19, Pens & Nibs,

[rhr]

Trademark no. 16012, Consolidated Agency Co., "Pens, Inks, And Nibs", Nov 20, 1888, used since Nov 13, 1884, is for the word "Fountograph", an early use of the word "nibs" for "pens", or the whole pen point, but by a company from the UK, the first appearance of the word "nibs" in a title in the US trademarks. Also see US patent no. 5,789 for an earlier use of the word "nib" in the patents, but then it doesn't get used again for decades. Trademark no. 34061, Perry & Co., "Pen-Nibs", Jan 23, 1900, used since May 1866, is for the words "Albert Pen" and a portrait of the late Prince Consort, another early use of the word "nibs" in the US trademarks. The redundancy of the hyphenated title is another sign that the confusion between these two words is about to be resolved, belatedly, in the US, and that the word "nib" will imminently displace the word "pen" as the word of choice. Still, it takes a British penmaking company to use the word. Trademark no. 34209, Perry & Co., "Pens", Feb 20, 1900, used since 1868, is for the words "Abraham Lincoln" and a portrait of the late president. In a step backwards, it seems like the USPTO re-asserted its hegemony and dictated what it viewed as the correct form of this title by forcing the use of the word "pens" instead of the word "nibs". Trademark no. 79883, Johan A. Alling, "Pens And Nibs", Oct 18, 1910, used since Aug 1, 1909, no trademark image on the USPTO website, another late appearance of the word "nibs" in the Trademark system, but not in the Patents or the Designs. It seems almost as if the Patent-Design division and the Trademark division of the USPTO weren't talking to one another. ;~)

 

George Kovalenko.

 

 

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[Guest Resume Writing Services]

Round nibs allows fast writing but will only produce lines of uniform thickness.Italics produce crisp writing and great line variation but will be slower to write.Many people believe that the happy medium lies in the cursive italic nib.

 

Resume Writing Services

[Dave Johannsen]

So, "fountain pen" (to denote a pen that held its own ink) seems to have settled into consistent and unambiguous use more than two decades earlier than the resolution of nib vs. pen (IIRC, "fountain pen" was pretty well established by the 1880s)? I would have guessed that nib/pen/holder/fountain pen usage would have all shaken out more or less simultaneously. Thanks for the interesting post.

 

 

dave

[rhr]

Round nibs allow fast writing but will only produce lines of uniform thickness. Italics produce crisp writing and great line variation but will be slower to write. Many people believe that the happy medium lies in the cursive italic nib.

I don't know about that. I use italic nibs exclusively, and I write like the wind. You get used to the sharp edge and the corners. The problem is that most people try to use pressure with their italic nibs to get line variation, even though it isn't required with italics, and then they complain about the nib ripping the paper. Well, they are the ones at fault, not the nib. An italic nib requires a very light touch, and in spite of that, you still get line variation. You have to learn to let the nib glide over the paper at just the right level of pressure.

 

Practically all the writing in the western world between the 7th and 19th centuries was accomplished with sharp, chisel-cut quills, and they wrote quickly enough. The only constant complaint you read from that era is that they kept running out of the small quantity of ink held by a single dip of a quill, and that they had to keep redipping into an inkwell right in the middle of an interrupted thought. What they wanted was a pen with its own supply of ink, not a pen with a different nib. I shouldn't make too much of that, though, because quills are by their own nature flexible, so that flexiness is responsible for a lot of the italic character of the writing from that era. But with metal nibs, you need next to no pressure at all. There's the familiar Duofold ad from the 1920s touting that the pen would write under its own weight, simply resting on the web of skin between the thumb and index finger and dragged along on the paper. The thumb and finger tips are required only for control, not pressure, or minimal pressure at best.

 

Before I typed this post into the message board, I wrote the whole thing with an italic nib. ;~)

 

So, "fountain pen" (to denote a pen that held its own ink) seems to have settled into consistent and unambiguous use more than two decades earlier than the resolution of nib vs. pen (IIRC, "fountain pen" was pretty well established by the 1880s)? I would have guessed that nib/pen/holder/fountain pen usage would have all shaken out more or less simultaneously. Thanks for the interesting post.

It's hard to establish exact dates. All we have to go by is the printed and published and manuscript evidence. I am simply making my deductions from the limited evidence of the US patent, design, and trademark specifications, but a more firm chronology would have to look more closely at the British patents, and advertisements, and diaries, and correspondence, as well as the world literature in other languages. But you're right, the patent literature is a fascinating read, if you can get past some of its dry aspects. Mind you, you'll have to read all of them. ;~)

 

George Kovalenko.

 

Edited July 17, 2010 by rhr