Kritzler Oversize

Kritzler Oversize

circa 1925

Rosewood

Kritzler 14kt No. 8 Nib

Gold Washed Lever and Clip

Gold Colored Cap Band (unknown metal)

Barrel Imprint: L. Kritzler Pen Co.

5 1/4” Capped

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Although most of any particular pen’s history is unknown, I’m still attracted to vintage models specifically because they have a past. I contemplate the pens in my collection and I ask the unanswerable: Who first bought this pen? Where? Why? What has it written? How many owners has it known? Has it been well used? How has it survived?

I rarely bother to ask who designed the pen or who assembled it. Most of my pens were manufactured by large, well-known pen companies. I assume they were designed by brilliant engineers and assembled in comfortable factories by nameless yet well-paid employees.

The pen featured in this post, however, begs me to ask: Who made this pen?

There can be no doubt that the maker of this pen was named Kritzler. The name appears on the barrel, on the clip, on the lever and on the nib. Kritzler’s first initial, L, is part of the barrel’s imprint. The initials LK are found in a circle on the lever’s end.

That’s probably as much fact as can be culled, but that doesn’t stop us from looking for more clues…

From a 1917 World War I Draft Registration Card completed in New York, we know that there was a Louis Kritzler living at 2105 Clinton Ave., New York City (The Bronx). His birthplace is listed as Mishkoltz, Hungary, his date of birth as February 8, 1887. This Mr. Kritzler had a wife and child, was medium of build, had black eyes, black hair, was not bald, and was in possession of two eyes, four limbs and all commonly attached extremities. He was described as stout. Given the other two choices of slender and medium, we can surmise that stout was the 1917 politically correct term for overweight.

The registration card also lists Louis Kritzler’s place of employment as Armeny & Marion. The Armeny & Marion Co. made pens at one time. Their address of record in 1890 matches the address on the registration card; 90 Nassaue St., New York.

Adding to the growing body of circumstantial evidence is Mr. Kritzler’s occupation as listed on the card: Gold Pens

I’ve been led to believe that what we call a nib today was commonly referred to as a pen up until the 1920′s. This would imply that Louis Kritzler was actually a maker of gold nibs.

So we have an L. Kritzler associated with the pen industry. But does all of the above conclusively prove that the L. Kritzler who made, assembled or at least arranged for the creation of my pen was a Hungarian immigrant living in New York City in the early 1900′s? Not really. But just how many L. Kritzler’s could there be in the world? And how many of those are listed on official government documents as gold pen tradesmen? Probably only this Mr. Kritzler. For my money, he’s my man.

Now I can go back to the even more elusive questions: Who first bought this pen? Why? What has it written?…

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Note: Most, if not all, of the above information was garnered from a thread at the Fountain Pen Network found here. A special “Thank You!” to FPN User antoniosz who found and posted the registration card within that discussion.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 6:03pm and is filed under Fountain Pens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.