Keeping The History of Writing Instruments Alive Through Member Support and Community Education |
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Robert Silber, M.D. 1931-1998Vintage Pen Collector-Par Excellence
In the early 1970s he was among the first wave of pen collectors in the U.S. He began collecting principally fine Waterman pens when they were relatively plentiful and inexpensive (see G. Berliner, pg. 17). He regularly frequented the dingy antique shops in New York City on 3rd Avenue and more than occasionally spotted an unusual find with his sharp physician's eye. I know, because I often accompanied him. As a clinical investigator, Bob made frequent trips overseas. On one such trip he found an executive Eversharp skyline which for reasons that he knew better than I, insisted I take for my very own. I still retain this pen and treasure it all the more since his untimely passing last October 1998.
Following his retirement from NYU, Bob and his wife Barbara Kahmi Silber relocated to Duke University in Durham where, as surely as cream rises to the top, so did Bob as a teacher, clinician, and scientist. The pen collecting community around the world, his professional colleagues, a multitude of students, and those of us who cherish him as a dear friend, will miss him, but his memory is deeply ingrained and his teachings and humanistic precepts will live on.
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Among
the growing multitude of pen collectors worldwide is a legion of dedicated,
highly knowledgeable individuals who are generally little-known outside
their immediate circle. They go about their business collecting pens,
often with a passionate dedication equal to the most devoted of the
well-known collectors. Bob Silber was such an individual. 
Bob,
as he was known to his colleagues, was an extraordinary, sensitive person
who was worshipped by his patients and served as a role model for a
generation of medical students. Born in Vienna, Austria, he and his
family emigrated to the Dominican Republic in 1939 shortly after the
Nazi takeover of Vienna, finally settling in the U.S. in 1946. After
receiving his M.D. degree from the State University of New York, Downstate
Medical Center and serving at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research,
he joined the faculty of the NYU School of Medicine where he led the
Hematology Division for 25 years while pursuing his research in leukemia.