| Giovanni Abrate | |||
| Biography # 206 | email: tryphon@tryphon.it | ||
Born in Milan, Italy. Grew up in the 1950s, when every Italian student had to use inkpens: first a dip pen, used for basic writing and calligraphy, then, upon reaching third grade, the coveted fountain pen! It made us feel really grown up; after all, our fathers all used fountain pens! My dad, a surgeon, liked Parker pens while my teacher would only use an Aurora 88. Students used a variety of pens: Pelikans, green and black and very reliable, Aurettas (by Aurora, with their modern looks and smooth hooded nibs) and the cheapo "LUS Atomica", which sold for 100 Lire at every stationery and tobacco store and came equipped with an extra long plastic cartridge, closed by a ball bearing that would rattle inside the cartridge and keep the ink flowing freely... It lasted only a few weeks, but it wrote smoothly and was ideal when taking dictation and having to write really fast! I moved to the US in 1990, but I had first lived in America in the early 1970s when I was in my '20s attending professional flight training. I went back to Italy after becoming a pilot, to serve in the military and then became one of the very first Europeans to fly the Goodyear blimp. Great experience that brought me together with many old aviation pioneers, who were still alive and honored me with their presence on many of my flights. I later moved to the UK, where I worked for a few years as a test pilot and then joined a large US aerospace corporation. After a few career changes, I am now working as a V.P. for an italian aerospace company, with my office in the Palm Beach area of Florida. I have two great sons in their early twenties who live in Australia from my first marriage and my lovely wife Sylvia is expecting a baby girl in August of this year (2006)! I started collecting fountain pens in 1968. At that time I lived in Turin, the Italian capital of fountain pen manufacturing. Nobody, in 1968, cared for fountain pens: they were definitely "pass+¬"! In fact, when I bought my first pens, the owner of the small shop in Turin that I visited was in the process of pulling all the gold nibs from the pens with a pair of heavy pliers. He would sell the nibs for the gold and throw the pens in the garbage! These were beautiful celluloid pens from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. I bought two gorgeous Williamson pens, made in Turin in the 1940s: one a beautiful Vacumatic lookalike and the other a lever-fill Doric-looking pen. Wonderful! I was by then bitten by the pen bug. I went on collecting and bought a lot of pens during my very frequent overseas trips. I now have (after almost 40 years of collecting) a lot of pens (a mix of 60-40 between old and new) and most of my pens are in mint, often unused condition. I love Auroras (old and new) and my favorite pen of all times is the classic 88. I tend to collect many italian pens, including several school pens: very inexpensive but also very reliable. Many "elite" manufacturers of today built inexpensive school pens in the '50s and '60s: I have interesting models by Montegrappa, Aurora, Norex and even OMAS. One of my most treasured pens was given to me by a British colleague and friend. Shortly after his father had passed away, he brought me a pen that had been given to his dad by King George of England. My friend's father was a naval officer and served King George in some official capacity. He treasured his pen all his life and kept it as a trusted friend, a reminder of his association with his beloved monarch. I proceeded to tell my friend all about the pen, a beautiful chased ebonite Swan pen with a wide gold band and I told him how he should treasure such a great object. My friend went back to his home, talked to his lovely wife and they decided that I should have the pen. I was embarassed by theirgenerosity and, after a while, I agreed to be the keeper of THEIR pen, an object that I treasure and cherish for it reminds me of their generosity. My friend's wife passed away recently, while still young and full of life and now the pen also brings me memories of that lovely person. On a less somber note, I have also become a good friend of Sig. Francesco Grisolia, one of the last penmakers in the town of Settimo Torinese, where, at the peak of activities in the early 1940s, there were no less than 180 pen factories in operation. Now there are lstill about 50 pen manufacturers and Mr Grisolia's company carries on that great tradition. His Filcao pens are hand made by his staff of talented craftsmen and his celluloid pens are a delight for those, like me, who always loved the colorful pens of our youth. In more recent times, I have started making products used for pen repair and pen care. I also sell special tools and other useful implements: I look for the right products, often I have them modified to make them better suited to pen repair work and I test every product personally. I love the pen-collecting community and enjoy meeting my friends on Pentrace, the newsgroup and the Zoss list and at pen shows. Ciao! Giovanni Other interests : Camera collecting, wide-screen cinema, early space exploration, stereo photography.
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