Gold, Oblique, Spencerian Dip Pen - Any Others?

[AAAndrew]

So, I stumbled upon one of those eBay moments when you see a Buy it Now that is more of an imperative message than normal.

 

This is a gold dip pen (just the nib and collar, the wood or MOP handle is gone). But there are some very unusual things about them. I'm wondering if anyone has seen anything like it, and if anyone can help me figure out the Spencerian part of this puzzle.

 

Starting with what I know, This is a gold pen made/sold by Piquette of Detroit.

 

 

 

 

Piquette was a jeweler who was in business from 1845 until 1860 or so. By 1861 Charles Dunkin was calling himself "successor to C. Piquette" and listing the same Jefferson Ave. address. It seems he took over Piquette's business.

 

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/15093068/1861_piquette_successor_is_charles/

 

The nib may well have been made by Dunkin as there's some evidence that Dunkin was Piquette's pen maker.

 

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/15092413/1863_piquette_lincoln_gold_pen/

 

Piquette made gold nibs and ran a re-tipping service ($0.50 for pointed pens, $0.75 for engrossing, i.e. stub or italic, nibs) out of his jewelry store in Detroit.

 

This pen is an oblique nib very similar in design to the 1831 Mordan patent for the first oblique nib. It is well-tipped and in great shape.

 

That's where the certainty ends and the speculation begins.

 

The biggest question is around the Spencerian Pen imprint.

 

 

The Spencerian Steel Pen Co. was founded by NY publisher and bookseller Ivison Phinney in 1858. Their pens were made by Josiah Mason as provided by Perry. I don't see this as a part of that company at all.

 

The fact that it's marked "Spencerian Pen", singular, not "Pens" plural, makes me think this was a marking to indicate that this pen was good for Spencerian writing, rather than any officially marketed pen.

 

The dates for this pen do overlap with Platt Rogers Spencer's efforts to create a business college and the publication of his first books. In other words, this is a very early example of a pen specifically marketed for this newly popular form of writing.

 

I'm wondering if anyone has seen other pens from this same era with "Spencerian Pen" kind of marking, or specifically marketed as for Spencerian writing? I'm also wondering if anyone has seen another gold pen marked specifically for Spencerian writing, of any period?

 

 

Also cross posted on my blog.

[OMASsimo]

Unfortunately, I cannot contribute any new insight but I'm quite fascinated by that pen. Do I see this right that this sickle shaped nib is actually stuck into a holder like standard nibs used to be? Is there any discernible functional reason for the complicated shape of the nib?

[AAAndrew]

It allows you to write at the proper angle for copperplate or Spencerian without an oblique holder or twisting the paper at and extreme angle. It also keeps the two tines evenly on the paper when writing at the angle needed.

[pen2paper]

The Burton collection at Detroit Main Library, & the Historical Society just across the street are great resources.

No time to look today, but in quick query found this. Mr Dunkin? or is Dunks a redd herring? the address is correct 1868 - apparently in varied businesses...

https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A227034

[Bo Bo Olson]

Pen was the name of a nib back then. You bought 1/4 gross (36) boxes of steel/bronze pens. So fountain nib would be the real name of a fountain pen, had it been made much later.

 

There was little if any trademark protection back then and Spenserian was coming in....starting in Ohio and spreading. (Spencer's daughter who was his secretary for years and better than Pop or her two brothers was prevented from publishing her book, because she would ruin the sale of her brother's books, making them poor. Good thing she married well.)

Jump on the fad before it dies.

Looks like a very good nib, worth re-tipping if needed. Oblique holders are available, do check the fit width with someone here who knows.

[AAAndrew]

Pen was the name of a nib back then. You bought 1/4 gross (36) boxes of steel/bronze pens. So fountain nib would be the real name of a fountain pen, had it been made much later.

 

There was little if any trademark protection back then and Spenserian was coming in....starting in Ohio and spreading. (Spencer's daughter who was his secretary for years and better than Pop or her two brothers was prevented from publishing her book, because she would ruin the sale of her brother's books, making them poor. Good thing she married well.)

Jump on the fad before it dies.

Looks like a very good nib, worth re-tipping if needed. Oblique holders are available, do check the fit width with someone here who knows.

 

It's a very nice nib and doesn't need re-tipping at all. It seems that tipping was one of Charles' specialties as he advertised a re-tipping service. If the one I have is any indication, he knew what he was doing.

 

This being an oblique nib, I would use a straight holder. If I put it into an oblique holder it would be so very oblique. I tried a few of my older holders and found that, ironically, my old Palmer Method Rite-hold holders work the best. I'm thinking of making a wooden end to go into the metal sleeve and make a proper holder out of it. Someday.

 

I'm pretty certain that the imprint was only an indication that this pen was good for Spencerian type writing, and not any kind of tie-in to the nascent Spencerian marketing empire.

