June 2, 2026 · Swag

I Swiped This Pen From Harry S. Truman

Mass Production

The story goes that in 1947, Harry Truman began giving away ballpoint pens printed with the words “I Swiped This From HARRY S. TRUMAN.” This might be the earliest example of the now-ubiquitous branded pen as swag. Ballpoint pens were still a relatively new consumer product at the time. Milton Reynolds introduced the famous Reynolds Rocket in late 1945 for $12.50 each ($250 in today’s dollars), kicking off the first big American ballpoint pen craze, selling 10,000 on the first day.

Customized

One version of the story claims that Reynolds, a notorious self-promoter, gifted President Truman a few hundred of these cheeky “I Swiped This…” pens as a publicity stunt, and that Truman then began handing them out to visitors and staff.

Although there doesn’t seem to be any photos of an engraved Reynolds Rocket, this doesn’t mean this story isn’t true. Reynolds did all kinds of outrageously expensive things as publicity stunts including breaking the world-record time for a solo-flight circling the globe (sort of like an Elon Musk of his day).

Plastic

More likely, though, is that it wasn’t until plastic pens were released that he began distributing this presidential swag. Plastic pens were cheaper and suitable for branding with ink printing. The ubiquitous BIC Cristal we still use today was released in 1950 for $0.19 each; PaperMate’s retractible click pen was introduced in 1949. Truman was president through 1952.

Today

Examples of these plastic pens printed with the still-clever tagline can be seen at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. Updated versions of this pen have been used by the library as gifts; Bergman supplied them with some just last year.

Many iterative versions of pens with similar slogans have been made ove the years, including this one by Bergman account manager, Craig Olechoski.

Bergman