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Style and functionality are hallmarks of fine fountain pens. Around the clock, starting at "midnight" are the Edison Beaumont Pneumatic Filled pen made in Milan, Ohio; a French-made Merlin 33; a Montblanc Meisterstuck Classique; one of Bexley Pen Co.'s Admiral Collection pens, made in Columbus; a Diplomat Classic Collection pen from Germany; the pink gold Parker Sonnet 5th Mode pen, made in France; the Pelikan Souveran M805 blue-and-black, from Germany; a matte-finish Waterman Paris fountain; a 1940s era Parker 51 with a Lusterloy cap; the Parker Duofold Centennial; a modern Cross pen; and an American made Shaeffer from 1948.

(Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer)

Chatter among the morning news anchors caught my ear. Another state legislature had passed a bill removing penmanship from its curriculum requirements.

“Well really,” one of them observed merrily. “Everything’s done on the computer. Who writes by hand anymore, anyway?”

“Me,” I yelled at my Sony. “Me!”

Which, I realized a moment later, confirms my status as an antiquated cuss – the old guy bellowing at his television.

It seems that today anyone who commits an idea or sentiment to paper – er, to the electronic ether – does it using a computer or smartphone or tablet. Pen? You may as well haul out the papyrus.

Now, my wife would be the first to tell you (no doubt rolling her eyes) that I’m more than fond of my electronic toys. As I sit here this moment, my fingers are tapping the keys of a laptop. An iPad sits to my left. Two smartphones – one personal, one for work – are to my right. A land line waits nearby. I’m cool with staying connected.

But a few moments after shouting at my TV, I found myself hauling out a small but precious basket that holds my modest collection of fountain pens. A couple of Cross pens, reliable tools for everyday use and inexpensive enough that I won’t flip-out if they’re lost. The vintage Shaeffer, a wedding gift to my parents during the late 1940s. A Montblanc Meisterstuck Classique my bride gave me for my 40th birthday.

Holding them I realized just how beautiful each one is: some of them glowing and glistening like endlessly colorful jewels; others lacquered to a deep, radiant sheen.

Distinctly different, too. It may be an arcane world to most, but only the aesthetically deprived soul could miss the creative expressions achieved in the endless shapes, colors, patterns, materials and adornments.

Some of those pens are cartridge-fill, using tiny disposable ink-filled vials. Others employ “converters” the user can readily refill with ink from a bottle. That Shaeffer, long out of commission, uses the old lever-fill system that draws ink into an internal sac, which is now shot and demands replacement.

It’s that kind of “problem" that drove many users to abandon their fountain pens. Who has hasn’t heard the kvetching: leaking, smudging, staining. Scratchy nibs. Uneven, stop-start ink flow. The agony of losing a pricey pen.

LOYALISTS, OLD AND YOUNG .....

John Zubal doesn’t waste much time pondering such concerns. As owner of Zubal Books, a Cleveland firm that deals in vintage books of every age and stripe, he is well acquainted with the challenges old things present. He simply loves them – including the 30 or 40 fountain pens he has collected over the years.

“I started writing with a fountain pen in either kindergarten or first grade at John Muir Elementary in Parma, back when there was still fighting in the Pacific during World War II,” he says. Apart from pencils and dipping pens, fountain pens were all that was available at the time; ballpoint pens didn’t become popular until after the war.

“I never liked ballpoints,” Zubal says. “Back in those days they seemed sloppy, and they leaked more than fountain pens did. I still don’t like them.”

Zubal laughs as he admits that his is “sort of a Paleolithic form of human communication in this post-modern era.” But he’s hardly alone. His 23-year-old grandson, Paul Nann, who works for Amazon in Seattle, also uses them.

“I don’t know if he picked up that nasty habit from his grandpa, but it pleases me that he has done so from early on, since grade school,” Zubal adds.

Turns out ownership, or at least appreciation, appears to be on the upswing. – at least if you get onto the subject with people or visit the various websites where pen-heads proudly admit to being in their teens and 20s.

And it’s not just those of us who learned handwriting under the strict tutelage of ruler-wielding school teachers who demanded perfectly rounded loops and long, gracefully curving lines.

Attorney Andrew Samtoy catches up on some writing, using a much-loved Cross pen. He once misplaced one of his favorite pens. "It was a sad two days. It made me think of all the words we'd written together."

