Restorer's Art

Category: Reading

  • Waterman’s “Ideal” Fountain Pen Ephemera

    Ephemera—the various pieces of paper that are a part of everyday life—are, by definition, disposable. In many cases (thinking of my shopping lists), that is no great loss. However, there are times when it would be more than just idle curiosity to see what is on those old papers.

    Being the sharing types, when we recently came across a pristine Canadian-production Waterman’s “Ideal” fountain pen in the wild, we were thrilled to find the original paper documentation included with it in it’s box. This pen is typical of many sold in the early part of the 20th century, and such ephemera gives us insight into that world. We get glimpses of such things as: prices, repair practices, intended uses, materials, available ink colours, advertising practices, factory locations, and more. (Interestingly, even one hundred years ago, on page two, pen repair technicians were reminding their customers not to ship pens with ink in them!) While similar ephemera are documented elsewhere, it is also of interest to note the differences between documentation produced by different branches of the same company.

    Along with the pen was originally included a four-page pamphlet which lists filling instructions, contemporary repair charges, “Directions and Suggestions for the Use of Waterman’s Pencil” (including a cutaway diagram and reload instructions), and an ink advertisement page (gallon jug of ink, anyone?) This pamphlet is printed in black ink on both sides of a sheet of 22.9 mm x 28.6 mm light newsprint paper, folded once. The printing job is not great, with patchiness to some areas that has nothing to do with age. As well, the clarity of some of the illustrations is not great: the darkness on page three (the pencils) is the actual printing, and not our scanner.

    Additionally, there is a small, full-colour, advertisement for ink, fitted to match the bottom of the box. This is 2.5 mm x 14.6 mm, and is printed in four colours on one side of a higher-quality, sized white paper. The paper weight seems to be around 20 lbs., about the same as our modern office paper.

    Below are facsimiles of all of these, suitable for printing in the original sizes, or for viewing online. We decided on adding subtle watermarking to each page to discourage any unsavoury types from trying to pass off reproductions as originals (sadly, it does happen.)

    Waterman Pen Ephemera, page one

    Waterman Pen Ephemera, page two

    Waterman Pen Ephemera, page three

    Waterman Pen Ephemera, page four

    Waterman Pen Ephemera, Ink Insert

  • The Great Inkwell Experiment Part Five—Third-Week Results

    Inkwell Experiment Results Graph-Week Three

      1. glass well with a simple gravity-closing hinged lid;
      2. glass well with a silver snap-close hinged lid;
      3. metal well with glass insert and a hinged outer cover (thus with space between the insert and the cover);
      4. wooden well with glass insert and an unhinged cloth-lined wooden lid;
      5. glass writing-box bottle, with threaded brass lid;
      6. pottery ink bottle, with a new, replacement, cork;
      7. (control) plastic graduated cylinder, open;
      8. (control) modern glass ink bottle with plastic lid and synthetic lid liner (J. Herbin).

    Week three results are in! And it seems that I’m finally getting the hang of Excel (or, more specifically, how to make readable charts using Excel.) Full data to date can be seen here.

    As expected, the brass inkwell went dry last Saturday. Interestingly, even the modern, very effective, ink bottle is exhibiting some loss over time.

    And it seems that the time-honoured solutions of using natural products such as cork (the stopper for F) and wood (the case for D) are very effective. It reminds me of the Japanese chests, made of paulonia wood (the same wood as many traditionally-made Japanese kitchen knives). One significant characteristic of paulonia is that it absorbs huge amounts of water, very quickly. The reports are that, when caught in a flood, the drawers of these chests swell shut almost instantly, perfectly preserving the clothing inside them. It made me wonder if the wood of inkwell D is simply swelling shut enough to limit air exchange, and thus evaporation.

    In any case, one more week to go, and then on to conclusions and full data. Tune in next Friday…

  • The Great Inkwell Experiment Part Four—Second-Week Results

    Inkwell Experiment Results Graph-Week Two

      1. glass well with a simple gravity-closing hinged lid;
      2. glass well with a silver snap-close hinged lid;
      3. metal well with glass insert and a hinged outer cover (thus with space between the insert and the cover);
      4. wooden well with glass insert and an unhinged cloth-lined wooden lid;
      5. glass writing-box bottle, with threaded brass lid;
      6. pottery ink bottle, with a new, replacement, cork;
      7. (control) plastic graduated cylinder, open;
      8. (control) modern glass ink bottle with plastic lid and synthetic lid liner (J. Herbin).

    In week two of our experiment the trends continue pretty much as expected. The good are very good, there are a few in the middle of the pack, and the bad are very ugly. And dry.

    It is pretty obvious that C is a complete failure, without some kind of retrofitted seal. Likely it will be completely empty by day fifteen. We have several similar types of inkwell in stock, and we may set up a repeat experiment among similar types, just to see what kind of variables different designs introduce. We are intrigued as to the possible reasons for a covered inkwell to out-under-perform an open cylinder!

    All this being said, we can certainly make lemonade of the lemon-ish inkwells in this experiment. We are already thinking about ways of making tasteful cork stoppers for old inkwells…

    In the mean time, we will continue through the four week period of the experiment, even though the trends are pretty obvious. We shall post the next update in about a week’s time.