My very favorite pen

We have a lot of pens. Not as many as some people, of course, but probably somewhere north of 60, if I had to guess. (Inventory? Yes, I should...but I never seem to get it done.)

Some of them are rather flashy, and a couple of them were pretty expensive.

But my favorite pen, overall, is a rather modest little thing.

It's a black Parker Vacumatic, probably about a 1946 vintage. It is neither a rare nor even a particularly good specimen. It's obviously well-used, and someone who owned it in the past was a pen-chewer. (I hear a certain segment of you going "ewwwwwww!" as I type.) A quick search on eBay revealed three substantially similar pens within the first dozen hits, all going for well under $100. It seems a ton of these were made, and a ton were bought, and used for years. Just like this one, which definitely shows its almost 70 years of age.