Totally random thought here. While browsing through some recent uploads to the White House Flickr account via my RSS reader, I came across this photo:
These are pens for a bill-signing. What intrigued me about this photo is the direction of the signature on each pen. Because the signature reads from the top of the pen to the bottom while the pen’s tip is pointing right, this pen is a left-handed pen. If you pick up this pen to write with your left hand, the signature is right-side up; pick this pen up with your right hand to write, and the signature is upside-down. A left-handed pen for a left-handed president? No detail overlooked or just a coincidence?
Just for the heck of it, I tried to find some presidential pens in official use by past presidents. I found President Bush’s pens here:
These are right-handed pens. If you take the cap off and stick it on the non-tip end of the pen, the signature will remain upright in your right hand but upside-down in your left hand. A right-handed pen for a right-handed president?
My guess is that the Bush pen likely used a standard direction because a majority of people are right-handed, but the Obama pen was specially made to be a left-handed pen. How’s that for an exciting Friday night?
