Monthly Archives: October 2013

Haunting at 715 S. Phillips Ave.

When I lived at 715 S. Phillips Avenue in Sioux Falls, S.D., there were all kinds of things that went bump in the night...and day. I'm not saying I believe in ghosts, but I'm at a loss for what to call what I experience...and I wasn't the only one.

When I lived at 715 S. Phillips Avenue in Sioux Falls, S.D., there were all kinds of things that went bump in the night…and day. I’m not saying I believe in ghosts, but I’m at a loss for what to call what I experienced…and I wasn’t the only one.

The desire to preface this story is strong. I am not the type of guy who believes the Virgin Mary is trying to make a connection by appearing in a grilled cheese sandwich. Jesus isn’t hiding in a Cheez-It cracker. I don’t even believe in ghosts…but I did experience some things that I do not understand.

While living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I rented a beautiful apartment in a converted mansion on a lushly tree-lined street. Just a block south of downtown and walking distance from work, it was across the street from a large park. The colonial mansion had been built in 1922, and it was converted into three apartments—two boxcar long apartments on the ground floor and a huge residence on the top floor.

My apartment was the ground floor one on the right side of the photo. The spacious front room got morning sunlight. My library was connected to the front living room. Halfway down the long narrow hall on the right was my bedroom, to the left a tiny bathroom with a remarkable claw-foot bathtub the size of an Olympic pool. There was a utility closet at the end of the hall on the left and the kitchen and dining room were in the far west end of the unit. Summer sunlight peeked through the dappled shadows of the leaves in the evenings.

The apartment was always warm and inviting. The doors and trim were rich, darkly stained wood. The floors were recently sanded and refinished maple. Oh, how you could slide down the hall in socks!

The only thing remotely foreboding about the place was an old dumbwaiter shaft that had been converted into a skylight. It was in the center of the hall. Frosted glass windows kept the neighbors from looking in, and we used the empty space to store boxes and such. An even creepier double-doored cabinet was beneath the dumbwaiter shaft. No doubt this was where its engine used to be. It was ripe for a good hidden passage or secret storage compartment perfect for hiding bodies or treasure. I explored it several times in daylight with a flashlight. There wasn’t a trick floorboard or any passage or bones. Disappointing as hell, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t give me the willies from time to time.

No one will tell you I lack an overactive imagination. However, I never even thought about that space in the apartment 99% of the time, and I lived there for 3 ½ years. Every now and again it just gave me the heebie jeebies.

I settled in quickly during the late spring of 2003. I worked until 1 a.m. at a newspaper and didn’t usually wind down for bed until 4 a.m.

Then one hot, humid summer morning around 10 a.m. I heard a gentle knocking at my front door. The only person this could have been was a delivery man, so I got up at my equivalent of 5 a.m. to answer.

No one was there. The knocking had only stopped when I was within feet of the door. I checked the hall, the stairs, the basement, the front porch, the sidewalk out front. Nothing. Nobody could have gotten away that quickly and silently.

Befuddled, I went back into my apartment and went back to bed. Just as I was falling back to sleep there was a violent pounding on my front door. A commanding voice called out “NATHANIEL.” The pounding continued until I reached the front door.

It didn’t take my adrenaline-fueled body 10 seconds to get from my bed to the pounding door.

No one was there. I searched high and low for this person. Nothing.

I wasn’t scared. I was confused and angry. Who was pounding on my door and calling my name? I am dead certain I didn’t imagine or dream it. All of my neighbors were at work. I had no idea who it could be, especially since I didn’t know anybody in town outside of work.

I went back to bed. As soon as I got under the covers, it got cold—really cold. I got back up and turned off the air conditioner. I was still really cold in bed. I don’t know if I heard something, but I suddenly had the feeling I was no longer alone in the apartment. Whoever it was was in the doorway of my bedroom watching me. I thought it was a burglar who just realized he had picked the wrong house.

My back was turned to the door, and I could’t see who it was. My inner 5-year-old wanted to just pull the blankets over my head and hope whoever it was went away. My adult self said, “Screw this. If someone is about to kill you, you might as well go down fighting.”

I spun and sprang out of bed, landing on my feet, squaring off to fight.

No one was there. I ran into my living room. It was icebox cold, but no one was there. The library, bathroom, dining room, kitchen and closets were empty.

The apartment went back to normal temperatures.

There was no going back to sleep, and it was a sunny beautiful morning. It wasn’t until I got done searching the place that I began thinking it was a ghost. Yet, the one thing I couldn’t fathom was, “Who ever heard of a daytime haunting?”