Andrew Samtoy, a 33-year-old Cleveland attorney, grew enamored with his father’s Cross and Parker pens while he was still a young boy growing up in San Diego. One day he visited a garage sale across the street and bought an inkwell for 25 cents.

“My father asked ‘How are you going to use it?’ He ended up giving me a Cross pen. I used that inkwell as long as I can remember.”

These days he uses a trusty Cross to make edits on documents, sign receipts and write first-drafts for blogs to which he contributes.

“I find my best writing is always when I first pound it out on paper – to collect ideas – then transcribe it on the keyboard,” Samtoy says.

Along the way he gave another Cross to a good friend, Dr. Rosemarie Metzger, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. She laughingly calls it a “gateway drug.”

“In medical school we’re taught that marijuana is a gateway drug; it’s pretty innocuous, but it can lead to other recreational drugs,” she says. Similarly, that simple pen got her hooked, she says.

She didn't pursue her interest any further until she decided to learn a bit more about fountain pens. She visited an extremely popular website, InkNouveau.com, operated by Virginia pen retailers Brian and Rachel Goulet (gouletpens.com) and started watching Brian's informative video tutorials on all things fountain pen.

“I realized I needed some ink,” Metzger says. Samtoy had given her some cartridges, explaining that many hobbyists simply rinse and refill them with bottled ink using a simple syringe. “Then he asked me ‘What’s your color going to be?’ "

While studying and working in the United Kingdom, Samtoy recalls working for a firm where, upon earning partnership, fellow attorneys selected a distinctive ink color so that colleagues would instantly recognize the source of notes or commentaries sent along with documents.

“So I thought maybe a dusky purple,” Metzger recalls, “but then suddenly I realized there are thousands of colors out there.

“It’s incredible,” she adds.

THE JOYS AND CHALLENGES OF PEN ADDICTION . . . .

Incredibly seductive, too. Serious pen addicts debate endlessly about every nuance and issue: ink drying times, smear tests, shading and indelibility, and the kinds and qualities of paper and their compatibility with various inks. On online forums and at pen shows – yes, there are such things, including an annual gathering in Columbus, this year Nov. 8-10 – experts hash out the pros and cons of gold versus stainless-steel nibs, the differences in western versus Japanese writing points, on and on.

“That little Cross pen has opened up this deeper world, beyond which I didn’t know was there,” Metzger says.

What isn’t there, at least for fanciers, is a whole lot of locally available retailers. I was searching for a dedicated fountain pen retailer, and the nearest one turned up in Columbus: Vintage Fountain Pens, operated by specialist Jack Price since 1993. With the exception of a small number of modern imports, he deals almost exclusively in old stock fountain pens, with a few mechanical pencils thrown in.

Closer to home, Sheiban Jewelers in Strongsville is one of the rare local retailers that carries a small but distinguished selection. On one visit the display included a couple of modest Parker and Cross pens, an array of exquisite Montblancs and a sampling of fountains constructed from rare materials such as fossilized dinosaur bone from William Henry Studios in Oregon. A gold S.T. Dupont fountain with a diamond-encrusted clip and crown from Frane was also available, priced around $10,000.

“People do buy them for writing,” says one of the owners, Jason Sheiban. “But really, a lot of these are statement pieces. They’re fashion accessories.”

Funny… you can hardly drive a half-mile through most retail corridors without spotting at least a couple signs promising cellular phones. Want a fountain pen? Plan on doing your business online.

There you'll find an absolute meteor shower of brands, styles, nibs shapes and sizes, as well as options. You'll also find bespoke penmakers, such as Brian Gray of Milan, Ohio, whose Edison Pen Company is one of the world's most-respected producers of made-to-order fountain pens (see related story about Gray).

Ohio boasts another of the world's most-respected pen makers: Bexley Pens, based in Columbus. Owner Howard L. Levy says his firm sells pens through more than 250 retailers in 26 countries.

Of the 4,000 to 6,000 total units (including fountains and rollerballs) he sells annually, Levy says that better than 70 percent are purchased by professionals – specifically, physicians, attorneys, university professors and administrators.

“I’ve been a collector and a repair person since I was a teenager,” says Levy, 59. “It’s something you can’t really sum up with words. There’s something about the tactile feel, and the uniqueness of the written word you achieve with a fountain pen. That simply doesn’t come through a ballpoint. And you’ll certainly never get it working on a keyboard – however efficient it is.”