What make of pen did J. R. R. Tolkien use?

[sidthecat]

Historical re-enactments of people writing tend to send me into a rage. The pens are wrong, the surfaces are wrong, the writing is usually hideous, and yet, these scenes appear in almost every depiction of scribes, diarists or authors at their work.

Has anyone else thrown an ink pot at this particular devil?

[AAAndrew]

That particular devil has felt many a splash of ink from me.

[Larry Barrieau]

Last summer I wrote to Oxford about the exposition and inquired about the kinds of pens that were displayed. Tolkein, being an artist must have used many kinds of pens. Catherine from Oxford lets us know for sure what one of them was. Osmiroid 65.

 

Here is the correspondence:

 

https://outlook.live.com/mail/inbox/id/AQMkADAwATE0OTIwLTQyNmYtNWEwNC0wMAItMDAKAEYAAAMGJjc%2FgjcHR5%2FnH213bmDXBwDnSEbELuyRTrYc6i%2FIs6dGAAACAQwAAADnSEbELuyRTrYc6i%2FIs6dGAAMK%2F7WrAAAA

Edited November 7, 2019 by Larry Barrieau

[Arkanabar]

I think you're going to have to do a screen grab and host it on imgur for us to read it. I doubt that outlook.live.com is going to let us follow a link into your inbox without your username and password.

[inkstainedruth]

Historical re-enactments of people writing tend to send me into a rage. The pens are wrong, the surfaces are wrong, the writing is usually hideous, and yet, these scenes appear in almost every depiction of scribes, diarists or authors at their work.

Has anyone else thrown an ink pot at this particular devil?

 

Yeah, the thought has cross my mind on more than one occasion. And of course it doesn't help that the gift shops at all the historic sites here in the US have the "pen and ink sets" that have the big poof-y feathers (admittedly I did buy one of those sets, just for a giggle, when I was at the Ft. Necessity battlefield Visitors Center a number of years ago...).

Back years ago, when the Royal Wedding (Charles and Diana) was happening, some famous calligrapher from the UK was on an episode of The Today Show that my mom watched. And the guy was showing how to cut quills -- which INCLUDED cutting off the feathery part except for a small triangular section that was used after the ink was dry to brush off pounce.

OTOH, I did post a couple of years ago in the "Fountain Pens in Movies and TV" thread about how Patrick McGoohan's character John Drake was using what looked like a Parker 51 in a couple of episodes of Secret Agent (the hour-long version of Danger Man for those in the UK).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth