Hey everyone,

Just for my own edification, when were dip-pens invented and when did they replace the quill as the standard writing instrument? My sources (okay, Wikipedia), says the 1830s. Is this correct?

I think the 1830s is the generally accepted period. Makers were producing steel pens in some quantity as early as the first few years of the nineteenth century, but improvements in steel made mass production possible by the 1830s. Major producers such as Joseph Gillot were at work by the 1810s. Seymour Howard in "The Steel Pen and the Modern Line of Beauty" published in the journal Technology and Culture in 1985 mentions references to pens made from various metals as far back as 1698, but also mentions vaguely references to metal pens dating to antiquity. Improvements in steel, the introduction of rolling mills, producing sheet steel, in the 1790s, made the production of steel pens practical. By the 1830s, when Joseph Gillot patented improvements in steel pens, the pens were becoming common.

I have nothing to add about the date. I just thought I'd mention that there's a good book called "Pen, Ink, & Evidence: A Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the Penman, Collector, and Document Detective" by Joe Nickell that covers all manner of pen history.

http://www.amazon.com/Pen-Ink-Evidence-Mat...924/ref=ed_oe_p

Cool! That's one to get my hands on.

There are both hardcover and softcover editions depending on which end of the money scale you're coming from.

Thanks for the replies, everyone

See below:

Also: http.//www.kamakurapens.com/Presidents/Presidents_pens.html