All summer I began noticing little things going awry. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I’d hear a voice in an empty room.

There were no angry poltergeists seeking revenge. There were no lethal traps. No spirit ill will. I usually dismissed these odd occurrences.

For example, I never thought twice about a knee-level cabinet door in my kitchen opening on its own. It was an 80-year-old house. If the cabinets were a little off from their heyday, I didn’t care. I just kept closing it every time I found it open. No biggie.

Well, one night off from work around 8 or 9 p.m., I made dinner and was about to sit down to watch a movie on T.V. When I had carried my dinner into the living room from the kitchen, the cabinet door had re-opened. I closed it, and went to go eat.

Just as I was settling into the couch, that cabinet door starts opening and slamming itself shut about half a dozen times. Then my hall light flickered.

Now I was scared.

My mind raced, trying to figure out how I should react, especially if something materialized before me. Having seen “The Sixth Sense,” I figured I’d try to talk to it.

“All right, Ghost. You’ve got my attention. What do you want?”

No response. Then it occurred to me. My ghost was simply a practical joker ghost. He or she just liked causing mischief to get a rise out of me. I started laughing.

“All right, Ghost. Very funny. You got me.”

I marched right down the hallway, showing no fear, and discovered the cabinet door was open once again. I looked inside for any messages or clues from the spirit world. Nada. No fishing line or any other devices, either. Just my kitchen stuff. I slammed the cabinet shut, and went back to eat and watch my movie.

I saw and heard less and less from my prankster ghost over the coming months and years. Every now and again, I’d see or hear something, but I’d just talk to it. “Feelin’ bored or lonely, eh?”

I never got a response other than fewer visitations.

Then one day a new group of college grads moved into the unit overhead. They threw a raucous party one night that was still raging after I got home from work. I went upstairs to tell them to shut it down for the night, when they invited me in for a beer.

Who was I to turn down a beer and a party with a lot of hot girls?

I worked my way out to the balcony with my beer, and one of the guys asked, “You ever see anything around here?”

He seemed sincere, but I didn’t want to be the kook who started spouting off about ghost stories.

“What do you mean? See what?”

“Oh,” he nervously dismissed me. “Nothing. It’s a stupid question. You’ll think I’m a nut job.”

I wryly smiled. “You mean the ghost?”

His face filled with wide-eyed wonderment, like a child’s.

“You’ve seen it,” he said. “Who is it?”

“No, unfortunately, I haven’t seen it. Have you?”

“Sorta,” he said. “But if you haven’t seen it, how do you know about it.”

When I got done telling him my stories, he was noticeably paler.

“Relax,” I said. “This ghost won’t harm you. It just gets a kick out of messin’ with you. So you actually saw it.”

“Just part of it,” he said. “There are 3 other guys living here, and a couple nights ago, they all went out drinking, but I stayed home because I had to get up early the next day for a meeting.

“It was really only around 11 o’clock when I went to bed. My bedroom door was open, and as I’m lying there still awake, I hear the front door to the apartment open. I shout out something like, ‘Hey, which one of you losers decided to call it a night early?’ But nobody answered.

“I hear footsteps coming down the hall, so I look out my door and only see a foot as they walked passed. They keep walkin’ down the hall, and I’m like, ‘Hey, didn’t you hear me.’ Still no answer. So I get out of bed, and now there’s no one in the hall. I went into every guy’s bedroom, the bathrooms and out on the balcony. Nobody was here but me.”

“Cool,” I said. “What did the foot look like?”

“That was even stranger,” he said. “It was barefooted. I mean, we’re not that far from the bars, but far enough you aren’t gonna leave your shoes some place. I was totally freaked out.”

Work brought me to Chicago not too long after that, and I never heard any more ghost stories from my neighbors, but I always loved my encounters with the unexplained at 715 S. Phillips Ave. in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

My Battle with Snorkels Advances, Stymies

Two Snorkel filling units mock me from my work bench, as I try to sort out the final mysterious reasons they won't draw ink.

Two Snorkel filling units mock me from my work bench, as I try to sort out the final mysterious reasons they won’t draw ink.

For roughly 10 years, I have struggled to find a way to fix the beautiful and brilliant Sheaffer Snorkel. Years ago I saw a poll that asked pen collectors what they prefered: the Parker 51 or the Sheaffer Snorkel. I sided with the 25% that preferred the Snorkel.

Among other things, I am a clean freak. Snorkels are the most mess-free pens of the vintage era. The Parker 61 was/is mess-free, too, but it is static and just aborbs ink. There is no Rube Goldberg intricacy.

