Einstein Used Sheaffer Skrip

[Jared]

After posting about a fountain pen used by Albert Einstein, I saw that a photo of his desk taken shortly after his death had a bottle of what appears to be Sheaffer's Skrip ink. I've found vintage Skrip to be a well-behaved ink in one of the best bottle designs yet made.

 

http://www.yourappcdn.com/Public/articles/25-iconic-photographs-from-the-20th-century-bring-back-lost-memories/25-iconic-photographs-from-the-20th-century-bring-back-lost-memories-2.jpg

[lapis]

My inks in those bottles still appear to be okay... and I'd say that those were one of the best ink bottle inventions ever made....

[tamiya]

Meh, it's all Relative.

 

Who's to say he put much thought into his choice of Writing Fluid ?

 

For all we know, he probably just raided the Princeton stationery cabinet when he ran out of supplies... he might've gone thru a bottle a week at his rate of writing

 

I'd be more curious if he used a different colour for his personal correspondence to swoon his ladies

 

Or did he have any special music nib for his compositions?

[inkstainedruth]

Yeah, that does look like one of the old Skrip bottles. And yes, I've used some vintage Skrip ink (including Peacock, which is dreamy -- I have it in an Eversharp Symphony at the moment), so I agree with lapis.

But the question *I* have is: what the heck is that other (larger) container on his desk? Another ink bottle? An inkwell? Something completely different (it seems too large for a postage stamp dispenser)?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[tamiya]

But the question *I* have is: what the heck is that other (larger) container on his desk? Another ink bottle? An inkwell? Something completely different (it seems too large for a postage stamp dispenser)?

Jar of Loose Tobacco.

 

There's a pipe on desk.

 

Gee I'm old enough to remember when colleagues smoked at their desks... :'(

[jmccarty3]

I find myself greatly encouraged by the messiness of Einstein's desk.

 

The question now is: how similar are the current Sheaffer inks to those of the '40s and '50s?

 

More questions: Did the gratuitous and pervasive misspellings of the Sheaffer name (Scheaffer, Schaeffer, Schaffer, Shaeffer, Shaffer) that one sees daily on FPN contribute to the loss of the company to foreign investors? Did European corporations conclude that a company that Americans couldn't be bothered to spell correctly was ripe for takeover? Shouldn't a quixotic Kazakh vampire lurking on the FPN message boards be able to spell "Sheaffer" correctly and jog barefoot at the same time? Inquiring minds want to know.

[PS104]

Jar of Loose Tobacco.

There's a pipe on desk.

Gee I'm old enough to remember when colleagues smoked at their desks... :'(

Me too. I also enjoyed several pipefuls in the office back-in-the-day

Would Princeton have allowed Einstein and Oppenheimer to smoke in their offices now?

I doubt it. Federal laws you know. And the cupcakes would complain

[Diderot]

Thanks for posting the image, it makes my desk look positively tidy

 

 

[dcwaites]

Me too. I also enjoyed several pipefuls in the office back-in-the-day

Would Princeton have allowed Einstein and Oppenheimer to smoke in their offices now?

I doubt it. Federal laws you know. And the cupcakes would complain

 

They would have had a fairly strong bargaining position -- "You let us smoke, we give you the Universe..."

 

 

.

[ParkerDuofold]

It's refreshing to know I'm not the only one with a "well used" & "lived in" office and to be in such great company is also a boost.

 

Maybe he used the Sheaffer bottle for paper clips b/c it looks empty to me... LOL

 

- Anthony

[sciumbasci]

I love to know about this stuff (trivia?)

[inkstainedruth]

Jar of Loose Tobacco.

 

There's a pipe on desk.

 

Gee I'm old enough to remember when colleagues smoked at their desks... :'(

 

Hah! I had an English professor in college, who, the first night of class, looked at the "No Smoking" sign about the chalkboard, informed the students that there was no smoking allowed, pulled out an ashtray and proceeded to chain smoke through the session. At the end of the night he put the (filled) ashtray back into his briefcase. We used to joke that he must have a built in vacuum system in his briefcase....

As for the photo, I didn't recognize the jar because I didn't really grow up around smokers -- both my parents quit (more or less cold turkey) in the mid 1950s. And anyway, that was cigarettes, not pipes.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Bookman]

I'd like to see a photo of the floor around his desk too. Better yet, the whole office floor. As to the ink, he strikes me as one who wouldn't have been too picky about his ink.

[Diderot]

I'd like to see a photo of the floor around his desk too. Better yet, the whole office floor.

 

+1

My floor certainly is cluttered

[dcwaites]

It would have been nice to work in a time that was so much less frenetic than now, so that you could leave the latest scientific journals unopened on your desk.

[JuInd]

I'd like to see a photo of the floor around his desk too. Better yet, the whole office floor. As to the ink, he strikes me as one who wouldn't have been too picky about his ink.

 

He might have borrowed that bottle of ink from Dr. Godel who happened to have at least one Sheaffer fp.

[Runnin_Ute]

Back in the early 80's I had an accounting professor, who's office was just off the accounting lab where students could go to do homework and get assistance would smoke his pipe while in his office. And this was after the law outlawing smoking in public buildings went into effect.

[tamiya]

Back in the early 80's I had an accounting professor, who's office was just off the accounting lab where students could go to do homework and get assistance would smoke his pipe while in his office. And this was after the law outlawing smoking in public buildings went into effect.

meh even into the 90s there were offices puffing away in this nanny state... especially the subsidiaries of Phillip Morris etc

[tamiya]

It would have been nice to work in a time that was so much less frenetic than now, so that you could leave the latest scientific journals unopened on your desk.

Barely get your own DOOR these days, even if you're high enough to be given an office.

 

Then came cubicles then open plan, and now "hot desking" where you can't barely even leave a book open when you rush to the toilet.

 

(HR & ID architects cackle in evilness)

[ink-syringe]

More questions: Did the gratuitous and pervasive misspellings of the Sheaffer name (Scheaffer, Schaeffer, Schaffer, Shaeffer, Shaffer) that one sees daily on FPN contribute to the loss of the company to foreign investors? Did European corporations conclude that a company that Americans couldn't be bothered to spell correctly was ripe for takeover? Shouldn't a quixotic Kazakh vampire lurking on the FPN message boards be able to spell "Sheaffer" correctly and jog barefoot at the same time? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

 

 

 

My research area, which I write about using my Sheaffer pens, involves a man named Schafer and another named Schaeffer. Both towering figures.

This is why after all these years and hundreds of pens later, I still get jumbled on the name and autocorrect only makes it worse as all three appear in my user dictionary.

and then there is Schaefer Beer, ubiquitous in my youth …

kill me now.

Not bothered?