In the pre-steel-pen era there were many attempts made to supersede quills. In “Peveril of the Peak,” Mistress Chiffinch speaks of her diamond pen. There was a pen the nibs of which were of ruby, set in gold, made by Doughty. Dr. Wollaston made gold pens tipped with, rhodium.
During the time the early makers of steel pens were perfecting the article, several experimenters were offering to the public writing instruments made from various materials. Bramah patented ”quill nibs,” made by splitting quills and cutting the semi-cylinders into sections, which were shaped into pens, and adapted to be placed in a holder. Hawkins and Mordan, in 1823, made use of horn and tortoise- shell, which was cut into “nibs,” softened in water, and small pieces of ruby and other precious stones were then embedded in by pressure. In this way they insured durability and great elasticity. In order to give stability to the nib thin pieces of gold or other metal were affixed to the tortoise-shell.
Looking back at the early operations of the trade, and considering that steel pens were made by hand at the beginning of the present century, we can scarcely understand why the idea of cheapening the production by the application of labor-saving contrivances did not occur to those inventive geniuses, the proprietors of Soho. Boulton had expended some time in perfecting the manufacture of steel buttons. That local Admirable Crichton, Humphrey Jefferies, does not appear to have ever directed his attention to the manufacture of this article, which has now become a prime necessity of civilization. Yet we hear of his success in the improvement of buttons, and button-makers must have used the screw press and tools for cutting out the blank and shaping it into form; and the process of slitting had been anticipated, for printers had a brass rule-cutting machine in use, the cutters of which bore a strong resemblance to those now used for slitting steel pens. Like most of the pioneers in the path of invention, the majority of the early makers of pens were men whose business pursuits gave them no special facilities for entering upon the manufacture of steel pens. The progress of the trade from 1829 (with the exception of the period when Perry and Gillott first commenced advertising) had been gradual, but satisfactory. In one of Gillott's early advertisements, he stated that he made 490,361 gross in 1842, and 730,031 in 1843. This was an advance by leaps and bounds which has not since been maintained. Although Mason commenced making pens for Perry in the year 1828, yet it was not till 1861 that his name became known in England as a steel-pen maker. Many merchants in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, who purchased steel rings from him, had no idea that he was a maker of pens; yet on the Continent of Europe pens bearing his name were eagerly sought after. Subsequent to 1861 he was associated with Perry, until, in 1876, the trade-marks, patents, etc., were purchased by a limited liability company, who now, under the name of “Perry & Co.,” have become the largest manufacturers of pens in the world.
At the present time (1889) there are thirteen firms engaged in the trade in Birmingham, and they make up about twenty-four tons of steel per week into pens and penholder tips. Making due allowance for the material used in the latter article, this consumption would probably represent a weekly average production of 200,000 grosses of pens. The Birmingham penmakers employ about 3,500 women and girls, and 650 men and boys; and besides these the number of women and girls working at making paper boxes, in which the pens are packed, would probably exceed 300. In addition to this there are several mills where steel is rolled for those firms who have not sufficient power on their own premises, but there is a difficulty in stating the number of hands employed. The wages of the females range from four shillings to fifteen shillings; those of the boys from five shillings to ten shillings. The unskilled workmen earn from twelve shillings to twenty-four shillings; and skilled men, or toolmakers, command wages varying from twenty-five shillings to three pounds. Most of the females work upon the piece-work system, but the men are paid weekly wages.
In 1835, upon the authority of a writer in the Mechanics' Magazine, two tons two hundred weight of steel were used weekly in the manufacture of pens. Mr. Sam: Timmins made an approximate estimate that six and a half tons of steel were used per week for steel pens in 1849, and again, in 1886, he gives the amount of steel as having increased to ten tons. It is at all times difficult to form an accurate estimate of the quantity of material used, but we believe we are within the mark in putting down the present consumption of steel at twenty-two tons weekly. From this it would appear that the trade has doubled its production during the last twenty years. Besides these Birmingham houses there are some four or five manufactories on the Continent, and two in the United States, but their productions have not increased in the same ratio as that of their English rivals.
