The Flexy Craze

[Bo Bo Olson]

The problem, is I think many sellers really over flex their pens....or they would be here, and getting more money if they have patience.

They could well be making a nib do Olympic splits when it should spread as a max only 5 X a light down stroke, so might even spring the nib they are selling.

 

Not all Waterman nibs back in the '20-30's were Superflex, from my reading here. One went to the corner pen store and got the nib you wanted, with more flex for personal letter writing or less for business letters.

Spenserian was for private or a signature to show you had culture. It was not for business, in it took too long, and was difficult to read quickly and easily.

There was a business script before the Palmer method. There were better accounting/business books for home study that taught that. One could go to a city Business collage for 10-12 to 16 weeks to learn business. The fast could get out early, the others had to take the whole 16 weeks.

 

Superflex is a wide range, with some that only flex 4-or 5 and others that flex 5-6 X and the rare 7 X flex. Then there is the pressure needed, which is more variable than my simplistic Easy Full Flex, Wet Noodle and Weak Kneed Wet Noodle subsets. It is helpful to some one new to flex to find out how much flex they do have in their nib. Even in maxi-semi-flex there is more flex range than in semi-flex, so there is a wide variation of pressure 'set points' to Superflex.

 

I have 5-6 Easy Full Flex nibbed pens, not including a hand full of Degussa nib of that pressure set.

I have two wet noodles, a Waterman 52, that starts as an Easy Full Flex then half way through turns 'Wet Noodle' and a Soennecken one.

 

A good poster, posted some ;30's Waterman ads and :yikes:they were only flexing the nib 3X wide; it was the ease of flex they were selling, not the width. So we all could be over flexing our nibs.

 

Dip pens.

I do not have a famous 303/404 Gillette nib. I have some twenty or so, some are better than 'wet noodles' but yet in what I'd call only the middle pack like a Soennecken nib, and my most flexible ones are the Hunt 99-100-101, that make a wet noodle look like it was never cooked.

 

Those who can write (not me ) are more interested into quick snap back to a spiderweb width than making a line as wide as the cable holding up the Golden Gate bridge.

[AAAndrew]

So, here's the quick and dirty comparison I did last week while waiting for my son to be finished with an activity. I was just pulling some nibs I had in my travel case, so it's not all the flexible nibs I have, nor even all of the ones that were with me, just ones I pulled out easily. You can get an idea of the range of flex, but what's harder to understand from the written sample is the experience of each nib, the action and smoothness, for example. Size also makes a difference. The big nibs can be quite fun to write with, but can also take some getting used to, and they don't fit in a normal oblique holder. Smaller nibs may write beautifully for smaller letters, but not do well with larger text. That also makes a difference with flex nibs. How big do you want to write? You don't need a nib that flexes to 5mm (or more!) if you write small.

 

Anyway, here's another bit of information for this conversation.

 

 

 

 

[sakayume]

AAAndrew, I was curious in the original thread, but forgot to ask, is your William Mitchell G nib a vintage nib? I'm currently using a Leonardt G that looks, well, almost exactly the same and is certainly more flexible than the Japanese Gs. It's rather pleasant to write with and doesn't need particular care when writing (compared to the Principal EF, for example).

[AAAndrew]

All of my nibs are vintage. I guess I should have mentioned that. Yeah, I kick it old school!

 

It helps that I'm vintage as well.

 

The G and J nibs were pretty consistent across the British manufacturers. Leonardt bought out a bunch of the old Birmingham makers, and Mitchell may have been one of them. I don't know the British pen history nearly as well as I do the American.

 

I keep meaning to get a modern Zebra G or something one of these days to compare. I had one when I first started collecting but quickly left it behind when I started getting into the vintage. It's got to be somewhere in my pile of nibs for use.

[sakayume]

Ah, I see, thanks. If the Zebra G is anything like the Nikko Gs I have, you're not missing anything. The Nikko G requires too much pressure to flex for my taste, with the result that I discard them quite fast as they tend to feel rough and catch on the downstroke after a while (I don't have problems with upstrokes).

