Caltech Library News

Catherine's Pen of the Week

After we featured a recommendation of Japan's 2025 Stationery Awards in our newsletter, Head of Business & Operations Catherine Geard was inspired to start sharing favorites from her vast pen collection. (Other staff will probably be unable to resist joining in.)

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"Yes, this pen was a gift from my accountant. And no, this is not a sales pitch to promote the guy, although he and his team are great. But, I'm a sucker for anything with a little flashlight on it. For a freebie, this is a really neat pen. It's got the little stylus nubbin for tapping on tablets on one end and a little itty bitty flashlight on the other end. And then, underneath the cap with his company name on it, is a really smooth writing pen. My accountant sure knows how to keep his clients happy." —Catherine Geard
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"Picture it: Upper Manhattan, 1995. I get off the subway at 116th Street heading to class at Columbia University. As the train was pulling away from the platform, I glanced down and there it was, this green marble Waterman fountain pen.

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"Back in the mid-90s, I was a starving college student working part time as a receptionist at a weight loss doctor's office. I would intake the patients, collect their $50, and then send them back to the doctor to be weighed and yelled at. This pen, and bonus Chanel button, had spent unknown years sitting in the receptionist's desk drawer until one day I asked him about the pen (I kept the button my little secret and eventually sewed it onto a jacket when one of its buttons fell off. I felt so swanky.). The doctor knew nothing about the pen and told me to keep it. After much research, I visited the ST DuPont headquarters in White Plains, NY to have it repaired and appraised. I was saddened to find out that this pen is rare because the factory had burned down. On the plus side, this college student was now a proud owner of a 1980s era, ST DuPont's signature Laque De Chine fountain pen worth around $500 in 1990s dollars." – Catherine Geard

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First up, a Tiffany Paloma Picasso. "In the early 2000's, I was working on the 49th floor of a New York City high rise with an incredible view of Central Park. My job was ok but, not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It is rare to receive an expensive pen from a supervisor. This happened to me not once but two times in my life. This pen is the second one I was gifted in that fashion by an employer. At first, it looked like a crummy, bulky pen—not a $300 sterling silver Tiffany Paloma Picasso ballpoint pen. It had been sitting in that pen holder for who knows how long. It was tarnished and dark grey. I'd seen it a hundred times. It was just a thing. But then one day she looked at it, took it out of the holder and handed it to me. She said, "I don't need this anymore. You take it." I took it home. Polished it up with a polishing cloth. Saw the logo. My jaw hit the floor. For a closeted pen collector, this was a boon to my little collection." – Catherine Geard