14The exchange of legal suit and countersuit between the Reynolds organization and Eversharp was the opening volley in what became known as the “Pen Wars” in the popular press. Predictably, Eversharp allied with Macy’s, the arch-competitor of Gimbels.
The Monday-morning run on Gimbels was written up as “the biggest shopping riot in U.S. history,” a dubious distinction that was not surpassed in my lifetime. Of course, Straus followed through on his threat to pull all of his products, but Mr. Fred didn’t have a care because the Reynolds Pen continued to outsell any single product he’d ever offered. We had beaten Straus’s planned release date by several weeks, and Eversharp hurried to move all of its launch activities up — especially the advertising campaign. We had no doubt they could ramp
