Hero (英雄钢笔)

In 1966 Hero took over a 1930s Shanghai workshop and became the official fountain pen of the People's Republic. Its model 100, an unabashed copy of the American Parker 51, equipped Party cadres, was given to school-leavers and appeared in the signing photographs of major treaties — including, in 1984, the Sino-British declaration on Hong Kong.

The brand has suffered from the collapse of handwriting and from modern stationery competition, but retains an intact symbolic charge: giving a Hero to a young graduate remains a codified gesture, as a watch once was.