Fountain Pens Of Tsarist Russia

[recluse]

 

I think this might be the case. I know the French jeweler Cartier held a royal warrant to the Czar as well as to Britain's Edward VII. Cartier opened a shop in St. Petersburg in 1908, but it closed after the October Revolution.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if Cartier made some writing instruments for the imperial family.

 

They could and possibly they did but I'm not sure that'd be a fountain pen. From the perspective of those days that would be like presenting flip-flops to the queen of England. This is possible as well, of course.

 

There's almost no doubt that the Russian Imperial family had in possession some fountain pens but rather presented as curious artifacts, among million of other things. It would be interesting to know whether any of them actually used one before the revolution .

[Vintagepens]

I have no doubt the Russian aristocracy (at least, those that were more urban and cosmopolitan) used fountain pens as a matter of course, just as did their counterparts across Europe. Most likely those pens would have been of American, British, or German manufacture.

[Kaweco]

 

I think this might be the case. I know the French jeweler Cartier held a royal warrant to the Czar as well as to Britain's Edward VII. Cartier opened a shop in St. Petersburg in 1908, but it closed after the October Revolution.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if Cartier made some writing instruments for the imperial family.

Hello FB

It`s not possible to extrapolate today to historic times. I don`t think that Cartier made writing articles in the old times.

Kind Regards, Thomas

[Sinistral1]

I agree with Kaweco. My visits to Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s indicated to me that Russia and the later Soviet Union were far removed from the whole idea of industrialization and using any gadget or machine that would make life easier. People swept the sidewalks with handmade brooms, soldiers used sythes to cut the grass, a balalika case was handsewn, an outhouse toilet inside a hospital. Heck, we even unloaded our own luggage from the airplane and walked from it to the terminal - no bus, no luggage trolly, no automatic doors, no luggage carousel! And this was in St. Petersburg, where the Tsar's palace was. Quite the culture shock.

[Terry]

Kaweco, on 30 Oct 2013 - 16:23, said:

Hello FB

It`s not possible to extrapolate today to historic times. I don`t think that Cartier made writing articles in the old times.

Kind Regards, Thomas

"In the old times", as you say, Cartier was already making luxury writing instruments, like dip pens and pencil holders, in silver, gold, enamel, jade, coral and other stones. I even saw a gold stylographic pen they made, most probably a special order. I don't know exactly when they started to sell fountain pens, but the earliest model I saw was a silver safety pen, ca. 1915-1920 probably. Of course they only made the overlay, not the whole pen.

[Strombomboli]

I've often wondered if Office Max has a store in Moscow yet!

 

Since Moscow is overcrowded with shopping malls, there surely must be a gigantic office supply chain store somewhere in this gigantic city.

 

When I was there the last time (in march; see my avatar), I looked for fountain pens, but only in a bookstore that carries writing stuff as well. A huge store, dating from the Soviet era (Dom Knigi on Novyi Arbat; the English transcription might be different). They had Rhodia Webnotebooks, but what I saw in the pen department was not appealing. They had a promotion for this horrible Parker pen which looks like a fountain pen from above and is a feltpen from below. I don't remember any fountain pens. (By the way, I found the paper in the cheapest Russian exercise books to be quite fountain pen friendly.)

 

I don't know if Russian pupils are taught to write with a fountain pen or if they go directly from crayons to ballpoints. I will ask the Russian lady of my acquaintance who is afraid of fountain pens what she did in school.

 

The tsar might have used a pencil with a silver holder. More likely, he wrote with a dip pen (in order not be fancy). When I heard, many years ago, that he put the stamps on his letters himself, I understood why he was doomed. When I later read about the Russian revolution, I learned that a British diplomat, or minister, or other correspondent of some sort, had said, after meeting him, that the tsar was not fit to run anything, not even a newspaper store; from all else I learned about him, this is an accurate description.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Strombomboli

[Florida Blue]

Hello FB

It`s not possible to extrapolate today to historic times. I don`t think that Cartier made writing articles in the old times.

Kind Regards, Thomas

Cartier did in fact make writing instruments in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I'm not sure if they made fountain pens, but they did make mechanical pencils out of precious metals.

 

Here are some quotes from an article in a 2010 issue of "art: pens and culture" magazine that I've kept:

"According to the Cartier archives, the first writing instrument to find its way into the jewelry shop's window in Paris was a pencil and pen-holder combination in engraved gold, in 1868."

 

The article also mentions an "agate penholder of 1908 possessed a simply geometry which anticipated Art Deco."

 

Cartier probably also made bespoke writing instruments as they were first and foremost a jeweler.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Florida Blue

[Kaweco]

Thank you Terry and Florida Blue for the informatiön. I`ll try to find the link.

T

Edited November 2, 2013 by Kaweco

[kvippal]

I know that our president (tsar ) V.V. Putin uses a just Pentel Document Pen.

Medvedev uses Montegrappa Frank Sinatra

Edited July 8, 2014 by kvippal

[HalloweenHJB]

I am no historian, but I believe that Nicholas, at least, was viewed as the most modern of Tsars and was dedicated to bringing his country into the 20th Century. Certainly his travels outside of Russia would have opened his eyes to modern gadgets like fountain pens. [Perhaps someone knows how Massie did his research in writing _Nicholas and Alexandra_ and whether he had access to the original journals that he quotes so often in the book. Would it be possible to say for sure if the journals were written with dip or fountain pen?]

 

A curious side note: the 1916 alphabet teaching guide I have attached does look similar to the Spencerian style of writing common in the United States at the time. Any connection?

Edited July 8, 2014 by HalloweenHJB

[recluse]

I am no historian, but I believe that Nicholas, at least, was viewed as the most modern of Tsars and was dedicated to bringing his country into the 20th Century. Certainly his travels outside of Russia would have opened his eyes to modern gadgets like fountain pens. [Perhaps someone knows how Massie did his research in writing _Nicholas and Alexandra_ and whether he had access to the original journals that he quotes so often in the book. Would it be possible to say for sure if the journals were written with dip or fountain pen?]

 

A curious side note: the 1916 alphabet teaching guide I have attached does look similar to the Spencerian style of writing common in the United States at the time. Any connection?

 

I undertook a few forays into Googleland trying to find traces of fountain pens among tsar's writing tools but almost to no avail. In one relatively modern fiction book such pen was mentioned but it's not clear how precise is that book with regard to such details.

 

With regard to the picture with alphabet, this is from Flerov's copybook "Visual writing lessons" (Наглядные уроки письма). There's one detail that distinguishes that book from Spencer's approach. While Flerov was aiming for simplified forms, nevertheless the first pages already call for shading. For comparison in Spencer's manual shading was left for after basic forms are perfected.