Wic It, Wic It Good

Deep in the bowels of my basement I opened a drawer and found something. After I ran screaming and it scuttled off I found something else there that I must have purchased over 10 years ago on Ebay. It’s an odd bit of writing history and technology for sure.

The pen manufacturer (Wahl-)Eversharp made some mistakes in the 40s that led to its eventual doom. Besides a homely looking line of fountain pens they also had a major fiasco with the CA, an early ballpoint. By 1957 it was all over and Parker bought what remained of the writing division and for a while used the Eversharp brand on some of its products.

One of those Parker/Eversharp products I found in that drawer and you can see it here: The Tip-Wic. What is it? Well, basically it’s a felt tip marker made to use fountain pen ink. I think the blister pack I took a picture of shows the benefits nicely.

I don’t know what prompted its creation or how long it was sold but the package is dated 4-65 and so that gives you an idea of the era. It’s a simple looking writing instrument reminiscent of a Parker 45 in shape and size. How well does it work? Well, here is where the fun starts!

You can win this pen and the extra converter and cartridge in the pack for almost no effort! OK, to be honest some effort. If I inked this pen I’d write a few lines and probably forget about it since I’m not a fan of markers. However, I am interested in learning how it works and someone might want to give that a go. So the deal is first write a comment below about anything since I’m not picky. I’ll use a random number generator to choose the person who gets this almost new item (I did remove the pen from the pack but will put it back in). The tricky part is the winner must agree to use this pen and within a month write a short summary of how they like it. I’ll post that as an update here so everyone can see the results. Just to be clear: You have to write something about how this pen works within 4 weeks and email me it. What if you don’t? Well…I’ll really be grumpy and you will not get any candy if I decide to hand some out in the future.

Let’s say this contest ends in one week on 9/26/2010 at 9:00 PM Easter Standard Time. Good luck to whoever feels the urge to try! Oh, don’t forget: It’s the tip; It’s Porosyn; It glides!