Miscellany: Levenger

It takes a bold store to elevate stationary into a status symbol, but Levenger, a company that sells "tools for serious readers" through various stores located throughout the country, has an undeniably patrician feel to all of its products and advertising. There's just something vaguely snobbish about ordering notepads and pencils from a glossy, attractive sales catalog. You know that you're basically paying exorbitant prices for office supplies, but there's a part of you that doesn't care.

My first introduction to the place came from an odd marketing trip they paid to my middle school. They had some kind of deal with the school or the teachers where they'd come in, get to shill their products and pass out their catalogs, and we'd all get free fountain pens and bound notebooks. To be fair to Levenger, the stuff they handed out was pretty good quality, and it was a real luxury to be able to write with a fountain pen. The whole thing was odd, nonetheless.