Presented by David Isaacson's Vacumania is a free download of a 4 GB, 600-item folder of vintage pen manufacturers' literature. Most seasoned pen collectors have gained a huge portion of their skill and knowledge by reading original company literature from days of yore, back from when their chosen pens were actually on sale.  Company catalogues offered pictures and descriptions. Company magazines offered insight into development of pens and into sales/presentation techniques and policy.  Company repair  manuals taught restoration technique and helped categorize models. It is my pleasure to make this material accessible to all, searchable and instantly openable on your own computers.


Original company paper is cherished by collectors, who recognize such material is more scarce than most of the pens sold within.  1920s-1930s company catalogues, 20-100 pages typically sell $300-600 each, and I once saw a  John Holland catalogue hit $1300 on ebay.   Of course not all period paper rises to that lofty level. Still, what  would it cost to build an original library of 600 items of this sort?

The link contains public domain material. Many of the scans are not  full print resolution (They are < 300 dpi) and many are from crude old photocopies. Many though are better. All are legible. All offer great information about a huge range of pens. Even the worst have resolution more than sufficient for you to paste into your own webpages or your online pen commentary on facebook, Fountain Pen Board, etc.


The download is free to you, my gift to the hobby to advance the knowledge.


Instructions:  The link will take you to the dropbox page that hosts the entire folder. You will see several folders based on brands. You do not need to open them or do anything with them.  Instead at the upper right of the page is a DOWNLOAD button. Just click that.  If you have Dropbox, this will pull the main folder, the five brand folders within, and the 600 fiels to your dropbox on your desktop. If you don't have dropbox  the file will  download   as a ZIP folder which can be unzipped once complete. You do not need to be a Dropbox member to access this folder.




Currently the folder is hosted at a dedicated Dropbox site that charges me $10/month.

I present three ways for you to offer a thank you token or to help an even bigger/better cause.


First: Consider a token $2  gift to Isaacson. This will subsidize the hefty (cough... cough) $10/month hosting charge and/or let me know someone has embraced the catalog collection and appreciates it.  Again, this is optional. The download link is wholly separate and does not  require any payment. The PPal button will take you right to the $2 contribution.

Second  Pass this page or even just the Download link to your pen friends: Meaning, just help spread the word.  By all means ask your friends to let me know they received it. I am curious how far this will spread.

Third Consider suscribing to my friend Paul Erano's print magazine for pen collectors, the Fountain Pen Journal, at $25/year for 3 issues, shipping in USA included (international subs cost a bit more).  I aggressively support this new full color print magazine, and I hope you will give it a try. This would be a shameless plug, but in fact there could not be shame in any case as there indeed is honor in promoting this wonderful magazine.


Paul is one of the world's leading contributors of pendom-related commentary, having written the best selling and revered hard cover Fountain Pens: Past and Present, having edited Erano's Quarterly Pen Review, having injected new blood into the Pennant as Editor for several years,  and having written numerous articles for Pen World International,  for Stylus Magazine, and for  Pennant.  I am a regular writer (ostensibly a contributing editor) for Paul's FPJ. You will learn a great deal about pen collecting at FPJ. Retroactive subscriptions can be had as long as copies last, starting you with the very first issue instead of the current issue.  You can discuss with Paul if you want to start from the beginning.  Here are a couple links to the website.



Drop me a note at isaacson@frontiernet.net  if you have any   questions and comments.

Here are four links to items that might interest you in your role as pen collector: