When Did Dip Pens Fall Out Of Common Use?

[Orrell Post]

Where I was educated, pupils were expected to changed from a dip pen to a foutain pen at age 11 on transfer to a secondary education school where the ink well desks had not ink in them. The desks at junior school held Stehpens ink, topped up from a large bottle by the 'ink monitor'. Dip pens faded out in the late fifties early sixties.

[blINK]

I recall reading that the Post Office had dip pens and inkwells up until 1957. I believe that Shelby Foote mentioned it.

This brings up a question that has been bugging me.

 

If all the post offices used dip pens - what happened to them all? Why are they not seen on the used market? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places but I would love to have a dip pen that was once in a post office.

[rwilsonedn]

This brings up a question that has been bugging me.

 

If all the post offices used dip pens - what happened to them all? Why are they not seen on the used market? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places but I would love to have a dip pen that was once in a post office.

 

I suspect the vast majority of them were thrown out at the earliest possible opportunity, by post-office clerks who were tired of refilling wells, cleaning up ink spills, replacing pens broken by mean little kids or ham-fisted adults, and otherwise having to deal with the things. A plastic BP on a chain must have been a huge relief to the staff.

ron

[Cepasaccus]

I found in Australia in an antique shop maybe six boxes of "Post Office Pens" with each 144 pens. Maybe they really came from one of the small post offices there.

[moylek]

When I moved to Stratford, Ontario in 1978, I found myself in a grade 4/5 class at Falstaff Public School* which used straight pens. There was a cupboard full of pens, nibs, blotting paper, and refillable ink bottles.

 

At the start of the day, you got your pen and nib, a bottle of ink which went into the ink well, and a strip of blotting paper.

 

Once one's penmanship was deemed good enough, one would be allowed to use the pen or pencil of one's choice. That choice ended up being something I never had to worry about :|

 

I was aware that this was an anachronistic setup at the time. But it was fun. And I've loved ink ever since.

 

* who ever decided that Sir John Falstaff would be someone to name a school for?

Edited October 9, 2014 by moylek

[mustud52]

I was using a dip pen at school in Melbourne until about 1960. It was a big thing to receive your "pen licence" which enabled you to graduate from a pencil to an ink pen. The teacher would test you to make sure you could handle the pen without getting ink all over the page. I failed my first test and had to use a pencil for another couple of months. A mentally scarring experience.

 

The ink monitor was usually seen as a teacher's pet and had the coveted job of filling the ink wells fitted to each desk every couple of days. I remember well the rubber spout fitted to the end of the ink bottle. If the ink monitor flicked the spout then ink would spray around. Such fun.

[Princeps Anglorum]

Just judging from movies and documentaries, dip pens pretty much went bye bye after WWI, BUT, I just watched a Ken Burns presentation about FDR, and there he was using a dip pen (while he was in the White House) and it was NOT some kind of ceremonial signing.

 

PS - I just wrote a three page letter with a dip pen and Shelby Foote wrote all of his books with one.

 

Didn't know that about Shelby Foote. Great books on the Civil War.

[Princeps Anglorum]

I was at junior school in England from 1962 to 1966 and dip pens and inkwells were still in use but only for the (minority) of children who didn't have their own fountain or usually cartridge pen. I don't recall seeing dip pens anywhere else. The local sub post office had a black ballpoint on a chain by then . My mother and father both worked on offices and most office workers were using ballpoints.

[TXKat]

Never used a dip pen or fountain pen in school, with the exception of having to do Biology drawings with india ink. I was born in the plastic era and I can remember pens that LOOKED like dip pens in banks, etc., but they had the chain attached and were definitely ball point pens! BORING!

 

I now use a dip pen and various points for any of the writing I do at home as I can change inks and points to suit my fancy. All of my pen pals get dip pen letters...unless I break out my Waterman #2 nibbed fountain, pens as I am a flex junkie!

 

Dip pens to me are just amazingly fun and versatile!

[inkstainedruth]

This has been an interesting thread to read.

But I have a question: How many instances of people seeing dip pens (as opposed to first-person recollections of using them) might actually being fountain pen desk-pens?

I was in an antiques shop the other day and asked if they had any pens (it happened to have been the place where I bought my first Sheaffer Snorkel a couple of years ago). The woman there said that all they had in at the moment was an Eversharp desk pen, which IIRC was a lever-filler (I didn't buy it, since I've never been all that interested in desk pens). But reading this thread and the number of responses has made me wonder about what pens were FPs and what pens were actually dip pens.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Anne-Sophie]

In the history thread, I found out that dip pens were used in Congress and the White House as late as the mid sixties.

 

I believe that they were replaced by Parkers fountain pens.

 

I think 51's then later on, the most high end Parkers of the era.

