Featured S. Mordan & Co Sterling Silver Pen-Holder.

No, the pen-point itself is not silver. It's just ordinary stamped steel.

 

British. 1850s,if I remember correctly.

 

I cant believe I remembered !http://www.silvercollection.it/ENGLASAMPSONMORDAN.html

 

Johnnycb09, I am very impressed.

When you say you can't believe that you remembered, did you (almost?) get goosebumps when you realized you did remember?

 

Sampson Mordan was the inventor of the propelling pencil. He was also a silversmith. S. Mordan & Co. silver pens and pencils are worth quite a lot. So I'm always on the lookout for them

 

Beautiful -- you always post such interesting items!

 

Thanks Figtree. It is a rather interesting pen. Trying to figure out how to write with it using modern ink and paper...

 

Do you maybe just dip it in ink, like a quill, and then write?

 

Yes ! LOL ! I swear,its like once I hit 50 my synapses don't fire as frequently !

 

Uh...yeah. I was referring more to the issues of bleeding and feathering.

 

OOOH, sorry!
Since a lot of these subjects are new to me, I often feel foolish after offering what seems, to me, to be a smart observation...

 

The fact is that paper back in the 18th and 19th centuries were much denser and thicker than what we have today. The cheap crap we use today runs into a lot of issues when using antique writing equipment because the two just aren't wholly compatible.

The thinner paper means that feathering (ink splaying out all over the place) and bleeding (ink seeping right through the page) are BIG issues. With fountain pens it isn't so bad, but with dip pens, it can be a bloody nightmare.

 

Hi,
Tell me all about it. We used dip pens in 2-4th grade. They were so 'scratchy" on the cheap Big Red Indian tablets we used to use.
greg

 

Really interesting to know. Thank you!

 

Dip pens like these don't have a feed, like a modern fountain pen does (which regulates inkflow), so as a result, they can write extremely 'wet'. This is why blotting paper and rocker-blotters and pounce-pots were so important back in the old days - it took ages for ink to dry - and while it dried it could feather and smear. So to present a clean, legible document, you always kept a rocker-blotter with paper nearby.

I still do.