Fountain Pens In Movies And Tv

[taimdala]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:17 PM, alexwi said:

From The Men Who Built America. Rockefeller signing a check with what seems to be an extreeeeemely early Parker IM:

 

I imagine that someone in the production team's old enough to know that people didn't use Pilot G2's back then, but what irks me, especially from a show into which a lot of research must've gone, is that all it takes to avoid a stupid mistake like this one is to spend 10 minutes on google.

 

Alex

 

I'm with you, Alex.

Also, is it *just* me or does the handwriting look anachronistic to you? I confess I haven't seen this movie and there isn't enough detail in the  man's clothing to pin the decade (though I suspect it's 1890s - 19teens, going by the wing tip collar), but the handwriting looks contemporary to our time, not the turn of the 20th century. If you could write and you were in a position to be an industrialist, you were most likely well educated. THAT would suggest you were better schooled in penmanship.

Heck, people were still schooled in Palmer Penmanship as late as the 70s (like myself) and would have better handwriting.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on the movie, the director, and the actor ... but if I were in that actor's shoes, I would definitely have looked up handwriting styles of the period and practiced writing in the proper style in my trailer between shooting scenes. Exemplars of such handwriting is only a google search away.

(And possibly hunted down a collar stud, too. I don't think he's wearing one at the rear collar--it looks bare of stud in the picture.)
 

 

 

[taimdala]

9 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

There is an old TV show (1954-1956) which you can find on YouTube, starring Boris Karloff as Colonel March of Scotland Yard. The intro features him sitting down to a desk, opening a large-format bound volume, and starting to write in it with a fountain pen. 

 

What struck me about it was not the pen so much (which I couldn't identify) but the way he writes with it, i.e. in textbook fashion. He holds the pen at a rather shallow angle, and when he is writing he moves his whole arm. It's quite strikingly unlike the way a person would write with a ballpoint. It really should be included in an instructional video, "How to Write with a Fountain Pen." 

 

 

He moved his whole arm? Wow! That suggests a few things--like perhaps he studied/practiced Spencerian script, maybe? You have to move your whole arm doing that style, and sometimes the paper, too.

[ParramattaPaul]

2 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

This is a British production made in London, so I'm a bit surprised they didn't use a pen of English manufacture.

From what I've read recently, the Parker 51 was made in the UK as well as the US, Canada, and even -- at one time -- Argentina.

[taimdala]

Has anyone mentioned the fountain pen in Elementary, S01, Ep 11 "Dirty Laundry"?

In case no one has yet, here are a few pictures, taken from screen caps.

 

(The file names for the pictures are the time stamps on the DVD. And ... they're not showing up. Okay, in order top to bottom: 02:26, 02:28, 36:43, 38:31, 40:01)

 

The first two pictures are of the pen at the crime scene, in an evidence bag (0226.png, 0228.jpg). The third is a an evidence photo (3643.jpg).  The third photo has the pen posted--why? I don't know! 0226.png clearly shows the pen had been found in three parts: section, barrel, and cap. 

The fourth photo shows the pen breaking when used as a weapon (3831.jpg). It snapped at point where the section screwed into the barrel. The fifth photo shows the UV ink handprint of the victim (4001.jpg), a latent print left after the pen broke in her hand and coated her palm.

Now, aside from being bothered by the fact that they *broke* a fountain pen, I'm rather annoyed that they didn't bother to do it *right*.

The first two pictures clearly show that the section's threads and the barrel collar they screw into are both METAL. The material and the fact it would make this a double-walled metal tube whose two nesting halves are screwed together, which would in turn reinforce each other against breaking as shown in the photos. How did the section unscrew itself from the barrel? The first two photos show the open end of the barrel free of the section's threaded collar. The third photo shows the section with the collar still attached. Clearly someone in the props department unscrewed the two from each other for the show, but really, if I had to bet which would break under the circumstances-- two pieces of metal screwed together and a mere hollow plastic tube--the smart money would be on the tube.

