The Reference Library
Thousands of pages of original catalogs, advertisements, repair manuals, company publications, and ephemera — scanned, edited, and cataloged by PCA volunteers, and freely available to anyone interested in the history of pens.
Major makers each have their own page. Smaller makers are grouped alphabetically. The remaining sections cover materials that don’t fit neatly under a single brand.
Since the mid-1980s, the PCA has been acquiring, preserving, and sharing copies of reference material unavailable anywhere else. The Library’s holdings continue to grow as volunteers scan, edit, and catalog documents shared by other collectors.
Originally limited to PCA members, the Library was opened to the public in 2014 — excepting only ongoing publications still under copyright, most notably Pen World and recent copies of the Pennant®.
Not every entry is fully cross-referenced. A multi-brand catalog offering Parker and Waterman pens, for example, is filed under Multi-Brand Catalogs and Ads, not duplicated under each maker. If you can’t find something in one place, the multi-brand and miscellaneous sections are usually the next stop.
Many older scans also appear at the Internet Archive and elsewhere. Our titles and descriptions take precedence; externally-hosted copies are lower-resolution, sometimes misdated, and don’t credit the PCA as their source.
The Collectors Behind the Library
Most entries in the Library credit a contributor by their initials at the end of the description. A list of those initials and the people they belong to is below. Without these collectors and the many others who have chosen to remain anonymous, the Library would not exist.
Have a Catalog, Brochure, or Manual Not Listed Above?
The Library grows when collectors share what they own. If you have a piece of pen ephemera that isn’t already indexed on this page — a catalog, dealer flyer, instruction sheet, repair manual, or company publication — the PCA Librarian would love to hear from you.
You don’t need to do the scanning yourself. If you can get the document to the Librarian, the PCA can handle the rest, and the resulting scan will join the Library credited to you.
Email the Librarian to discuss what you have. Most contributions arrive as either physical loans (returned after scanning) or as scans the contributor has already made.
Contact the Librarian →