The Snorkel satisfies my need for cleanliness and order as well as my need for complicated and elaborate. When they work, they are wonderful pens.

However, in my effort to learn to restore these beautiful devils, I have littered the junkyard with the corpses of those steel filler units.

The reason there was a delay in updating this blog or the vintage pens in the past week was because I had made not one but two restoration breakthroughs with the Snorkel fountain pen. ONE: I finally found a way to remove the plug that holds the ink sac and seals the pneumatic casing without damaging anything. TWO: I found a way to insert a new ink sac and that plug back into said casing.

I already know how to restore the touchdown filler O-rings and assembly. I even know how to replace the Snorkel tube’s gasket between the nib and the section.

All done. Right! NO! Frustratingly, miserably no. I have an air leak or blockage somewhere that won’t allow the pen to fill. Whatever the problem is, I know it is a simple small easy little tweak that is likely staring right at me. I just don’t see it. That is all that is standing between me and finishing about a dozen classic Sheaffer Snorkels that are just dying for the opportunity to work again and be sold into loving homes that will use them and cherish them.

If you know the secret inner psychology of what it takes to fix a Snorkel, please let me know.

The Last Endorsement Deal Poets Got?

Could it be that this 1957 Parker ad featuring Carl Sandburg was the last time a living poet was paid to endorse a pen?

Could it be that this 1957 Parker ad featuring Carl Sandburg was the last time a living poet was paid to endorse a pen?

When was the last time you saw a poet getting the opportunity to endorse any luxury item?

This Parker ad from 1957 might be it. The legendary Carl Sandburg eyes a brand new Parker 61 and its mess-free filling mechanism in this classic ad.

You would think modern pen makers would be hitting poetry slams across America looking for popular writers to promote the use of their pens. You, unfortunately, are a logical person. We don’t even see best-selling authors getting endorsement deals for pens, computers or anything.

How did the people who famously use these tools the most get left out of the conversation. One would think that any brand of pen or laptop Stephen King, Nora Roberts or J.K. Rowling chose to promote would sell off the shelves.

Tell us: Aside from the Mont Blanc writer series (those writers are dead and have no say), when was the last time you saw a living poet…or any writer in a pen ad?

Parker Pens of WWII–Return of the Jedi

This modified Parker Duofold from around 1930 was used by French General de Lattre de Tassigny to sign the German surrender that ended World War II. The photo was given to us by the Musee de l' Armee in Paris. The twist of the story is that this is not the pen that started the whole story in the first place. Where is that Parker 51?

This modified Parker Duofold from around 1930 was used by French General de Lattre de Tassigny to sign the German surrender that ended World War II. The photo was given to us by the Musee de l’ Armee in Paris. The twist of the story is that this is not the pen that started the whole story in the first place. Where is that Parker 51?

They say the third time’s the charm, but I’m not buying it. Today I received a photo of General de Lattre de Tassigny’s Parker fountain pen from Musee de l’ Armee in Paris. It is this lovely 1930ish Parker Duofold with an aftermarket replacement clip.

This is not the vintage pen I saw in Paris! I am certain it was a Parker 51, which the museum claims not to have. To keep from boring you on the top story space, I’ve revised the revised version of the story below with all of the new details. Enjoy!

Learn from Vintage Pen Ads

Vintage pen ads tell us so much. They help us catalog what a company once offered, introduce us to new pens we want to collect and provide insights to the culture and economics of the past.

Vintage pen ads tell us so much. They help us catalog what a company once offered, introduce us to new pens we want to collect and provide insights to the culture and economics of the past.

I love old catalog ads such as this one because they go far to help me identify old pens, their sizes and their design alternatives.

I am forever stumbling upon hard rubber Waterman’s from the 19-teens and 1920s, and I am never quite certain which ones were given sterling silver or gold filigree by the factory or by a local jeweler plying his artistic talents to a basic black pen–as was a frequent occurance during that time.

These ads also help to establish various sizes of pen models and their original pricing. For example: The top pen in the ad comes with the exact same gold mounts in sizes 12 (small) through 16 (large). I now know how many pens I will have to hunt down and find if I want that same model in all sizes with those gold mounts.

After daydreaming for a minute, wishing I had a time machine to go back to the early 1920s to buy gold and silver pens for less than the price of a cocktail in downtown Chicago today, I have fun with the advertising copy.

This ad was very challenging to make in 1924ish. There were no computers or Indesign programs to pop it together. Intricate artwork, cutting, pasting and more went into this very expensive ad for its time. However, you can’t help but wonder who the copy editor was.

