Museum of Writing Instruments

We are today’s Pencil Pushers and we bring their history alive, here at the Museum of Writing Instruments (formerly Pencil Museum) on beautiful Lake Winneconne, Wisconsin. It was incorporated in 2010, has an activity board of directors and advisory board and just became a non-profit 501 (c) 3.  The Museum is run by volunteers from students to seniors, teaching visitors a fun way to learn and re-learn geography, history and math through the vast writing instrument collection. Our inspiration was our advisor’s aunt had a collection in the 1900’s, then our advisor donated her collection of 1200 writing instruments and now we have an amazing collection of 30,000 plus.   The collection includes an antique banker’s lamp with 14 carat nib fountain pens & ink wells, dip pens, bullets, floaters, novelties, mechanicals, recycled from tires to money, brand names, wood cased, jeweled, fragranced, bentzels, smencils, funcils, greencils, bookmark and even a headache pencil! There is something for everyone, even pencils from the 1990’s that younger folks remember fondly—one called Yikes! Our oldest pencil is made of slate, which requires a slate tablet to write on and is from 1884.   We’re working with a reporter from a major TV network to do a special in spring.  We hosted the American Pencil Collectors Society’s biennial convention at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the summer of 2015.  Conventioneers came from Argentina to New Zealand and many of our states.  We were in the Costco Connection, which has the largest distributorship of any magazine at 86,000.  After that issue came out, there were writing instruments heading our way by the car loads!  Also, we are mentioned in a children’s book about pencils written by Joanne Tanenbaum. The Museum of Writing Instruments is a private museum and opened by appointment only. Just call 920.479.8097 or visit our website: museumofwritinginstruments.com. Admission is FREE, but we do appreciate a logo pencil with your name, club, church, etc. or grandma’s rare and vintage jeweled pen that needs a permanent home;  then we will add your name on our brass plaque along with other kind donors!  Many people have cigar boxes in their attic filled with writing instrument and related items and don’t want them and don’t know what to do with them—we do!