 

I need to find out by taking a virtual visit to the Smithsonian pictures of bills and/or treaties official signatures events.

 

I became interested in that subject after watching "The Roosevelts"

 

 

I have seen many desk sets on the Columbo the classical/original episodes.

I always wonder which ones are fitted with dip pens; fountains pens with converter/cartridges, which were placed on the desk set stem to play the role of a cap; or ballpoints?

 

It would be helpful if FPN members from the U.S would share their experiences of offices and desks essentials for that era 1968-1978.

[BCastle]

I was at junior school in England from 1962 to 1966 and dip pens and inkwells were still in use but only for the (minority) of children who didn't have their own fountain or usually cartridge pen. I don't recall seeing dip pens anywhere else. The local sub post office had a black ballpoint on a chain by then . My mother and father both worked on offices and most office workers were using ballpoints.

I must be of similar vintage! From 1961-66 between the ages of 6-11 at my primary school in SW London we used dip pens (being ink monitor with the large ceramic twin tube swan neck ink bottle was a privilege much coveted and, alas, frequently denied to me!). Moved in '66 to a secondary school in the sticks and it was bics and fountain pens from then on in. I have recently rediscovered the simple joys of dipping ones nib.

[welch]

They were certainly still pretty common in the 40s and 50s. I don't remember seeing them much after that though.

 

My guess: sometime after about 1955. I started kindergarten in 1953, in a new wing of our school with new desks. They had plastic ink-wells, even though we were not allowed to use ink until about fourth grade.

 

"It's a Wonderful Life", made in 1946, turns on an event in a bank during which Uncle Billy fills out a deposit slip with a dip pen.

 

My neighborhood drugstore ("apothecary"?) had dip pens among its school supplies until about 1960. By then, we used Sheaffer "school pens", which were translucent cartridge-filling fountain pens.

[takkun]

I have seen many desk sets on the Columbo the classical/original episodes.

I always wonder which ones are fitted with dip pens; fountains pens with converter/cartridges, which were placed on the desk set stem to play the role of a cap; or ballpoints?

 

It would be helpful if FPN members from the U.S would share their experiences of offices and desks essentials for that era 1968-1978.

I've also wondered this while watching Columbo, along with admiring the architecture. Haven't taken much notice while watching Mad Men, but I got excited when a boxed Leica M2 became a minor plot point.

 

My only experience with dip pens was watching my mother, an illustrator, using Speedball pens. Recently, she gifted me a Pelikan drafting set for architecture school, but while we still do a fair amount of hand-drafting during the initial design process, presentation drawings are all digital. No real need to ink process drawings.

 

I'll also chime in and say that as recently as the early 90s, my school had the old style tables with the inkwell holders. Thinking back, I'd put them at 40s or 50s vintage. Desks aren't exactly a cheap item to replace.

 

On an otherwise unrelated note, the whole building at that time was an interesting piece of architectural archaeology. There were very few dropped ceilings, so new pipes, sprinklers, cables, etc were hanging out of the original plastic ceiling. I had a job running Ethernet cables there one summer, and we mostly zip-tied things to existing pipes.

[Albert26]

From what I've heard from my older relatives, in Spain as late as the end of the 60s in the banks customers signed documents with a dip pen, that was secured with a chain. I would have liked to see it.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Albert26

[jar]

From what I've heard from my older relatives, in Spain as late as the end of the 60s in the banks customers signed documents with a dip pen, that was secured with a chain. I would have liked to see it.

Here as well. And in many public buildings like Post-offices. Gradually they were replace with ball points also chained in place. By the 70s they were pretty much gone.

[Moonshae]

Sometimes people object when old threads like this are resurrected because people don't notice the date and respond to the initial inquiry, but this was interesting to read, and I'd have never likely found it otherwise; I'm not one to comb through old threads hoping to find a gem like this.

[Patricius]

There was a sign advertising ''the Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley Pen -- sold by all stationers'' in St. Enoch's Square (incidentally not named after Enoch the Patriarch but after St. Enoch, mother of St. Kentigern, whose miracles are recorded in the coat of arms of the city) in Glasgow in the very late sixties and possibly longer, I should have to ask my father.

 

Of course, the presence of the advert does not mean that the pens were still sold and I should need to check with him.

[AAAndrew]

Common usage among non-school children, after WWII. For everyone, 1950's. All usage, I'll let you know when that happens, if I'm still around. Most dip nibs made today are for either calligraphy or illustration, but some of us still use them for just writing.

 

Starting in the 30's most of what you saw in banks and hotels and post offices were hybrids like the Esterbrook Dip-less pens. They were dip pens with fountain pen feeds. Really, only dip pens in that they sat in ink rather than had ink fed from an internal source, but the experience writing with them is much more like a fountain pen than a dip pen.