An Office Supply Geek’s Tour of Washington DC

Didnt realize this was going on at our hotel, but it explained the massive trucks with satellites and television equipment in front of the hotel.

I’ve noticed that office supplies are really everywhere you look, and Washington DC is no exception.  The month of June happens to be full of travel for me this year, last weekend was Washington DC, this weekend is Boston, and the weekend after that will be Vegas.  I figured that full reviews might be a bit hard to squeeze in on my normal 3 a week pace, so I at least want try to and document my travels with whatever I found that was related to office supplies.   Following are some pen and other related items that I came across in Washington, so with the terrible economy and poor job market, Im hoping that this virtual office supply tour of our Nation’s Capital might be enjoyable for you. 

Fahrney's Pens Storefront with its really cool fountain pen and scroll sign.

My first and most anticipated stop was at Fahrney’s Pens at 1317 F Street in DC.  The storefront and giant fountain pen sign alone are worth going to check out even if the store is closed when you get there, its just really cool and stands out from your typical boxy storefront signs.  Of course the store was open when I went so I had the pleasure of checking out all of the great pens, inks and notebooks that they have there.  The temptation was almost too much seeing all of those pens lined up in the display cases just begging to be bought.  I did break down and buy some ink though, so I will get around to doing a review of that soon.

File Cabinet from the Watergate Hotel

Next up was the Smithsonian Institute where you can find some of the most amazing artifacts from American history from the original Star Spangled Banner (my absolute favorite thing in DC) to Kermit the Frog.  Obviously none of those two things are really office supply related, but almost as cool is what is pictured above, which is an original file cabinet from the Watergate hotel that shows obvious signs of where it was broken into.  Something about the flimsy violated metal shell of this cabinet reminds me of my post on office supplies to fight identity theft.

An antique pen stand from the White House office of President Chester A. Arthur.

The next interesting item was an Onyx and Brass pen stand that was allegedly from President Chester A. Arthur’s office in the White House.  Does it get any cooler to see office supplies that are directly from the White House?  I dont think so.   Just looking at this pen stand made me think that if I were President, Id want some nice blue black ink in one of the wells for personal correspondence, and some Noodler’s bulletproof black in the other ink well for important signings of documents.

Space pens used by actual astronauts not on this planet.

The last items that I saw that I thought belonged in this virtual office supply tour are these space pens and pencils displayed in the Air and Space Museum.  Now these are clearly not your average Fisher Space Pens, not that there is anything wrong with those…but they have just never actually been off of this planet and used by real astronauts.  Pretty cool to see these in person, I didnt realize that they used felt tip pens in space, I guess those are probably the next best thing to a pencil in a zero gravity atmosphere, but honestly, what the heck do I really know?

So that is my way of bringing the office supply sights from DC to you at your computer, and in addition to the ink from Fahrney’s I also have a special item from this trip that I might have to wait until the 4th of July to review, so you will have to be a little patient on that one.  Ill probably be on my way to Boston by the time anyone reads this, but I’ve only got one venue on my list of office supply related things to see there, so if you have any ideas, let me know @officesupplygee on Twitter and Ill try to check it out.

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