Show Us Your Letter Openers

[Anne-Sophie]

On 11/22/2022 at 1:22 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

Well this was the first post that came up .... as old as it is.

Today I picked up a celluloid fake tortoise letter opener, so gathered all of mine up.

The first pen paraphernalia, I had was the brown wood and brass pen holder, with letter opener...so I never had the need to chase them.

The birtch handled one next to the wooden pen box is from 2021. The Celluloid one could be from the 1880's to 1930's. In the 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog there is celluloid faux tortoise hat pens and such.

 

 

Petschaft in German, wax stamps perhaps in English. Of the four only one is not been used....and I will get around to it....after all the shop is some two miles away. Oddly until I started counting, I thought I had more.

The peuter one on the far left was bought today with the celluloid letter opener in a left over lot. It is Jugenstile/Art Nouveau. I can get new bottoms of the stamps; so I can put my name on it....or more than likely just the one that was never engraved.

The darker one matches a inkwell set, with letter holder and roller. The lighter one in both opener and stamp....is nice and close but not a quite match for it's ink well set, with roller.

 

The pen cup in the back is Meissen, was originally a 1743-1775 mustard cup, but is missing the cap, so is now a pen cup. The cup and saucer is 'one piece'. We were after an dainty @ 1990-1900 inkwell, the cup is a bonus.

 

Sometimes stuff is bought because it is pretty. In I doubt if I'll ever use anything in this box. The wax stamp also has the original owner's initials.

 

Is the letter opener in that box regular size? It looks like it is only the inkwell that is small or am I mistaken?

 

And is everything in that box silver? It sure is pretty.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Yes, Anne-Sophie, all silver. I just can not read from where, when or how much silver. Only two silver marks not the English 4, and it is not the German half moon.

Right now it's over my fancy watch box**. The box is just big enough that it don't have a real good display play place. When you don't have kids you can have all sorts of fancy stuff.

The letter opener is 'normal' size.
 

In spite of throwing away 1/3 my books of my library, space is lacking.

It is pure look good, in I will never use it.

 

** Half the watches are battery

* and half are mechanical, so the mechanical have to be worn, so the watch is held in may positions.

 

*More to my surprise half were quartz in I had chased only mechanical watches. Two quartz were given for surviving 10 and 15 years at Ikea.

 

One watch replaced a very nice Russian 17 stone watch bought in St. Petersberg just after it was no longer Leningrad. I found out the hard way, taking a watch into the shower means you can not swim on the surface of water with. Swam with it once, in the Gulf of Mexco in Mexico, then looked at the suddenly rusted watch, some 20 minutes later to see if it was time to get out of the sun.....

It was the only watch I had with me.

So was replaced with a relatively cheap diving watch. I don't expect to wear that watch again, but it is the type you have to give away.....and I don't know any one that drunk.

Works fine enough. Sometimes a no name even if it works is more than worthless. But the main thing was I did scuba dive with it. And it worked then and later just fine.

I only went diving with it once. No name, not worth throwing away. Not that I ever expect to scuba dive again.

Both sets thinned, a watch in a gold case in poor mechanical watches are not worth cleaning and quartz not worth looking for a new work when one has more than enough watches. 

[Anne-Sophie]

 

Wow! You collect watches too!

 

So beer steins, fountain pens, inkwells, watches and Mrs Olson favorite painter, I also think she collects porcelain.      

[Misfit]

I have another one. It stays in my bedroom. I got it at my university’s bookstore. I happened to see one exactly like it on eBay, when I was looking for a cool vintage letter opener, and found the Texaco one. I remember thinking it looked like silverware. 
 

[Bo Bo Olson]

 

With no kids...one has collections.

 

 

[tommym]

Wow, this thread was started back in 2013!

I just found this one buried in the back of a desk drawer. It probably hasn't seen the light of day since the 1970s. The markings on the back indicate it's a Coco Joe's product, design No. 106, made in Hawaii. Based on an internet search, this volcanic lava product line was made up of ground-up lava with a polyester resin added to the mix. The pen is a Lamy Safari.

Tommy

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Defiantly solid and unusual. A usable tourist buy; to remind you of Hawaii every time you use it.

 

 

[txomsy]

That one looks gorgeous!

[inkstainedruth]

Somehow missed this thread before now.  

I started out with a cheapie plastic one I think I got at Staples, but which went dull really quickly.  Then a number of years ago (back before I really started paying attention to estate sale listings and what was being offered, I hit 5 sales the same Saturday (the final one was the one where I found the Parker 41 in the bottom of a shoebox full of mostly ballpoints).  At one of the earlier ones, I found a letter opener with the Goodyear logo on the handle, for I think a buck or two.  Not sure where it's ended up (for a long time it lived in the basket where I keep bills to be paid and such).  

Sorry, no pix, since the "Goodyear" one seems to have gone walkabout, and I think I tossed the junker one. Wasn't particularly interested in the logo, but it sure has stayed sharper a lot longer than the junker from Staples did -- and nothing will dull a blade faster than using it on paper (ditto for scissors: I got into a heap of trouble when I was a kid using the pair of scissors that my mom kept for cutting her hair by using it on paper...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth