Platignum, Pitman's Shorthand And The 60S

[7is]

I have just stumbled upon a lovely blog. There are some great posts on Pitman's shorthand, Platignum pens and school pens from the 60s. I hope you enjoy reading it as I did.

 

Link: https://shorthandtypist.wordpress.com

Edited May 19, 2018 by 7is

[chunya]

That's an interesting Link and takes you back to a completely different (not necessarily better) World. Back in the early 60s my sister was considered to be not exceptionally bright and put onto a 'commercial course', basically preparing her for office work and being a short-hand typist. She was, and still is, so much brighter than me and I ended up a Uni Lecturer!

[7is]

I admit that I didn't realise that gender inequality was such pronounced in the 60s. Oh, my ignorance! Anywat I love this kind of testimonies. I had to use Hero pens when learning coursive at school in the 80s. Some better off colleagues used Parker Vectors or even Pelikans. I'd love to hear what people used in 40s and 50s too. I admit that my younger sister is brighter than me too!

Edited May 20, 2018 by 7is

[chunya]

I admit that I didn't realise that gender inequality was such pronounced in the 60s. Oh, my ignorance! Anywat I love this kind of testimonies. I had to use Hero pens when learning course at school in the 80s. Some better off colleagues used Parker Vectors or even Pelikans. I'd love to hear what people used in 40s and 50s too. I admit that my younger sister is brighter than me too!

Oh yes, it was certainly pretty bad here in the early 60s, especially (I think as I never experienced Metropolitan life until much later when I was in my teens) if you lived in a very small provincial town. But not only gender, sad to say. In the very same school (Primary/Junior 5 - 11 years) as my sister I was classed as being semi-retarded (not an expression we'd use in a more enlightened world today, and spent what seemed to be years in a Remedial Class where the days were spent copying out and tracing simple words and letters ... this was despite the fact that away from school by the time I was 10 yo I had probably read most of P.G. Wodehouse's works, as well as all of HG Wells, all the English translations of Giovannino Guareschi, and so very much more. Oh yes, Happy Days!

Edited May 20, 2018 by chunya

[PaulS]

sorry I'm a bit late adding to this one, but thought a few comments and one picture might be of some interest.

 

In my picture the first three are Petit pens - the fourth is a Bijou (apparently it means small, elegant and tasteful), and the last is unknown - if there was a barrel imprint it has long since gone - it's noticeably longer than the stud filler Petit, so perhaps a different model. As can be seen from these few pens, the length of the Petit looks to have grown in stature during its lifetime, so maybe this unknown is just a later larger Petit.

For my money examples of the Petit from the 1930s are generally better quality than those 20 - 30 years later, and that's probably also true of most standard size Platignum f.ps., where 14 ct. nibs were not uncommon on some earlier pens. These chrome caps have lasted well, but the gilt of the Bijou cap is now patchy and looks tacky, and I'm never sure that the wash is gold when the nib omits any reference to gilding.

Colours of the earlier Petit pens have more flair, but most importantly the more common steel nibs on '30s pens were mostly smoother by far than the later pinched tip steel nibs - the earlier pens mostly have spoon-tipped nibs and their smoothness puts later pens to shame, and not a speck of iridium in sight:-)

In the absence of any guide to length of pens in the attached link I can say that my smallest Petit is 90 mm capped, and the others are mostly c. 110 mm, also capped …………….. would have thought that even for small hands some of these things are bordering on being uncomfortable to hold for writing.

 

These were budget pens of course, and you only get what you pay for - had the U.K. not gone decimal then the error - that ten shillings and sixpence equates to twelve and a half new pence - wouldn't have happened:-)

 

[peterg]

Were those pens naked? Three quarters of the photo has been censored on the posting!

[PaulS]

Hi Peter - I'm seeing the image here showing all five pens, though it does look as though I forgot to resize from 3072 down to 2000, so perhaps that's the reason you aren't seeing some of the pens - apologies - maybe others were too polite to mention this. Can re-send if you wish.

[peterg]

They are all there now