 

I'm too lazy to expend the effort hunting down vintage nibs so I use whatever I can find in the local art supply store... which is not much, but at least there's Leonardt!

[Bo Bo Olson]

I will have to come back to Andrew's fine work. I have a 144...a gross of assorted Esterbrook nibs, I've not even divided out to which ones I have much less thumbnail checked to see how much flex they have.

I'll be able to compare to the one he showed us.

 

The day will come, when I have the time to actually use my oblique pen holders....got lots of very similar but for the color straight ones, and a couple of old metal ones from the time.

Sigh, I'm going to have to learn to write.

 

A gross was how dip pens were sold back in the day. Well in the catalogs one could get 1/4th a gross in 1902 for 12-14-16 or 17 cents....back in the day of the Saloon's nickle beer. Gillott for 20 and 25 cents.

I paid more in inflation money but was glad to get the assortment. Well with the price of a beer in a modern bar, could be I got it for nearly the same as back in the day.

 

Of course back in the day, after buying three beers one had bought the 'free lunch' and in better saloons it was a French buffet. Other places gave an fried oyster with every drink.

[AAAndrew]

Back when a gross of Esterbrook 048 Falcon nibs cost 75-cents, you could buy a lunch of roast beef, milk and pie for 15-cents. (c.1915).

 

These were quality instruments, but also meant to be disposable, especially with the more corrosive inks of the day. That's why they were sold by the gross.

 

If you got a formal Esterbrook Assortment box, then most likely many of those nibs will not be usable with an oblique holder. Very few people used oblique holders back in the day. Only artists, master penmen or people doing formal calligraphy used obliques. Most everyone else used straight holders.

 

Ok, I'll throw in a brief plug. If you're dip-curious, click here.

[ac12]

 

Tradeoffs. Choose one or choose the other. But to make a good choice, you need to try both. Fortunately, dip nibs are much cheaper to get started with than flexible fountain pens. Use them to figure out if you even like writing with a flexible nib, then if you do, you have some idea of what you're looking for in a fountain pen.

 

'Course, that's just my two-pence worth of hot air.

 

 

I went this route, and decided that I liked writing with dip pens so much that I did not bother to get into flex fountain pens, though I have a few. If I really want to write flex, I take out the dip pens.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Andrew, great info.....I'm writing a City Slicker Western taking place in 1881-2. Now I have to go back and remove the Eagle Nibs. Mostly it was Esterbrook nibs in use in my book. I'll replace the Eagle with a Turner & Harrison.

I use the 1894-5 Montgomery Ward....Monkey Ward to us Old Timers from back when it still was. & the 1900 & 1902 Sears catalogs. In there was gold money there was no real inflation. So I could add freight and the normal 100% profit to get approximate costs of items. If one looks one can get the price of basics of 1870-80's.

 

The Monkey Ward, didn't have the cheap steel dip pens (that page was not printed), only the gold ones. The Sears did. (pens=nibs). All three catalogs are somewhat condensed from the original, so mostly I can find what I need in one or the other.

 

If I wrote the book twenty years ago, I'd not have to be perfect in my details. Today, if one is not perfect, someone on some sort of Com, will write don't buy it, he didn't do his research.

By pure luck I 'showed' someone on this com who is into watches a 'first scene' which has a pocket watch in it and he told me that watch came out two years later. So I had to go back and change the watch from one of the very first 17 jewel watches to a still railway good 15 jewel one.

 

I over research. But lots will be cut out when the cutting starts inside of two weeks. I'm on the second to last chapter. Sometimes a detail drives a scene for me, often it just clogs up the action.

 

It had to be there to put the reader in Modern Days of 1880's. It was in many ways more modern than I expected. I have enough details to pick and chose which one glitters and which are not necessary.

Civilization started in 1884, with the invention of the electric fan and the fly swatter.

The Turkey Feather Duster is up to the minute too, 1878-9. The wife had to take her husband to court in he was trying to steal her invention. My, God, she wanted to control her own money. What is the world coming too.

