One downtown Chicago pen store, Gilbertson Clybourn, closed last year after about 35 years in business, including 20 years at 55 E. Chicago Ave. "The last three years business went down a little bit each year," proprietor Dan Collins, 66, said. "The last year we just thought about it and thought about it, and we thought, 'Well, next year is going to be less.'" Collins theorized that people can only have so many fancy pens and that the instruments are less important in a digital world.