My Father's Crest
by José Nicolás Parres y Parres
(All Rights Reserved by Author)
One of the remembrances I have of my father is his desk, which always
sat in our library at home. It had a huge ebony top with drawers on
both sides and a large drawer in the middle. Closing the center drawer
locked the whole desk. I also remember that the desk key was always
attached to a chain that he kept in the front pocket of his waistcoat.
He was many years older than my mother, and he had many old-fashioned
ideas. 
I now have that same desk in my office, as well as a smaller version at home, which is where I am sitting as I write this. That center drawer was, as I now know, the door to one of his interests. . . writing with fountain pens.
On the surface of the desk, which had a glass top to protect the wood, sat a banker's lamp and three small, round brass ashtrays on an iron shelf (he was a cigar smoker). Also carefully placed were a solid bronze lion sculpture, a black leather desk set, and a black Sheaffer's Snorkel desk pen with a black marble base. This pen was always securely mounted in the holder, and I always wanted to reach over and remove it for closer inspection. It is probably just as well I never did.
When I was ten, my father called me to his library. I had just arrived home from school, and my hands still had traces of black ink from the dip pens that we used in class. A call from my father was not an everyday event. That, "Your father is waiting for you in the library" from my mother, just when I entered home, distressed me a little. But I guessed it was not for my school marks; I was, and still am, an excellent student. So off I went.
He was sitting at his desk and said, "My boy, sit where you can see me." So I sat straight up with my eyes fully open. He took one of his silk handkerchiefs from a drawer and put it on the leather desk set. He opened another drawer and put a strange ink bottle and a pen on the handkerchief. It was the first time I had seen such a pen, and I was fascinated. It was a thin pen with a black shiny barrel and a bright golden cap.
He uncapped the pen to reveal a Triumph nib (the first one I had ever seen). He began unscrewing the end of the barrel, another wonder, as I saw no trace of a joint in the plastic. As he unscrewed the blind cap, a thin tube (it looked like a hypodermic needle) came out from under the nib. When it was fully extended, my father pulled back on the end of the barrel and a chromed metal sleeve appeared. He opened the bottle of ink and carefully dipped that strange needle into the small reservoir that was now filled with ink in the top of the bottle. I was still able to see the nib, but the needle was in the ink. He pushed down the chromed sleeve, neither fast nor slow, but just with what appeared to me the right movement. I saw bubbles in the ink until he fully depressed the plunger. Then, he counted slowly. I think that he kept the pen there for half a minute or so. After that, he screwed the barrel end clockwise and the needle disappeared slowly. I still could see no joint. He capped the ink bottle and put it back in the drawer.
Then he showed me his hands, the handkerchief and the nib. No trace of ink anywhere. I looked at my hands dotted with ink. He smiled and said, "It's a pen for adult use only, my son." He opened another drawer and produced the sheet with that month's school marks that I had given to my mother the day before. He read them carefully (I am sure he had read them before) and with an, "I'm very proud of you," he posted the cap on the barrel and signed the sheet with an amazing bright green colour. He gave the sheet to me and said, "You're not old enough for this pen yet, but try this one I've got for you." He pulled a box from a drawer and opened it toward me. It was a burgundy Parker 51 pen and pencil set, shining there for me. I was so touched that I kept that wonderful set unused for years, opening the box regularly to make sure everything was in order.
When I finished school and went to my first year in University, he presented
me with a black Crest set, pen and pencil, the same model I remembered
from that day in my childhood.
He died two years later, after a long illness. One day shortly before he died, he gave me his desk key. I was 18, and he was 75. He said with a thin voice, "Now it's yours, my son." Several weeks later, I opened the desk drawers. One was full of boxed vintage Skrip ink bottles, of which only three had been opened: an Emerald Green, a Persian Rose, and a Blue-Black. One of the side drawers was fitted as a pen case, with four shelves filled with wonderful pens. Almost all were Sheaffer's, with some Parkers and a single Montblanc Diplomat (known nowadays as the 149). Other drawers were filled with correspondence and work papers, but in the one at the bottom left side, I found a handful of thick hardbound journals with the full history of our family written in his favourite Emerald Green ink. And below them, in a cardboard box, I found a Sheaffer's box that I opened with tears in my eyes. There was the wonderful pen I had dreamt about all these years; the Crest he had used to sign my school marks sheet. A little note in his handwriting lay with the pen. "I've only used this pen to sign that sheet, which I know you remember. Now it is your pen. With love, from your father."
Now you can understand why I have this pen as the most prized in my collection of Sheaffer's. I use it only on special occasions. It has the smoothest medium Triumph nib with which I have ever written. It is a snorkel filler with a solid gold cap and a shiny black barrel. A friend told me a few weeks ago it is called a Crest Masterpiece.
This is my father's Crest.
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