 

The info on the internet is growing geometrically. Stuff I had a hard time finding only two years or even last year, is suddenly in 20 blogs. Some of it is very rich, and not just copies of other blogs.The Census is a very good place to find folks, what they were before the Civil War, and 'now'. I tend to use real people as sub-characters (often shifting plot a bit), buildings and so on.

 

It is so very unfortunate the 1890's census burnt up.

Two years ago there was no free census info that could have been used. Thanks to the Mormon Church there is now. They baptize everyone that they can find that ever lived, so they are saved. And give that info away for free. The city directories of the time have come on line. Three years ago, there was only a Denver 1887 one, and it was read it all to get something. The new one is computer up to date. Stable and get all the Stables. Saloon and get all the Saloons. Every business, who owned it, where did they live. Where does he live ten years from the 'now', can show get up and go, or not. If not, why not put beer on his breath, or he gambles. Her bootmaker likes his beer.

 

Denver was the 'Lunger' capitol of the world, some folks are suffering from TB, so can make them thin and pale, coughing up their lungs. Selling things at the pawn shops, my heroine buys. It was so.

One Lady; and she really was; whose husband died within two years of coming to Denver in the '60's when Denver was young, bought a boarding house with her remaining money; not realizing it was for 'female' boarders only.

Lizzy Preston, in her Establishment, the dollar a day laboring husband of Baby Doe, was tricked into being there...in he could not afford the goods. He was trying to sell his worthless gold mine....much business was done in such Establishments. It was a set up by HAW Tabor and his gold digging mistress. I am an Augusta Tabor fan. She was a workaholic with more sense than her spendthrift rich husband. The poor fool loved that man.

 

I needed a few small Mexican kids in the Anglo side of El Paso, 1882. El Paso del Norte was on the other side of the Rio Bravo, changing to Juarez some six years later.

I found one kid just old enough almost 8, that in 1900, is a black smith; who had two ugly old maid sisters. So after doing his duty; showing up when my Heroine does 'el Silbo' whistling, a shorthand whistled Spanish that can be heard up to 3 miles....then gets to fall in love with my pistol packing Heroine and gets exposed to the importance of horseshoeing.

That way I can place the three blacksmith shops in El Paso then....so folks in El Paso will buy my book. Same goes for the other cities she has stop overs at. One can find out odd details in a census.

 

I found in the census the married Governor of Colorado, adapted a woman older than him as his daughter. I think she was his long time nurse, in his health was always delicate. He is a sub-character of my murderous heroine's blackjacking dumb bombshell sidekick. A true friend she is, having helped carry and get rid of one dead body.

 

Dallas Stoudenmire of the 'Four Dead in Five Second' gunfight, had been from a well to do slave owning family before the 'War'. So the cattle rustling Manning's, couldn't fool him with their ex-plantation manors.

The Taylor's of the Sutton-Taylor feud, had owned some slaves too. The Kelly's; related by double marriage also. Therefore the houses were better than a Texas Dogtrot. My heroine's henchman had been in the Sutton-Taylor feud...at least for the book. Gunslingers don't just pop out of the woodwork.

 

One can have he walked in the Mall, or he walked by Macy's in the Mall and throw in the clerk, George Gimble.

 

Searching for details; means I don't have to write.

Got to get back to the and turn the horse her brother was on into a Dun Mustang. Had to pick exactly which color Dun it was too.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[AAAndrew]

Don't forget, every railroad also had their own nibs. They were made by Esterbrook and T&H and others, but imprinted with their name. Just like businesses have pens with their name on them today.

 

The Esterbrooks would have the imprint "Esterbrook &Co" at that time as Richard was still alive.

 

Another make you may want to think about is Leon Isaacs & Co.'s Glucinum pens. "The Slickest Pen Made." Their western salesman was the legendary Michael Voorsanger who was famous for being able to tell you the best hotel in any city of size in the US from memory and describe its amenities.

 

Here's a quote from the 1891 American Stationer.

