon dozens of pens. I thought I had Anne Frank's lost fountain pen narrowed down to a few possibilities: a school Pelikan, or a 100; a Soennecken or perhaps a Geha.

Anne's pen came in a case, like many did in the 1930s and well into the 60s or later--some still do. And when I found a red leather case that had once held a Pelikan it matched my conjecture that a grandmother from Aachen would buy a young girl something colourful, reasonably priced and practical. Pelikan fountain pens in the 30s were affordable and very popular just as many are today.

So collecting!

I own a beautiful M215 (Modern), a NOS M100 and two 1980s Pelikan M200s, but nothing like a 1930s fountain pen. I had no appreciation for the going prices of a vintage 1930s fountain pen.

However, if I had not bought half a dozen inexpensive (<$100.00) pens, I could have easily acquired one vintage, collectible Pelikan. But I had to know and appreciate that in order to own one I might have to bid as high as the price of those half dozen other pens, pens like Senators, an Osmia or even a 1950 Soennecken (which I also didn't manage to bid high enough for in the end).

I knew none of this, then. In time I acquired the information but only after I had more or less squandered my limited funds on numerous fountain pens and not that one elusive Pelikan.

Lesson learned: It's essential to know the value of a pen, its availability or potential scarcity, it collectible status and its history. It's even more important to possibly narrow down what pen(s) have personal value and meaning.

Lesson shared.

The Red Case: Anne Frank's Fountain Pen

I will probable forego the notion of buying vintage fountain pens from the late 30s. Thus far none have been within my "research only" budget.

But I nearly bought this red case for my own Pelikans before I noticed it is badly damaged.

The symbolist in me lives on.

Early German Fountain Pen Relationships

It's difficult to break habits or what comes naturally.

Research was my game for so many years that even with just a small lead I continue to investigate the Anne Frank fountain pen. I've been trying to place myself inside a petri dish, so to speak, and look outside.

When I do, I see many small school pens, now discontinued, any of which could have been a gift to the young woman starting school.

And very soon, I'll have one of those pens in my hand.

Unabridged: Anne Frank Journal

The Dutch Government did a thorough job of analyzing Anne Frank's journal, down to the ink she used, but no mention is made of the name of her lost fountain pen.

And another young Dutch woman whose diary was discovered ...also used a fountain pen.

What fountain pen did Anne Frank use?

A thread at the FPn about what fountain pen Anne Frank used fascinated and intrigued me.

The subject never occurred to me and even though I lived 2 short streets away from the Museum and the Prinsengracht, and Beppi and Jose lived across the Canal, I never stepped foot into the house.

The house had some sort of unarticulated terror, a terror that all these years later I am over, but can't validate because now I am thousands of miles away. But then when I lived on the Bloemgracht and often spent a Friday evening across the street, or a market day at the greengrocer, the terror was unspoken and unacknowledged.

At our Friday dinners, it was often a bit of a joke that one or another of my friends received mail intended for the Museum that arrived at their door.

But no joke, and no proximity seemed to move me to enter that nearly identical house I saw almost every day.

Yet, I have always been taken with Anne Frank's Diary.

Anne wrote in her diary, Ode to my Fountain, but fails to name the make or model:

THURSDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 1943

Dearest Kitty,

I have a good title for this chapter:

Ode to My Fountain Pen In Memoriam

My fountain pen was always one of my most prized possessions; I valued it highly, especially because it had a thick nib, and I can only write neatly with thick nibs. It has led a long and interesting fountain-pen life, which I will summarize below.

When I was nine, my fountain pen (packed in cotton wool) arrived as a 'sample of no commercial value' all the way from Aachen, where my grandmother (the kindly donor) used to live. I lay in bed with flu, while the February winds howled around our flat. This splendid fountain pen came in a red leather case, and I showed it to my girlfriends the first chance I got. Me, Anne Frank, the proud owner of a fountain pen.

When I was ten, I was allowed to take the pen to school, and to my surprise, the teacher even let me write with it. When I was eleven, however, my treasure had to be tucked away again, because my sixth-form teacher allowed us to use only school pens and ink-pots. When I was twelve, I started at the Jewish Lyceum and my fountain pen was given a new case in honour of the occasion. Not only did it have room for a pencil, it also had a zip, which was much more impressive. When I was thirteen, the fountain pen went with me to the Annexe, and together we've raced through countless diaries and compositions. I'd turned fourteen and my fountain pen was enjoying the last year of its life with me when . . .

It was just after five on Friday afternoon. I came out of my room and was about to sit down at the table to write when I was roughly pushed to one side to make room for Margot and Father, who wanted to practise their Latin. The fountain pen remained unused on the table, while its owner, sighing, was forced to make do with a very tiny corner of the table, where she began rubbing beans. That's how we remove mould from the beans and restore them to their original state. At a quarter to six I swept the floor, dumped the dirt into a newspaper, along with the rotten beans, and tossed it into the stove. A giant flame shot up, and I thought it was wonderful that the stove, which had been gasping its last breath, had made such a miraculous recovery.

All was quiet again. The Latin students had left, and I sat down at the table to pick up where I'd left off. But no matter where I looked, my fountain pen was nowhere in sight. I took another look. Margot looked, Mother looked, Father looked, Dussel looked. But it had vanished.

'Maybe it fell in the stove, along with the beans!' Margot suggested.

'No, it couldn't have!' I replied.

But that evening, when my fountain pen still hadn't turned up, we all assumed it had been burned, especially because celluloid is highly inflammable. Our darkest fears were con­firmed the next day when Father went to empty the stove and discovered the clip, used to fasten it to a pocket, among the ashes. Not a trace of the gold nib was left. 'It must have melted into stone,' Father conjectured.

I'm left with one consolation, small though it may be: my fountain pen was cremated, just as I would like to be some day.



Yours, Anne

Today I phoned the Holocaust Museum and spoke with the Reference and Research Librarian and asked if they had any information, or rather conjecture about Anne Frank's fountain pen. He referred me to the Arts and Artifacts Curator. I am waiting to hear from her.