Here’s the gig, mostly: get up early and haunt estate sales, buy low and sell higher. And that’s it. I had fun accompanying her to some of these—even found some cool things incredibly cheaply—but, it’s over now. In the end, she kept it going for just over a year. She made money doing it—several hundred dollars a month over the Winter!—but it wasn’t really worth the effort. She shut down the booth at the end of July, and our garage is now filled with stuff. Estate sales? I’m sure we’ll go to more of these, if only to stock up on household cleansers and other overpriced fluids (the real deals are in the prosaic, mundane stuff that always costs more than you expect). Estate sales kind of become a way of life.
But this is actually about my love of writing by hand with fountain pens and how the antique mall booth presented an opportunity.
Context: Fountain Pens
I may have written about this elsewhere, but here’s the long and short of it. About ten years ago, it occurred to me that buying about a dozen gel pens per year, most of which I lost, was wasteful and not-in-keeping with my values. I became interested in fountain pens as a more sustainable, refillable alternative1. While we were traveling in Washington state, I got my first—a banana yellow Lamy Safari—and still haven’t looked back. Fountain pens are, I think, a much more enjoyable writing experience than ballpoints or gel pens (at least for right handers). Fountain pens glide across the page in a more satisfying way, try it sometime.
I’ve seen plenty of people dive into fountain pens and go crazy. But I managed to keep to the the shallow end for years… I had some Lamy Safaris, a couple Kaweco Sports, a Pilot Metropolitan, and a Faber-Kastell Hexo (underrated). These are all “starter” pens, and I was perfectly satisfied. But then, last December, Linda found a ziplock bag at an estate sale labeled: “Pens, $5.” And inside were incredible pens from the 1920s through the 1980s, every last one with gold nibs, as you can see in the photo above. And that kicked off rounds of deep fascination. I sold the Waterman, gifted the Pilot Vanishing Point to my eldest, and greedily kept the rest. The Parker 45, Parker True Blue, and Sheaffer Balance are my favorites of these. And, I hate to say it, I’ve bought two pens since, an Asvine V126 and a Filcao Columbia.
But here’s the thing about these pens, they’re like thoroughbreds that need to be ridden. There’s a certain amount of writing that needs to get done. I take plenty of notes at work, but it’s also fun to just write without regard for what’s getting written. You can probably see where this is going…
I Was an Antique Mall Poet
I have no recollection what particular thought kicked this off last January—Wisconsin Winter drives people to do things. Nor do I recall why I took to ascribing these to various 19th and 20th century poets. Just fomentin’ cultural chaos, I guess. The poems were attached to the items that inspired them and were sold along with them. I didn’t take these very seriously, it just pleased me to write them. I hadn’t waxed poetic since my collegiate-poet days. It’s fun to think these might be kicking around in people’s homes. Looking at them now, I long to revise them. But the moment’s past and they are what they are. Here are the ten that I remembered to photograph (out of maybe 20-30?)
Poems for Vintage Bric-Brac, 1-10
I. A Green Vase
II. A Simple Typewriter
III. A Wooden Clamp
IV. A Spice Cabinet
(With apologies to Vasko Popa)
V. A Cake Topper
(This one borrows from Laurie Anderson, IYKYK.)
VI. A String of (Paste) Pearls
VII. Another Small Cabinet
VIII. An Underwood Typewriter
IX. Birdies
X. A Brass Lyre
Footnote:
- I haven’t been assiduous enough to do even a back of a napkin life cycle analysis, so I’m not sure it’s actually more sustainable. I really was buying about a dozen pens per year, so there are 120 fewer gel pens in landfills, that would be one side of the balance sheet.