A great deal of useful information for the pen history researcher is to be found in old copies of trade publications for stationers, jewelers, and booksellers. Much of this material has been digitized and made publicly available at such sites as Google Books, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, but in many cases it has not been comprehensively indexed and specific issues can sometimes be difficult to find as a result. For this reason a number of independent researchers have compiled annotated indexes of their own, listed below.

The American Bookseller:
David Nishimura index

The American Stationer:
Mike Kennedy index
David Nishimura index

The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer:
David Nishimura index

Bookseller and Stationer (Canada):
Mike Kennedy index
David Nishimura index

Geyer’s Stationer:
Mike Kennedy index
David Nishimura index

The Jewelers’ Circular:
Richard Binder index
Mike Kennedy index
David Nishimura index

New England/Walden’s Stationer and Printer:
Richard Binder index
Mike Kennedy index

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There are also a number of reference websites with articles and information that may not be readily available elsewhere. A selection of sites with a single-brand or single-model focus are listed below.

• The Esterbrook Project (dip pen nibs)
• Esterbrook.net (fountain pens)
• Parker51.com (Ernesto Soler)
• Parker75.com (Lih-Tah Wong)
• Parker Penography (Tony Fischier)
• The Pelikan’s Perch
• Pelikan Collectibles
• Sheaffer Targa

The sites below contain information about multiple makers and models.

• Daniel Kirchheimer (articles, blog)
• The Leadhead’s Pencil Blog (Jonathan A. Veley)
• Vintage Pen News (David Nishimura)

This site does the singularly useful service of cataloguing books on writing instruments and their history.

• Books About Pens (Uri Orland)

Some sites are now gone. In some cases they can be viewed through the Wayback Machine, but all too often those records are incomplete. One of the most serious losses was the Lion & Pen site. If you know of a complete downloaded copy, please let us know.
John Loring’s site devoted to early writing instruments — dip pens, mechanical pencils, penners, etc. — is a lost reference that has been preserved, which can be downloaded here.

It has been our plan for some time to offer public Zoom sessions and other educational video resources. To start, here is a discussion between George Rimakis, Todd Eberspacher, and Roger Wooten about desk sets, based upon Roger’s recent article in the Pennant.