Feb 12, 1891

"I had a nice talk with M. Voorsanger, of Leon Isaacs & Co. He had a very prosperous and pleasant trip along the Pacific Coast. The bunch of peanuts which attracts such crowds to Isaacs' window he brought as a memento of a very pleasant hour spent on a peanut ranch in California. Peanuts are common enough on corner stands, but this bunch I refer to comprises vine and all. A.L. Isaacs, of this same firm, looks pleasanter now than before he got married, but of course this is as it should be. Business is very good with Leon Isaacs & Co. They anticipate a heavy trade this year. They deserve it, as the "Glucinum" pen certainly cannot be beaten for durability and smooth running qualities. A.L. Isaacs expects to start on an Eastern trip in March."

 

They were known for only having one dealer in each town to increase the exclusivity of their pens. They were more expensive than Esterbrook.

 

And "Glucinum" is a great word.

 

Can give you more history if you're interested. One of my specialities.

[pixelbunny]

So, here's the quick and dirty comparison I did last week while waiting for my son to be finished with an activity. I was just pulling some nibs I had in my travel case, so it's not all the flexible nibs I have, nor even all of the ones that were with me, just ones I pulled out easily. You can get an idea of the range of flex, but what's harder to understand from the written sample is the experience of each nib, the action and smoothness, for example. Size also makes a difference. The big nibs can be quite fun to write with, but can also take some getting used to, and they don't fit in a normal oblique holder. Smaller nibs may write beautifully for smaller letters, but not do well with larger text. That also makes a difference with flex nibs. How big do you want to write? You don't need a nib that flexes to 5mm (or more!) if you write small.

 

Anyway, here's another bit of information for this conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

This is an amazing visual comparison! Thanks so much! I only have experience with the Brause Blue Pumpkin and the EF66. I'd love to try some vintage nibs next.

[Water Ouzel]

And "Glucinum" is a great word.

 

 

From Latin from Greek meaning "sweet". Proposed (and rejected) name for the element Beryllium (Be), as some of its salts taste sweetish.

 

The metal and associated alloys have all sorts of exotic uses and mechanical properties. Too bad it's so expensive and sometimes difficult to machine.

 

Also poisonous; among other things, beryllium and its compounds are listed as Category 1 carcinogens.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you Andrew, I can without a problem go back and change the telegrapher/station master in Peublo's Esterbrook to D&RG, and have him know it was an Esterbrook. I had D&RG on the inkwells of the two telegraphers. I don't think I'm going to get quite so deep as Esterbrook & Co.

 

Telegraphing was a young man's job, due to carpal tunnel syndrome. I have the term then used, but can't pull it up on the net or in my mind. They were not a bunch of old dumb guys playing chess by wire as seen in westerns**. They were up to date on Electricity and a series of big mix acid on the job, wet batteries.

They were the high tec geeks of the day.

**There was and is much wrong with Hollywood westerns. In the west, anyone in a town wanted to be Eastern.

 

I will contact you of course Andrew; and thank you for offering your assistance.

The first book she read was Tom Sawyer, the next Gaskell's Compendium of Business Forms...the only book she had up to then, seen in use; in it had bookkeeping in it along with Business script. She just loves bookkeeping. Female office clerks are still 5-10 years off.

 

There were an astounding amount of business machinery also in use. Some of the things invented then are still in use, like clipboards. Filing was just coming in, but filing cabinets were not yet invented.

There is a man with a great Office museum online. They had various ways of business copying, like you would get the carbon copy, and the original would be copied on the back with double sided carbon paper, to prove it was sent.

 

Single side carbon paper was used by the RR's. With train orders the original would go to the train's Captain, the Conductor, the next two to the engineer and his apprentice the fireman, the next two to the two breakmen, and the Station manager would take the 6th and last sheet.

He was using a nail nib, and Business script.

So Andrew, which was the Esterbrook nail nib....even if D&RG was on it the Esterbrook number would have been on it. That I can slip in.

 

The daughter of Spenser was his main assistant for the last couple of years of his life from 12-14. Later she taught government workers to write in Washington afterwards. She supposedly had a slightly better version of the system, that her brothers refused to let her publish, in they were making a living with their own books and schools. They burnt hers after she died.

