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I am doing a research project on Edwardian fountain pens and wondered if anyone knows of any models that were around then (1901-1910) and any pictures of them. I know Parker, Mabie Todd, and Waterman's pens were around then but I'm struggling to find specific pictures. Thanks, Zoe

As far as I can tell, the British patents are not as accessible as the US patents. I may be missing some great resource, and if so, please tell me. Otherwise, I've gathered the following resources from Google Books. I am focusing on British patents to about 1860, but have gathered resources for up to 1850, then 1852 - 1869 and 1881. Unfortunately, these indices get you the patent number, date and patentee, but no real details around the patent. If anyone knows of a way, short of visiting the British national archives in person, to get the details, or even a good summary of these patents, please let me know. So, for patents up to Oct1852 start with these two indices of titles. "Pens" are under "Stationery" so they're in volume two. I'm going to list the patents I've found from this volume related to pens (I'm focused on metallic pens, but I've included others that may be of interest on FPN). Titles of Patents of Invention, Chronologically Arranged: From March 2, 1617 (14 James I.) to October 1, 1852 (16 Victoriae) Vol 1 up to 5th june 1823 Titles of Patents of Invention: Chronologically Arranged from March 2, 1617 (14 James I.) to October 1, 1852 (16 Victoriæ), Part 2, Issues 4801-14359 For those patents for 1852 on, they were published in yearly pamplets. The patent numbers changed to be the year+number. Google books has some of the indices for these years after Oct. 1852. Here are some of the resources on a year-by-year basis. Look in the front to find on what page the pens, pencils etc.. category is found. There are some gaps in the years. I have not found the subject matter indices for 1862, 1865, 1870-1880 yet. They may be out there, if so, let me know. Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1852 https://books.google.com/books?id=OA1HAQAAMAAJ Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1853 https://books.google.com/books?id=n_bHSOv4E0MC Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1854 https://books.google.com/books?id=kQX501VYA2AC Subject-Matter Index Of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted For the Year 1855 https://books.google.com/books?id=cq05AQAAMAAJ Subject-Matter Index Of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted For the Year 1856 https://books.google.com/books?id=c605AQAAMAAJ Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1857 https://books.google.com/books?id=8n1w3mAER1IC Subject-Matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted, for the Year 1858 https://books.google.com/books?id=7K05AQAAMAAJ Subject-Matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1859 https://books.google.com/books?id=Ca45AQAAMAAJ Subject-Matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted for the Year 1860 https://books.google.com/books?id=ia45AQAAMAAJ Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1861 https://books.google.com/books?id=156Fj-WntwcC Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1863 https://books.google.com/books?id=Tf8VGpFN-4MC Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1864 https://books.google.com/books?id=PsfuvWKnbuQC Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1866 https://books.google.com/books?id=0uomv_waIGsC Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1867 https://books.google.com/books?id=IvPMOMGbLt8C Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1868 https://books.google.com/books?id=_ltMtuunDScC Subject-matter index of patents applied for and patents granted 1869 https://books.google.com/books?id=M9bJzZjzuc4C Subject-matter Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted 1881 https://books.google.com/books?id=56NkqczPHOUC I'm cross posting this list, and will keep it updated, out on my steel pen blog. https://thesteelpen.com/

Around 1980, I worked for a pen manufacturer, as designer and ingeneer, in Germany. During this time I got a good insight into the function of fountain pens and other pens and their manufacture. Thirty odd years later, fountain pens still fascinate me. I started a web site titled Fountain Pen Magic. You can / will find there all sorts of interesting things relating to technology, function and manufacture, as much as I can remember. The link to my site is https://fountainpend....wordpress.com/ I am happy to discuss any question you may have on those topics. Amadeus W. Penmacher Ingeneer PS: In case you wonder about my spelling of ingeneer… https://ingenioust.w...ling-etymology/

I have been helping HBO's news program LAST WEEK TONIGHT research a matter relevant to my profession and to our shared interest: namely, misrepresentations made by legislators in numerous US states, in order to require cursive. That I dislike so much about cursive-as-we-know-it is not the point of the program — the point is that the cursive boosters are systematically misrepresenting research documentation in order to make the documentation support cursive. This has been going on for a couple of years now, as you may know, in a number of state legislatures and school boards where various organizations and lobbies are "working with" state legislatures to have those legislators present — under oath — misstatements on handwriting as fact because such misstatements are necessary in order to promote cursive. The legislators, in bills they introduce & in hearings/testimony on those bills, misquote research they cite — and make other documentable misrepresentations — which the salesmen for certain textbook companies, as well as pressure-groups such as "Campaign for Cursive" (yes, an actual group!) are presenting to the legislators as fact. In some cases, it gets worse, and the legislators involved have not been "fed" anything by lobbyists, but have outright and unashamedly been making up THEIR OWN facts.) This is why the LAST WEEK TONIGHT researcher, Liz Day, phoned me yesterday for help (she'd been reading things I post as blog-comments on the Net, as well as news-pieces citing me, and had also seen state-legislature footage that showed people who were under oath, stating "facts" that were easily documented as being misrepresentations of the stuff that these people claimed to be quoting or citing), so I have spent today and tonight getting together all the documentation to send to her. So I MAY get on TV ... Or at least, my information will, and I will apparently be credited in some way. The episode airs on Saturday, November 2, 11:00 PM Eastern time.

WOW! A handwriting-related message by me got "favorited" BY THE NEWS-MEDIUM that I was countering therewith! See below ... (The news-medium is an education-news service which had been promoting, as fact, a PBS news-segment that misrepresented research on handwriting to make it appear to support cursive.) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: NewsHourAmGrad (via Twitter) <notify@twitter.com> Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Subject: NewsHourAmGrad (@NewsHourAmGrad) favorited one of your Tweets! To: Kate Gladstone <handwritingrepair@gmail.com> Kate Gladstone, Your Tweet got favorited! Kate Gladstone @KateGladstone @NewsHourAmGrad Research shows that #cursive does NOT #help #reading, #language, or #spelling. See "Does (cont) tl.gd/n_1s1lkq1 12:51 AM - 07 May 14 Favorited by NewsHourAmGrad @NewsHourAmGrad @NewsHourAmGrad reports with in-depth coverage on the latest in education news. Ideas? Contact ejones AT newshour DOT org

Dear friends it’s my pleasure announce you the out printing of my book, The Secrets of writing instruments - History, design, materials, production. A depth research on the topic of writing instruments, with a new and dynamic ways of reading with historical curiosities, information on the materials and methods of production, research supported with the laboratory analysis whose the methodology it’s explain to appendix . you can find it online and in the bookshop. http://bupress.unibz.it/it/i-segreti-degli-strumenti-di-scrittura.html faithfully A. Titone http://bupress.unibz.it/media/catalog/product/cache/2/small_image/290x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/i/m/image_101.jpg

New research uses (changes in) handwriting to detect Parkinson's diseases. Not specific to the use of fountain pens, perhaps an interesting read nonetheless: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130909105033.htm One of the variables measured is pressure exerted on the writing surface. I think fountain pen users apply less pressure and I wonder if that might affect the results?