“Prices vary according to size of gold pen contained”…???

Even then wouldn’t it have been easier to say, “Prices vary by the amount of gold in each pen”?

I guess I can see why Sheaffer always beat out Waterman. According to our last ad post, Sheaffer pens come with a “cunning” box. Waterman’s pens only came with a “neat” box. Who wouldn’t prefer a pen box that can play chess and carry a conversation with wit?

Pen Tip #2: I Flushed My Pen. So Why Am I Still Getting Ink on My Hands?

A Q-tip can be one of your best tools for helping to clean out a pen cap and keeping your fingers from getting inky. Even after rinsing this Sheaffer Lifetime cap, you can still see plenty of ink on the cotton.

A Q-tip can be one of your best tools for helping to clean out a pen cap and keeping your fingers from getting inky. Even after rinsing this Sheaffer Lifetime cap, you can still see plenty of ink on the cotton.

Periodically flushing your pen with water often helps eliminate leaks as well as helping to get your nib to start writing well, again, as we discussed in Pen Tip #1.

Nevertheless, after you’ve gotten your pen cleaned and filled, you notice that you still have a little or a lot of ink on your fingers the next morning after you’ve decided to write with it.

The trouble often comes from old ink still inside your cap. Even if you rinsed your cap when you flushed your pen, that is not usually nearly enough to get all the old ink out.

Inside the caps of nearly all vintage and modern pens is an inner cap. It usually seals the nib compartment of your cap when the section (writing grip) of your pen screws up and against it. This keeps your pen from drying out. However, as fountain pens are wont to occasionally leak, drip or see some evaporation with heat, ink gets into these inner caps. Worse, it gets between your inner cap and outer cap shell. Once enough accumulates, your fingers are bound to get inked.

Your best bet is to soak your cap overnight in room temperature water.

Are you sensing a theme? Room temperature water and soakings are our friend.

Make sure the whole cap is immersed, and make sure that there is no air trapped inside the cap.

After a good, long soak, shake the cap empty over a sink. This gets messy in a hurry, so be careful.

Your next move is to hold the cap under running room-temperature water from the tap while scrubbing its insides with a small plastic-brissle brush that is like a toothbrush but smaller. Some hardware stores, tobacco shops and gun shops sell ones that work pretty well. I often use a plastic-brissle brush I found in an air rifle cleaning kit. I don’t have an air rifle to clean, but I spent the money just to get that little brush used on the air rifle barrels. Whatever you do, do not use a metal-wire brush used on regular hand guns and rifles. It will tear apart your cap.

Once the ink stops coming out of the cap in the sink, shake out the cap again. Use a Q-tip to dry out the cap. Odds are good that there is still plenty of ink in the cap, and you will go through many Q-tips trying to clean it out. You will have to keep getting Q-tips wet to keep getting the old gunk out. Pay special attention to the cap threads and the lip of the inner cap. Keep cleaning until you are satisfied.

This process takes a while, but if you only have one or two pens you have to do this for, it is worth just doing this to them once every several years. If you are a hardcore collector, we can discuss inner cap pullers and ultrasonic cleaners on another day.

Click here to see the finished restoration of the Sheaffer Lifetime cap in the photo above.

Please write in with your pen repair questions.

Parker Pens Win WWII–Revised

It is hardly ground-breaking news that Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed the “Instrument of Surrender” ending World War II with Japan while using a Parker Duofold “Big Red” (among other pens) on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri. It is a fact Parker touts time and again, even making a commemorative series of modern Duofolds to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower holds up 2 of the pens used to sign the German surrender, ending World War II in Europe in May of 1945. One of those pens is a Parker 51, which is now on display in Paris' Musee de l'Armee.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower holds up 2 of the pens used to sign the German surrender, ending World War II in Europe in May of 1945. One of those pens is a Parker 51, which is now on display in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.

In the late 1920s, the Parker Duofold was advertised as being indestructable. Surviving WWII and bringing it to an end seemed elegant proof. Yet, people of the era fussed a bit about the famous general using such and old out-of-date pen–as if years of dependable service didn’t matter.

Rarely, however, is it mentioned what pen General Dwight Eisenhower used to sign the surrender of the German army.