 

Of course she gets into the book, in my Character is having problems switching from Business to Spenserian. My character will write folks far away, who don't know what she is. (A bit of my anger at the unfairness of it is why I put in Ellen Spencer Mussey. I found a use for her later.) Her good husband Mussey was a lawyer, educator, and pioneer in the field of women's rights to legal education.

1896 with the death of her husband, with an exemption, she passed the law exam. Ellen Spencer Mussey was admitted later to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and in the same year she passed the law exam, she started the first Woman's collage for women lawyers.

 

There is a writing trick of 10, exactly 100 word epilogues. 1897 my well to do heroine joins the second class. Two of the ten epilogues, mention that.

In 1910 when a telegram comes to her law office; out the door she goes with her 1903 Colt Automatic (The 1911 was such a better gun; especially with the angle of the grip.), telescoped Mauser Rifle and Excelsior 61 cubic inch/1000cc motorcycle to rescue a friends son in Mexico. It's wholesale time! She is an old maid of 35.

 

To stay within myth, she dies nursing the ill during the 1919 Spanish Influenza plague. Her house with her collection of 'modern art' is washed away in the Pueblo flood of 1922. She got Monets and the rest from the '80's on, when most thought $250 for one was a huge waste of money for lousy "art".

 

 

I had not expected to write a social commentary of the Ice Cold Victorian Age; but thankfully, women have come miles further than they think they have.

 

It was a terrible time to be a woman. Society and all it's propaganda was geared to keeping them in their place....while telling them how happy they were...as soon as they can afford a maid.

Society was like now, was balanced on keeping up with the Jones, then with no safety net! You were what your husband had. He had to show it too or he could not advance. Period.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[AAAndrew]

I'm sure the telegraphy companies had their own branded pens. There was an Esterbrook #1876 Telegraphic pen, which came out in 1876 (one of three of their pens that I know were numbered like this). This was famous because it was one of, if not the first, turned-up tip pens. This greatly increased the ability of the writer to write quickly and easily without worrying as much about catching the tip on the paper.

 

I just found the following quote because I recently got a small amount of the rare 306 Choctaw pens. The ones I have can be dated to pre-1895, and were found in a box (for 239 Chancellor stubs) that was made between 1876 and 1895. The Choctaw's are mentioned below.

 

American Stationer

Feb 12, 1891, page 331

Turned Up Point Pens

The first steel pens made in Birmingham about the year 1837, while providing a ready made instrument for penmen, failed to give that ease in writing which was the characteristic of the old quill. They were uniformly fine pointed and naturally more or less scratchy. The remedy for this was not found until a generation later, when the demand for an easier writing pen became imperative. Manufacturers began to make them with blunt and broad points. [what we call stub nibs today - Andrew]

In 1871 the Esterbrook Steel Pen Company made its first stub pen, No. 161, and now the company has as many as eighteen numbers of stub pens on its catalogue. This did not completely satisfy the demands until the happy idea occurred to turn up the points. This rendered the evolution of the pen complete.

In 1876 the Esterbrook Steel Pen Company produced its 1876 Telegraphic, followed shortly after by No. 256 Tecumseh, and No. 309 Choctaw. At the special request of many the Falcon pen was made in this style. Another pen has now been added to the list, and is known as No. 477 Postal. This is a size larger than the Choctaw, with finer points.

The perfect ease afforded by these pens contributes one of the most valuable luxuries provided for writers at this end of the century. The penman can write longer with less fatigue than with the ordinary styles. The tediousness of writing is almost entirely avoided, and the relief is so complete that it converts a drudgery into a delight and a pain into a pleasure, and anyone who has taken up one of these turned up point pens for a companion will never consent to be without it.

 

 

We should probably take this to a separate thread, or to PM.

 

Sorry, Uncial for the hijack.

 

Back to your original question, yes, the flex field, I feel, has become a minefield. I suspect the craze will slowly die down a bit as those who can, get a flex pen, and those who can't, move on. The number of vintage flexible nibs will diminish as people ruin them in record numbers, then put them aside.

 

The question is, when will we hit "Peak Flex"?