Also, as the barrel would have been the part that got broken, it would have broken (possibly even neatly sheared as if cut by a band saw) behind the metal threads collar in the barrel. Given that the stabbing motion was a two-vectored application of force (forward AND down), the breakage might very well have been uneven, a curved break, like a hood over the nib of a Parker 51 describes a curve, instead of the straight shear as shown in photos one, two, and three.

 

Again, I think it was sloppy of the props deparment to have broken the pen this way.

The fourth and the fifth photo also shows the props department screwed up in another way: The pen broke in the victim's right hand but the hand print is from a *left* hand. How did the ink get on the victim's other hand, and in such a smooth/complete application, too? Even if you allow for feathering and liquid spread across a woven cloth surface, the hand print is too complete for ink that was supposed to have suffused (by capillary action) a clenched fist from the outside edge inward. I've played with paints as a child and have observed how paint spreads (or doesn't) when "inking" up and making prints for some project or another. The victim's fingers, at least, would have been unevenly inked and the fingers would not be so fully printed as a result. 

But really, all I really am interested is what fountain pen did they kill for this episode? JinHao? Bulow? Some other brand? It's been nearly ten years (episode aired ion 03 Jan 2013) and I still haven't managed to identify it.  😕

 

Edited to add: Oh and another thing: for all that ink to get all over the victim's hand like that, the pen would have to be eyedroppered. Given the metal collar/threads, you wouldn't be able to eyedropper this pen, right?

Next: if the pen *had* been eyedroppered, that ink would have gotten splashed over the murderer's shirt ... but it wasn't. (Maybe I stopped two screen caps too soon...)

(I know, I know. It's just a show and I really should relax ... but really, these details, once seen, cannot be unseen.)

How did Sherlock put it in this episode? “The only promise a puzzle makes is an answer. Liking the answer doesn’t factor in.”

[agaric]

 

😂 best quote in the show (Succession)

[inkstainedruth]

3 hours ago, agaric said:

 

😂 best quote in the show (Succession)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Checklist]

4 hours ago, agaric said:

 

😂 best quote in the show (Succession)

 

I really need to find a situation to use this quote in...

[Marcwithac]

Earlier this evening, while watching episode 3 of season 2 of the Masterpiece series "All Creatures Great and Small", my 9-year-old eagle-eyed son pointed to what appeared to be an advertisement for fountain pens.  Upon closer inspection, with the benefit of the pause button on my remote, I could see that the advertising sign in question was actually for Stephens' Ink and reads: "Stephens' Ink for ALL Fountain Pens".  The show is about a young Scottish veterinarian, James Herriot, who is working in a small Yorkshire village for a more seasoned veterinarian, Siegfried Farnon, in the late 1930s.  The Stephens' Ink sign is mounted on the wall of a building just opposite the entrance to Mr. Farnon's offices.

[Monophoto]

8 hours ago, Marcwithac said:

Earlier this evening, while watching episode 3 of season 2 of the Masterpiece series "All Creatures Great and Small", my 9-year-old eagle-eyed son pointed to what appeared to be an advertisement for fountain pens.  Upon closer inspection, with the benefit of the pause button on my remote, I could see that the advertising sign in question was actually for Stephens' Ink and reads: "Stephens' Ink for ALL Fountain Pens".  The show is about a young Scottish veterinarian, James Herriot, who is working in a small Yorkshire village for a more seasoned veterinarian, Siegfried Farnon, in the late 1930s.  The Stephens' Ink sign is mounted on the wall of a building just opposite the entrance to Mr. Farnon's offices.

And one of those Stephen's Ink signs showed up on Antiques Roadshow a couple of weeks ago.

[AAAndrew]

Stephen's ink is one of the early brands of commercially-made ink and dates back to the early 1830s. 

 

 

[alexwi]

On 1/13/2022 at 1:05 PM, taimdala said:

 

I'm with you, Alex.

