Hey, remember that cool Jekyll Island pen I posted about back in September HERE? Well, I recently found 4 more similarly produced vintage ink pens with neat little 3D scenes built right into the shaft! SEE: Skylon Tower in Niagara Falls! Yellowstone Park! Wisconsin Dells! And finally, the only place I haven't been too, Little America, Wyoming. Turn the pen vertical to see the Skylon Tower properly, while the other three feature horizontal imagery and even include wild animals on the loose! I'm curious if these pens were more brightly colorful when originally sold back in the day, and if they've just somehow faded into this pinkish-maroon shade over time? Strip clubs could've killed two advertising birds with one stone and made a mint off of this pen concept, --remember THIS post in the more risque sector of the AEET Archive?
I'll take the Penis Mightier for 200, Alex...
ReplyDeleteALEX TREBEK: “ BEDIVERE LOVES RAISINS AFTER CLEAVING FOES IN TWAIN, SO GIVE HIM “SPOTTED" THIS…
DeleteNot only did you miraculously find MORE of the coolest pens ever to be penned, they’re a veritable delicatessen of delicious typographical delights! I’m loving that Wisconsin Dells font!
ReplyDeleteThat’s my favorite of the bunch as well. I’m curious if the boat actually moved back-and-forth when one tilted the pen? It seems to be stuck anchored behind the rock now.
DeleteI knew about collectable spoons offered for sale in tourist spots, I didn't know there were collectable pens.
ReplyDelete"If you own one, you are an owner, if you own two, you are a collector" Bob Rau, from the PBS TV show "The Collectors", broadcast from the mid eighties through the mid nineties.
Since you own more than one you are an official collector, Karswell.
Nice finds.
For better or worse, I believe I have actually transcended beyond the definition of “collector.” haha
DeleteAs cool as they are as collector items, they are also cool for their spot in time. People take notes on their phones now a days -- even after phones became a thing I still took notes on index cards but eventually I learned to use the phone.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, pens were really something you needed and something you'd be more than likely to pick up as a souvenir and something others might get out of your junk drawer and use, and then maybe want to visit the place with a floating bear in it!
Very neat. Another item lost to time!
There's something about the utter banality of that Little America pen--with it's gas station photo and counter-intuitive floating penguin--that I love. But I guess I'm leaning toward the Yellowstone pen as a fave. I like the bear, I like the official Yellowstone lettering, and I like the orange pen color. It works particularly nicely with that faded photographic image.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess I'm also leaning toward "faded" theory too--rather than the notion these were originally just sepia tone or something. Research seems to bear that out. Peder Eskesen's patented "Floaty Pens" were originally assembled in his Denmark home from one or two strips of full color photo film positives encased in a clear plastic pen barrel filled with mineral oil and some added floating detail. I learned all about it at the Stuckey's website, so I assume that's one of the places these were sold. Certainly fits with their roadside Americana themes.
At first I thought Little America Wyoming was the only one of these spot that I actually had been to, but I was mixing it up with 1880 Town in South Dakota. So I'm still batting a goose egg on the AEET pen-is-mightier-o-meter.
Ahhh thanks for the info, and via Stuckeys, no less! haha
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