[bobje]

Andrew, did you study Eleanor Winters to graduate to that level in only 9 months?

[Uncial]

Sorry, Uncial for the hijack.

 

I didn't mind the hijack at all, was a most interesting journey.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Uncial....sorry about that too, but as an American in Germany, don't get to talk to other writers. I hope you don't mind I add a little bit more.

 

I did manage to mention a couple of the better papers of the time too. Packages were wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. There was an SOP for wrapping goods in sheets of brown paper. In @ 1886 a woman in Texas invents the paper bag. I just show some of the live before that real major invention.

 

Thank you Andrew, about the other names of Esterbrook nibs, and the turned up points. That went directly to the new file for your info.

I have some Brouse with turned up points; ornamental pens. I had not even thought of turned up points as faster, more business like. When would the Esterbrook Postal have come along?

 

Two finger typewriting clerks loved typewriters, they got to sit down on the job to type. It would be 5 -6 years later women started taking that job away from men. By 1889 full both hand typing and big National typing contests were held.

 

When I change the Eagle brand to a turn up point of some other company than Esterbrook (in Esterbrook is used too much) being used by the stand at a sloped desk all day long by the then clerk Ed Gaylord; clerk of the local Denver gangster boss; later his partner as Denver crime boss. @ 1900 Gaylord was the holder of the world speed record for a trotter/pacer for one race, beaten in the next by the great Dan Patch. It remained the amateur record. My heroine meets the young Clerk on her Hackney and he's on a horse not quite fast enough; 2:30 mile to be Standardbred. She knows Big Ed Chase of course.

 

Chase was for the time, a huge man of 6'4". Dallas Strudenmire was that tall (at 180 still considered very well built, a solid heavyweight).

In the first book in a Civil War flashback, some one that tall was noted as being enormous. The average height was 5-8, someone 5-10 was tall. Nathan Hale was considered a tall man at 5-10. Heavyweights weighed 160+ pounds for boxing. A big burley man was 180-90 pounds. 230 pound men like Big Ed Chase or the '6-2 Big Ed Burns (Leadville criminal boss) where like a modern Watts, the football Defensive End.

 

Big Ed Chase kept violent crime and yegs/burglars out of Denver. The crooked city council gave him free use of one of the major streets tourists would walk from the rail road station, to fleece tourists with his con men. (They and the female pick pocket gang were not allowed to prey on Denver residents.) Chase had one of the two honest gambling houses in Denver. From the crooked rest he took his cut. He was in charge of paying corrupt politicians.

Soapy Smith was still small potatoes in my book. The big man in con, was Doc Baggs who sold fake gold bricks to bank presidents. When not at work, he wore green sunglasses always and was addicted to losing at Faro. Sun glasses of any kind were very scarce but in use, as far as I can tell they were blue normally. Great for hiding cataract eyes.

 

In the 1902 Sears they list the Esterbrook 161F, as a 'Short nib Embossing' It and the following Judges, a much larger pen(nib) both have a Chevron V near the start of the tip; I would have thought to give it more flex. Both are stubs.

 

Andrew when the time comes in the cutting, I'll send you the scenes where writing occurs.

 

The term underworld, came from San Francisco where all the illegal gambling took place on the Barbary Coast in connecting cellars, where the dealers wore face covered hood capes, so when the cops busted the joint. A man turned off the lights, and the cops couldn't prove who was a dealer. Hoodlum, had more to do as a German word for ragged 'orphan' kid gangs.

My heroine's side kick grew up in the Barbary Coast. That was matched then by the Loop in Chicago, 5 Points in NY, and Storyville in New Orleans.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[AAAndrew]

If you want to take your pick of nibs, I posted a pdf of Esterbrook's first published price list from 1878.

 

Go to this thread and scroll down. Look for my post with the big picture of my grandmother's certificate in Palmer writing. The link to the PDF is at the bottom of that post.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/303755-anyone-interested-in-seeing-the-rest-of-this/

 

One very good option for a nib used for a telegraph operator would be the 239 Chancellors. It's a small, stub nib with a medium point, and very fast writer. It was very popular with businessmen, lawyers and anyone else who cared for for writing a lot of material quickly. Their secretaries would then use a pointed pen to write it fair before sending it off. Or use one of the fancy new contraptions called the typewriter.