During the last twenty years a great improvement has taken place in the style of boxes and labels in which the pens are packed. Formerly (with the exception of the goods issued by Gillott and Sommerville) most of the pens were sold in boxes of the plainest description; now the covers or labels are printed in a number of colors from elaborate designs, by first-class artists, and in some cases the boxes are ornamented with well-executed portraits of royal, political, literary, or artistic celebrities. There are many peculiarities connected with the public taste as manifested in the demand for pens. The Germans use a greater variety of patterns than any other nation. The English taste is more restricted, and is generally confined to articles of the plainer shapes. Autocratic Russia and democratic America make use of the fewest patterns. By a regulation of the Imperial Government, pens in boxes, bearing portraits of the Russian royal family are prevented from entering the country, and in America public taste does not favor a demand for portrait boxes. By a law which came into operation the 1st of January, 1886, no pens can be imported into Russia bearing the name of a Russian firm. The probable purpose of this law was to encourage the establishment of a Russian manufactory. At present there are no pen works in Russia. An attempt was made in Moscow, in 1876-8, to manufacture steel pens, but the experiment proved a failure. The Germans and French are the largest buyers of first-class pens, but the Italians are content with articles of the commonest character. The chief demand for three-pointed pens comes from Spain. At present the demand for steel pens is chiefly confined to European nations and their descendants. The great Asiatic nations still write with pens made from reeds, or camel-hair pencils. A few of the natives of India and Japan, and some of the subjects of the Sultan and Khe'dive are beginning to make use of steel pens adapted to the peculiarities of their writing. From this it would appear that the possibilities of the progress of the trade in the future are very favorable; but in the meantime its productions are scattered over the globe, and even in some of the darkest corners of the earth pioneers of civilization are to be found transcribing the results of their experience with the aid of that great factor of nineteenth-century progress—an English Steel Pen.
THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
OF STEEL PENS.
The steel from which the greater part of the metallic pens are manufactured comes from Sheffield. Notwithstanding the many names given by the venders of steel pens to the material from which they are manufactured there are but two sorts—good and bad—and therefore Peruvian, Damascus, Amalgam, and Silver Steel are but fancy names. As a matter of fact, where a number of prefixes are used to describe the quality of an article it is generally found to have no claim to any of them.
The raw material is received from Sheffield in sheets six feet in length, one foot five inches in width, and 23 or 26 Birmingham wire- gauge in thickness. The first operation is the cutting of these sheets into strips of convenient width. They are then packed in an oblong iron box, placed with the open top downward in another box of the same material, and the interstices are filled up with a composition to exclude the air. The boxes are placed in a muffle, where they remain until they have gradually attained a dull red heat, and the muffle is allowed to gradually cool, or else the boxes are placed in a cooling chamber. When the boxes have been reduced to a temperature which will admit of their being handled, the contents (technically called a charge) are emptied out. Now, it will be found that the strips of steel are covered with bits of small scale, sticking to them like a loose skin, and if this were not removed before the next process— rolling—the steel, instead of being perfectly smooth, would be marked with a number of indentations, rendering it very unsightly. In order to get rid of this excrescence, the strips are immersed in a bath of diluted sulphuric acid, which loosens the scale, and are then placed in wood barrels to which broken pebbles and water are added. The barrels are kept revolving until the whole of the scaly substance has been removed and the strips have assumed a silver-gray appearance. The steel is now ready for manipulation in the rolling mill, where it is passed between successive pairs of rolls until it has been reduced to the required gauge, and this operation has to be performed with such nicety that a variation of one thousand part of an inch in the thickness of the strip would make such an alteration in the flexibility of the pens made from it as to cause considerable dissatisfaction to the purchasers of the article.