I, myself, would not have known had it not been for a trip to Paris several years ago and a flurry of messages today. I love military history and could not pass up the chance to see “L’ Invalides” where Napoleon rests in his giant sarcophagus. Part of the grounds holds Musee de l’ Armee (a.k.a. The Museum of the Army). It was phenomenal. The swords and armor, the WWI tanks, the early rifles and muskets of the 1600s and a large display about the French Resistance and WWII.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed a peace agreement with the Japanese using a Parker Duofold "Big Red" similar to this one in August 1945.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed a peace agreement with the Japanese using a Parker Duofold “Big Red” similar to this one in August 1945. I don’t believe MacArthur’s Duofold was streamlined, though.

My eyes, long accostumed to spotting vintage pens in cluttered antique stores, instantly picked out a pen among a somewhat cluttered case full of war documents. It was the ugliest Parker 51 I had ever seen. It was olive drab, and the gold cap was tarnished almost beyond recognition. That led me to ask, what was an American fountain pen doing in the French army museum. The answer: It is the pen Gen. Dwight Eisenhower used to sign the documents of the German surrender. Or so I thought…

Several weeks before writing this post I contacted the Musee de l’Armee to send me a photo of the famous Parker 51 and any information they had about it. I did not hear from them until after the original draft of this story posted.

“We didn’t have any pen once owned by General Eisenhower,” wrote a museum employee. “The only one we have in our collection is the pen of General de Lattre de Tassigny used to sign the surrender of Germany in 1945.”

Without the presence of mind in 2010 to photograph the historic pen, I was only left with my memory, which was certain it was a Parker 51 belonging to the future president. If I had only known then that I was going to create a blog in 3 1/2 years.

Later today help came in form of one of the ultimate authorities about Parker pens: Geoff Parker, the grandson of the famous Parker CEO who gave Ike the very Parker 51s used to sign the armistice with Germany!

“The actual story behind that photo is a bit more complicated,” Parker wrote. “My grandfather, Kenneth Parker, and Eisenhower happened to meet in the Philippines in 1937 and became good friends. The two stayed in contact for many years. KP provided Parker 51s to Eisenhower as the end of the war approached. The Eisenhower Presidential Museum/Library in Kansas displays the 51 used in that ceremony which Eisenhower presented to President Truman. There were probably more than one, in order to represent each of the Allies.”

As if getting the rest of the story from Mr. Parker wasn’t already enough to blow this lifetime collector’s mind, he very kindly sent me a photo he took of the actual Parker 51 on display at the Eisenhower Library that ended World War II.

Geoff Parker took this photo of the actual Parker 51 his grandfather gave to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that was used to sign the armistice with Germany ending World War II in Europe. It is preserved in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum.

Geoff Parker took this photo of the actual Parker 51 his grandfather gave to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that was used to sign the armistice with Germany ending World War II in Europe. It is preserved in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum.

This modified Parker Duofold from around 1930 was used by French General de Lattre de Tassigny to sign the German surrender that ended World War II. The photo was given to us by the Musee de l' Armee in Paris. The twist of the story is that this is not the pen that started the whole story in the first place. Where is that Parker 51?

This modified Parker Duofold from around 1930 was used by French General de Lattre de Tassigny to sign the German surrender that ended World War II. The photo was given to us by the Musee de l’ Armee in Paris. The twist of the story is that this is not the pen that started the whole story in the first place. Where is that Parker 51?

The plot thickens: It is now October 17, and I have received a photo of the pen used by France’s Gen. de Lattre de Tassigny. It is a unique Parker Duofold circa 1930 with a glittering red candy finish and black flecks. Those Parkers are rare. Rarer still is the fact this one is missing its original Parker clip and has an after-market steel clip wedged over the broken clip and top of the pen. We actually have an original fully intact version of this pen for sale at ThePenMarket.com.

Now do you think the story is over? Of course not. This is not the pen I saw in Paris at the Musee de l’ Armee! I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I saw a Parker 51 in a case. I am more certain once again it is a pen marked as Gen. Eisenhower’s. Geoff Parker said Ike likely used several Parker 51’s to sign the surrender and gave them to each allied nation. So perhaps that is the pen he gave France. But, why doesn’t the museum have it cataloged?

Unless I beat you to Paris, pen fans, you have a mission: Find and photograph that pen! Please submit it so that we can share it with everyone on this blog and put this story to bed. It might be like finding a needle in a haystack, but here is where I remember seeing it if it helps your quest to find it. The pen was in a waist high glass case, in a room dedicated to World War II on the main floor. It was a room that I recall having two entrances–one on each side of the room but on the same wall. This case was on the right side of the room if you stood facing the case and the exit. When I was there, the WWII exhibit looked as if it hadn’t been moved, changed or altered since the 1950s. I suspect it is still there waiting for one of us. Good luck on your quest.