 

Copying was often done using copy presses. You wrote on a piece of paper with special copying ink and then stuck the paper with a blank sheet into a small press and it made a copy. These copy presses today are often sold in antique stores as book binding presses, which I supposed they could be used for.

 

If you want to get your offices right, if you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out an issue or two of American Stationer, the trade publication for the office supply business.

 

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012305596

 

You'll find everything in there from names, pictures, prices, commentary. It's invaluable for those of us doing research into the 19th-century pen trade.

[Bo Bo Olson]

That is a very fine and ornate 'sheepskin'.

I will be going through three or four years of that info.

 

In a real quick view, I did see a couple of things I dug up the hard way.

As I said, and that right around 1880, was pretty pre-computer modern outside the filing cabinets. Different systems failed, before that took over.

That online Office Museum is quite good.

 

Unfortunately I can't copy and look at, but I can do it the old fashioned way, use a fountain pen.

No wonder you know so much about Esterbrook nibs.

 

The roll top desk came in @ 1880, and by 1900 was considered a failure for a 'real' office, in files got lost in the pigeonholes and the second story one could add to one of those desks blocked air circulation. Think about being in Atlanta, wearing long underwear, a three piece suit in August. That Swedish mesh underwear was on the market back then. The light and airy Linen suit was costly and wrinkled a lot.**

Wool was what they had, and in summer weight. Wool wasn't the worst thing to have cloths made of, it can be better than most cottons.

 

By 1880 the wrinkled slept in the suit for three weeks fashion was going rapidity out of style; with all they young whippersnappers. So wrinkled Linen could have been seen as a bit old fashioned at the end of the roll top desk days. Well, a live in maid worked her 16 hours a day, so could iron it daily after one's 12 hour work day.

 

They had some fine other desks....in use in the book.

Well off to find a name or two. I already changed pencils from Faber-Castell on the first look in the 1880 one. I can get a bit better look on Art Supplies that both the Monkey Ward and Sears cut out....paper was also cut. With a bit of looking in my old how to art books, and a few 'real' names,

I can show her having come a long way with out stating it...again . When one associates with 'turned out' properly trained young Ladies, one has to catch up with art, music.....well she's rather carve leather than embroider. In such "ratified air" that she traveled, proper refinement was required. Gentlemen could practice being Gentlemen in a civilized atmosphere. Many a young man got his manors polished in such Parlor and Ball Room Establishments.

 

Off to see what neat thing I can toss in the two office scenes, or add something to her one 'desk' office.

Thanks a hell of a lot Andrew.

 

PS I was wrong it was not a Texas woman in 1886 but a Mass. Woman in 1868. She had a lot of inventions. Started off working cotton mill at 12.

 

Lots and lots of thing there Crain Papers, Stafford's 'American' ink, English Staffords....which the ERRS is the remaining product of it being made by an ex manager who got that and the wooden vat to make it is some 30 years ago.

 

Cross Pens also made a Stylographic pen., and the Anti-Stylograph pen....an eye dropper fountain pen,...pre Waterman, as it seems to have been first called.

I was wrong staplers were IN. And a lot more different style staples than today.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[AAAndrew]

Colorado would have a lot of leather readily available with all the cattle. I think leather carving would work.

 

For any office, blank books, ruled for different reasons seemed to make up a large part of office methods. It was a major way of organizing information. Daily diaries kept track of who came and went. Ledgers recorded transactions. Account books kept running totals for regular customers. Each began and ended on a date.

 

For any desk, don't forget the pen rack, the pen wipe, the inkwell, and the rocker blotter. A fine young lady would have a delicate set usually of silver. Bronze, unless it was enameled, was more for men. Silver also seems more appropriate for out West were there were such large silver mines.

 

The telegraph office would most likely use a plain iron pen rack and plain ceramic or glass inkwell. A wooden rocker blotter would be appropriate.