Also, is it *just* me or does the handwriting look anachronistic to you? I confess I haven't seen this movie and there isn't enough detail in the  man's clothing to pin the decade (though I suspect it's 1890s - 19teens, going by the wing tip collar), but the handwriting looks contemporary to our time, not the turn of the 20th century. If you could write and you were in a position to be an industrialist, you were most likely well educated. THAT would suggest you were better schooled in penmanship.

Heck, people were still schooled in Palmer Penmanship as late as the 70s (like myself) and would have better handwriting.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on the movie, the director, and the actor ... but if I were in that actor's shoes, I would definitely have looked up handwriting styles of the period and practiced writing in the proper style in my trailer between shooting scenes. Exemplars of such handwriting is only a google search away.

(And possibly hunted down a collar stud, too. I don't think he's wearing one at the rear collar--it looks bare of stud in the picture.)
 

 

 

Hi,

 

I didn't notice the handwriting until you pointed it out.

 

It's late 1800s. Probably 1880 or 1890.

 

Of all the mistakes in this take, the handwriting's the only one that can be blamed on the actor. The pen selection and the outfit are the responsibility of the props and costume people. If the actor was willing to write the check, it was up to him to research how that was done back then. Not to mention that he would've possibly realized that they handed him a modern pen.

 

Oh well... I kinda feel like inking my Parker IM now. 🙂

 

Alex

[taimdala]

12 hours ago, alexwi said:

Hi,

 

I didn't notice the handwriting until you pointed it out.

 

It's late 1800s. Probably 1880 or 1890.

 

Of all the mistakes in this take, the handwriting's the only one that can be blamed on the actor. The pen selection and the outfit are the responsibility of the props and costume people. If the actor was willing to write the check, it was up to him to research how that was done back then. Not to mention that he would've possibly realized that they handed him a modern pen.

 

Oh well... I kinda feel like inking my Parker IM now. 🙂

 

Alex

 

I realize that actors just don't have much of a say (if any) in how they're dressed and what props they're given to work with. Had I been an actor, I would have said plenty ... and it's probably a good thing I'm not an actor! I probably would have been kicked off the set before the day was out. LOL!

 

Still, it's a pity about the anachronisms in films, especially ones that would only take a moment's thought and a few seconds to fix.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

On 1/13/2022 at 1:09 PM, taimdala said:

 

 

He moved his whole arm? Wow! That suggests a few things--like perhaps he studied/practiced Spencerian script, maybe? You have to move your whole arm doing that style, and sometimes the paper, too.

 

Boris Karloff was born in 1887, and attended schools in England until 1909. So he would have been well schooled in using first dip pens and then fountain pens. All of his homework and college papers would have been hand written. So by 1954-55, when the Colonel March series aired he just wrote his usual way. Fountain pens were still very widely used in the middle '50s.

[BorisoftheStars]

Do animated pens count as well?

[twitch2021]

Just wanted to chime in in case it’s not been mentioned here but with the help of some folks on r/fountainpens I discovered that in the season 10 Christmas Special of Murdoch Mysteries, the loveable character George becomes enamoured with his new “Regis Skyline #7” fountain pen; “the finest ink pen in Europe”. Unfortunately, it appears that it’s not actually a thing haha.

[Noihvo]

[inkstainedruth]

Which episode # is that?  I've only seen the first two.  And only because a friend of ours gets a bunch of the streaming services (sadly, she does NOT get BritBox...).

Because the next time we go over there to hang out, I want to be watching for it.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Noihvo]

On 4/20/2022 at 9:19 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Which episode # is that?  I've only seen the first two.  And only because a friend of ours gets a bunch of the streaming services (sadly, she does NOT get BritBox...).

Because the next time we go over there to hang out, I want to be watching for it.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

It was episode four, obvious and right in your face for pen nutters such as us.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks!  I think we're supposed to be going over there tomorrow afternoon, so I'll see if she's gotten access to the next couple of episodes yet.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

Now seen that episode.  And yup, looked like a Safari to me too.  Also looked like it had a black clip (I've been watching a few listings on eBay for that color combo but haven't made up my mind about how much I want one).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth