Dave Barry and Wax Seal Pendants

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been charmed by nice stationary and fountain pens and various writing accouterments. There’s a certain romance about them that I’m still a sucker for. I liked to write pen pals and loved getting mail in return.

In seventh grade I took a typing class and during our free practice time I would type up these long letters to Dave Barry. Yep, I was a big Dave Barry fan as a kid and had a bit of a crush on him (Nerd!). I would carefully fold these letters and seal them with sealing wax, stamping them with an seal I had with an F on it and mail them off.

After having sent off several letters with no response I wrote Dave and asked him what was up (I guess I had a pretty healthy sense of entitlement as a twelve year-old.) I got a post card from him explaining that he had people open his mail for him and because my letters contained some sort of weird crumbly stuff (the sealing wax apparently fell apart in transit) his staff had been throwing them away (apparently he gets a lot of weird mail). After that I wrote him a couple more times and received a few more postcards back which was fun.

I had pretty much forgotten about my brief correspondence with Dave Barry but lately a few things have reminded me of it: reading this account of a girl being pen pals with John Hughes and seeing these wax seal pendents on Etsy.

Oxidized pendants, $35.

Silver pendents, $35.

Silver initial pendants, $34.

These pendents are made out of silver using wax impressions from an hand-stamped seal. I think they’re a nice variation on the initial necklaces that are kind of popular right now.

I think I like the first and second pendants the best, but I can’t decide if the first one is too ren-faire or not. What do you think?