5/25/2009

By GORDON D. FIEDLER JR.

Salina Journal

LINDSBORG -- Local retiree Paul Dahlberg has amassed a collection of 152 miniature tape measures, 209 money clips and 21,000 ballpoint pens. Obviously, he's no Mickey Mouse collector. Actually, he is.

"Mickey and I have something in common," Dahlberg said. "I was born in 1928. We share the same birth year, so I started to pick up Mickey Mouse memorabilia."

Although he's been on the lookout for Mickey merchandise for only a couple of years, he already has a curio cabinet in his living room full of collectables bearing the image of Walt Disney's lovable rodent. One coveted object is a Mickey Mouse watch Dahlberg acquired from a fellow Lindsborg resident for $50. It was made by Ingersoll and has its own case.

By far his pride and joy is his pen collection. Dahlberg was a Kansas insurance inspector and often found himself on the receiving end of free pens.

"You'd walk into every contractor's office and they'd give you a pen," he said.

At first, Dahlberg tossed the freebies aside when he got home and forgot about them. Later, he called on a client in Wichita who had an impressive pen collection.

"I couldn't believe what I saw," he said. "The walls were covered in ballpoint pens."

In Dahlberg's mind, the idea of becoming a pen collector was writ large -- no doubt in ballpoint ink.

"I started looking in drawers and boxes. I had a lot of ballpoint pens. I found that kinda interesting."

After that, his pen collection shifted from the passive to the active. Banks, offices, even medical facilities each find themselves a pen short after a Dahlberg visit.

The Tammy Walker Cancer Center was a recent victim after Dahlberg was in for skin cancer screening.

"I got a pen there," he said proudly.

Although he's now on the offensive for pens, writing implements still find him.

"People know I have a pen collection and they bring me pens," he said.

Garage sales are potential gold mines.

In Denver on a visit to his sister, Dahlberg shopped a garage sale and bought a small bag that contained, among the pens, a 14k gold-filled Ronson pencil lighter.

"I was dumbfounded when I opened up the zip bag and saw what I paid 10 cents for," he said.

Today, he has pens stuffed everywhere but keeps his favorites -- several hundred, by the looks of the stash -- in a large plastic box.

Most look like pens, even those in such whimsical shapes as a banana, nail and construction cone.

Others, though, hide their true calling with Transformer-like cunning.

Dahlberg pawed through the box and held up a folding pen advertising "Chemsearch."

"I don't know how to get it open," he said after a few futile moments of fiddling.

Another, with a flat, hinged design advertising Joy Flexible Conveyor Train, seems to be more gimmick than pen.

A pen from Alaska High Risk Health Insurance is in the shape of a syringe.

Dahlberg has pens shaped like a box-end wrench, a carriage bolt, a basketball player and a rhinoceros.

And what pen collection would be complete without an out-of-this world item, such as a space pen.

"I got it from a guy with connections to McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita," he said.

Dahlberg has even used his collection to foster international understanding.

On a recent tour of Russia, he brought "a couple hundred" duplicate pens and handed them out to Russian children.

So, the obvious question is: does he have a Mickey Mouse pen?

Dahlberg slumped in disappointment. "No." Then he brightened. "Wait a minute. Yes."

He scurried to his bedroom and returned with a pen topped by famous smiling mouse.

"I forgot about that," he said with relief.

Dahlberg said he's been collecting for about a dozen years and finds pleasure in the endeavor.

"It's a fun thing to do," he said with a shrug. "I don't know how else to explain it. I'm a bachelor, I don't have a family as such, so it's a fun thing for me to do."

He looked around at his beloved collections.

"When my time comes, I don't have any idea what will happen to it."

nGordon D. Fiedler Jr. can be reached at 822-1407 or by e-mail at gfiedler@salina.com.

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