 

 

The Burton collection at Detroit Main Library, & the Historical Society just across the street are great resources.

No time to look today, but in quick query found this. Mr Dunkin? or is Dunks a redd herring? the address is correct 1868 - apparently in varied businesses...

https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A227034

 

Yeah, 157 Jefferson. A lot of these guys would go from business to business. Usually, though, it was to or from jewelry, pawn shop, fancy goods, stationery. This is the first I've seen one of them go from gold pen making to bed springs. I wonder if it was perhaps a son? Ok. That's it. You've done it now. I have to look it up. I'll be right back....

 

I'm back.

 

It's 1860 and Dunks is definitely a gold pen maker on his own. So, Piquette probably got out in 1859.

 

 

 

It also looks like at some point after 1863 Dunks leaves the Jefferson address. Maybe he rents it out, whatever. I'm not that motivated to try and see who's at the address during that time. Because, Dunks has now moved.

 

 

This continues until 1866 when he moves back to Jefferson. Whether they got the "157" wrong, or he moved to a space just down the street for a year, ... (these are directory listings, it's important to remember that the listing for the 1867 directory was gathered in 1866)

 

 

By 1867 he is back at 157 Jefferson

 

 

And the next year, we see he's expanded his business, not changed it.

 

 

 

Interesting. Because Gaffney does not show up in any business directory listings until that year. He either came from out of town, or he was perhaps an inventor or not a business owner or associated with a business there. I found the patent. It's US83001A. It looks like the patent is in both of their names. It will take more research to find Gaffney and figure out his story.

 

You see how this stuff can just go on, and on, and on? What happened to the Union Spring Bed Company? You could look up Gaffney in the census reacords and see if you can find a prior occupation. You could look for advertisements for the bed company. Etc., etc., etc...

 

If only I could find someone willing to pay my current salary to do this all day. Of course, today, they kind of did. It's veeeery slow around here Thanksgiving week, fortunately.

 

Andrew

[Bo Bo Olson]

Andrew I do similar things for my Western...where was the business, Sanborn maps tells me what height and make of the building and how roofed. Photos can tell me if Italianate or not....or is there was something special in the building. I do know you had to pay for your telephone line from the pole, I don't know if you had to pay for it all the way from the telephone company. ...oh, by the way Hello, is a brand new word....used at first only on a telephone to tell someone you were there. It was a status word....used by owners or workers who often answered one of those infernal apparatuses.

They used Ahoy and other words instead of Hello. ...Got to find a few more Ahoy style words.

Now to go back and remove all Hello's Until the first Telephone she sees, or the strange word Hello is first heard.

Very few women had a job as a telegraph operator....and then she was stuck at whistle stops far from the saloon a man demanded.....more than one also. They were sensual....even in dime novels, in they had no man telling them what to do....and controlling them. Cowboys would ride 70 miles just to look at them.

Male Telephone operators were late for work, rude and gossiped overheard business for a few drinks. That was the very first job of woman's liberation, that paid enough to put a roof over her head and food on her table. She was on time, cheerful and wouldn't be caught dead in a Saloon.

My western mentions a couple of the first telephone operators, one in Leadville and one in Denver 1881/2.

 

The City Directory tells me who was in the building and where they lived. Census of 1880 and before tells me who they were married to, age of children. Old married man, young one....my cardboard characters were once alive when I can.

 

And if I look ten years later in the City Directory I can see if they moved to a better area....or perhaps because of beer breath stayed where they were. Some I make fat or with TB if they suddenly no longer are there a few years down the road. One don't move out of a quickly growing City of great opportunity. Denver was the Lunger Capitol of the US and half the world...TB not only killed but made many poor before killing them.

 

Anything to not write.

[pen2paper]

I believe the GG grandson of Thomas John Gaffney is still in the SE MI area.

Unsure if any earlier family business history remains there, but an earlier TJ Gaffney was much involved w/Port Huron Museum.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~miporthu/Gaffney/Gaffney.htm

[AAAndrew]

I believe the GG grandson of Thomas John Gaffney is still in the SE MI area.

Unsure if any earlier family business history remains there, but an earlier TJ Gaffney was much involved w/Port Huron Museum.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~miporthu/Gaffney/Gaffney.htm

Cool! I was a wolverine for 13 years and still have in-laws there. We used to go to Port Crescent State Park for the beach.

[sidthecat]

That’s a CRAZY nib! It looks like the step just before some bright boy said: “You know, maybe we should make a bend in the holder instead of the nib.”

[AAAndrew]

What’s funny is that this nib and the oblique holder are invented at the same time.

 

See https://thesteelpen.com/2017/10/27/origins-of-the-oblique-pen-and-oblique-holder/ for the story.