Little is known about the Grate-Phil News or Pen Points. Only a single known copy of each exists today, both from 1934. They are in the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site's archive.

Pen Points (Volume 1, Issue 1) is dated February 14, 1934. Grate-Phil News (Volume 1, Issue 5) is dated July 3, 1934. This suggests they were both published monthly. They have similar mastheads, stating that they were published, and probably printed, at Eastern State, most likely by the incarcerated men who worked the printshop. They also share a similar layout as four-page general newsletters circulated within the prisons. However, unlike the earlier issues of The Umpire, they do not appear to have been edited or written by those incarcerated there.