Last week we had a request from loyal reader Karen P. to identify the pen used by Meryl Streep in her Oscar-winning movie “Out of Africa.”
Finding a picture of the pen was relatively easy. Identifying the pen is a different story.
For those of you who are not familiar with the film, it is based on the true story with the same title by Danish baroness Karen Blixen, who initially wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Autobiographical, it is the saga of Blixen, played by Streep, marrying for convience and title, moving to Danish colonial Kenya, establishing a successful coffee plantation and ultimately having an affair with a big game hunter played by Robert Redford. (As her husband has slept with half of Africa, she’s owed Robert Redford.)
The film was directed by Sydney Pollack and earned 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture. Most remarkable are the sweeping shots of Africa. Few movies will make you want to book a flight to Africa faster.
Anyhow, after their second encounter, Redford’s character gives Streep’s character a beautiful gold or gold-filled fountain pen. It looks like a clipless lever-filler that looks to be about 13 to 15cm when capped. Sadly, there are no close ups on the pen, as Blixen writes in the film. Therefore, I cannot fully I.D. the pen.
This is the closest vintage pen we currently stock that looks like Streep’s pen. It is a lever-filler by Hutcheon.
Taking the easy way out, I could recommend that it might be a Waterman or Wahl, as they made plenty of slender gold-fill pens. The closest pen I have for sale is a faux gold Hutcheon lever filler that looks to be from the 1920s. Most likely, it is a Waterman 52 with gold sleeves over the hard rubber cap and barrel.
If anybody has a better idea of what the movie pen is, please write in and help Karen. Thanks.
