Seen in Print

[webenda]

Sounds a bit over-the-top dramatic for just getting a pencil sharpened. Too bad there is no picture in the ad for what is being announced.

The A.B.Dick pencil sharpener was shown in other ads.

And BTW, do you remember what we kiddies used in school, besides pencils, before PaperMate invented the ballpoint pen - invented while I was still in grade school?

Chalk, crayons and paint brush. Although the desks in the Long Beach school system had holes for an inkwell, I never saw an inkwell or dip pen until recently.

Cheap dip pen in use (from my collection of pens and pencils.)


Nib holder from a calligraphy set
Goulet Pens No. 6 nib, broad
deAtramentis Indigo Blue ink.
Rhodia No. 12 note pad.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I recall the ink pens with the small tube of ink, got it all over the place.

I was on the patrol squad in elementary school, got to leave class early with my white crossing guard sash and badge, also had a stop flag on a bamboo pole (used that to fend off the neighborhood German Shepherd that tried to hump my leg)....:

And before those pens with the inner tubes? Wayne is showing us. (Maybe, you're too young to have used what I am remembering having used daily in school for special penmanship exercises, being guided by those green placards that were mounted one letter at a time above the chalkboards.)

Yeah, and what is it with Shepherds doing that leg riding? Mental cases.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

...

And BTW, do you remember what we kiddies used in school, besides pencils, before PaperMate invented the ballpoint pen - invented while I was still in grade school?

Chalk, crayons and paint brush. Although the desks in the Long Beach school system had holes for an inkwell, I never saw an inkwell or dip pen until recently.

Cheap dip pen in use (from my collection of pens and pencils.)...
...Nib holder from a calligraphy set
Goulet Pens No. 6 nib, broad
deAtraments Indigo Blue Ink.
....

Yes, yes, that's it, in your hand, provided the part above the tip is made of wood, and the pen has to be dipped into the ink every second or third or fourth or fifth letter for full intensity and clarity. Use of such pens, two centuries before I was a boy, wrote the Declaration of Independence and other such documents, which is why they go in and out, in and out, in intensity of ink on the page. The writer had to go back to the inkwell and reload each time the ink got used up and grew fainter.

[webenda]

Yes, yes, that's it, in your hand, provided the part above the tip is made of wood, and the pen has to be dipped into the ink every second or third or fourth or fifth letter for full intensity and clarity. Use of such pens, two centuries before I was a boy, wrote the Declaration of Independence and other such documents, which is why they go in and out, in and out, in intensity of ink on the page. The writer had to go back to the inkwell and reload each time the ink got used up and grew fainter.

The nib holder is a plastic stick. And yes, it ran dry before I finished "deAtramen (dip) tis."
It has another problem... see "nib" (dip) "broad?" I did not wait long enough for the excess ink to drain back into the bottle when, after dipping, I touched the tip to the side of the ink bottle. The ink flooded the paper, especially on the word, "broad."

If I used a dip pen more frequently I believe I could develop the right rhythm for timing dip-drain-write, dip-drain-write...

[MurphOnMillerAve]

If I recall correctly, back sixty years, make the procedure : dip-tap (on the side of the bottle) - write. The effective rhythm will come to you, yes.

[HONDO74]

How well I remember the days when all the school desk had inkwells. Always had had a mess with those. Also remember having the ink pens with the lever on the side for sucking the ink into the pen. How many had ruined shirts for those leaking in the shirt pocket.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

We very, very rarely ever used ink in school.

[Mitch]

First off, the desks we had in Catholic grade school were made out of maple and what looked like wrought iron. The iron work held them together on the left side, and you slid in from the right.They had the whole for the ink in the right hand corner, book storage underneath, and usually 3 desks were hooked together by maple runners on the floor, except where they needed to finish out a row, there may only be two desks hooked together. Murph would most likely remember.
I think it was Sister Filamena (sic) in the fifth or sixth grade that brought us to the world of the ball point pen. And later in Junior High, I really liked the Scripto, (or was it Schaeffer?) liquid ink pens with the nib. You may remember them. You bought the pen and it came with 5 or 6 ink cartridges in the package, plus you could buy additional refills. You unscrewed the pen, placed the cartridge in, and when you screwed it back together, a hollow point on the back side of the nib punctured the cartridge, and you were off and writing. Loved those pens. Would actually like to have one again.

[Roy]

...later in Junior High, I really liked the Scripto, (or was it Schaeffer?) liquid ink pens with the nib. You may remember them. You bought the pen and it came with 5 or 6 ink cartridges in the package, plus you could buy additional refills. You unscrewed the pen, placed the cartridge in, and when you screwed it back together, a hollow point on the back side of the nib punctured the cartridge, and you were off and writing. Loved those pens. Would actually like to have one again.

I fell in love with those, myself. Some came with opaque bodies, but others were translucent. I liked the blue translucent pens. You could see how much ink you had left.

[Roy]

We very, very rarely ever used ink in school.

Even for papers and reports?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

,,,,
...liquid ink pens with the nib. You may remember them. You bought the pen and it came with 5 or 6 ink cartridges in the package, plus you could buy additional refills. You unscrewed the pen, placed the cartridge in, and when you screwed it back together, a hollow point on the back side of the nib punctured the cartridge, and you were off and writing. Loved those pens. Would actually like to have one again.

Google Esterbrook pens , and you will find a source for such pens, Mitch.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

First off, the desks we had in Catholic grade school were made out of maple and what looked like wrought iron. The iron work held them together on the left side, and you slid in from the right.They had the whole for the ink in the right hand corner, book storage underneath, and usually 3 desks were hooked together by maple runners on the floor, except where they needed to finish out a row, there may only be two desks hooked together. Murph would most likely remember....

Amazing how detailed a memory you have of those desks, even to the degree of knowing the kind of wood used. You must have been one very observant fellow as a boy. I never gave any thought to the type of wood utilized, and everything else was exactly as you described. I always wondered, even as a boy, why they were affixed to runners like that; perhaps, it was because teachers hadn't thought of arranging desks into small groups as is done, at times, nowadays, and they could keep everything neat and controlled.

[Roy]

,,,,
...liquid ink pens with the nib. You may remember them. You bought the pen and it came with 5 or 6 ink cartridges in the package, plus you could buy additional refills. You unscrewed the pen, placed the cartridge in, and when you screwed it back together, a hollow point on the back side of the nib punctured the cartridge, and you were off and writing. Loved those pens. Would actually like to have one again.

Google Esterbrook pens , and you will find a source for such pens, Mitch.

I think the pens I was thinking of were Sheaffer fountain-type student pens:

[HONDO74]

First off, the desks we had in Catholic grade school were made out of maple and what looked like wrought iron. The iron work held them together on the left side, and you slid in from the right.They had the whole for the ink in the right hand corner, book storage underneath, and usually 3 desks were hooked together by maple runners on the floor, except where they needed to finish out a row, there may only be two desks hooked together.

I have a couple of those desk in my basement. Mine are not only maple, they are whats called birds eye maple. I thought they were unique so I bought them as a collectable.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Now that I think of those desks further, some of them had tops that flipped up, except for the top forward edge which held a pencil/pen trough and the hole for the ink bottle. Some had fixed-tops , so you slid the books into the desks via an opening that was permanently wide open at the front.