{"id":24400,"date":"2022-09-01T17:12:27","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T21:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=24400"},"modified":"2022-09-01T17:41:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T21:41:03","slug":"the-royal-family-of-writing-instruments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=24400","title":{"rendered":"The Royal family (of writing instruments)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"
\n

⬆\ufe0e A Parker Duofold Centenntial fountain pen, first bought in London in 1995, now in my hands<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Earlier today, Henry, who frequently comments here, sent me a link to a Washington Post story that I had almost missed. It’s “Beyond the keyboard: Fountain pen collectors find beauty in ink<\/a>.” I was about three weeks ahead of them! It was with this post of mine, “Ink’s place in the retro movement<\/a>.” But retro minds think alike. To the Washington Post’s excellent observations about fountain pens, I would add one more observation: Fountain pens and typewriters belong together. They are a dyad, both technologically and aesthetically.<\/p>\n

By coincidence today, an old friend of mine who collects fountain pens as well as typewriters sent me a classic fountain pen that he no longer uses and wanted me to have. It arrived in the mail today. It’s a Parker Duofold Centennial that he bought in London in 1995. He has moved up to even more luxurious fountain pens, saying that he has found that he prefers a more flexible nib. Well, I like this fountain pen’s nib just the way it is. And why shouldn’t I? I am too frugal to justify the cost of one of these pens. They don’t lose their value if they are in good condition. It’s about what I’d consider paying for a fancy roto-tiller or a dental crown.<\/p>\n

As for collectible typewriters, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s the full-size office machines that thrill me. Most collectors today prefer the “cute” portables, especially if they’re in pastel colors. But it’s the massive corporate workhorses that I like, because they’re the kind of typewriters I used when I was a newspaper copy boy starting back in 1966.<\/p>\n

It’s easy enough to use typewriters for actual writing these days, as long as you have a scanner and OCR software handy. It seems I have so many typewriters these days that I have to rotate them to give them exercise. But I have been getting a lot of writing done, and of course that writing ends up in the computer, in an application named Scrivener<\/a> that I have used for all my writing projects for years. Retro writing systems are far from obsolete, even when our words end up in our computers.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"
\n

⬆\ufe0e The nib on this pen is medium width — fairly broad, really<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n
\n

\"\"
\n

⬆\ufe0eThe Parker nib<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n

⬆\ufe0eMy Royal 440 office machine, 1969<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n

⬆\ufe0eMy Royal FP office machine, 1961<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n

⬆\ufe0eMy Royal HH office machine, 1953. Internally, these Royals changed very little over a period of 25 to 30 years. The exterior design, though, changed to fit the tastes of the times. I like to compare the 1969 Royal with an Oldsmobile Toronado, the 1961 machine (a model which started some years earlier) with a 1955 Chevrolet, and the 1953 machine with a 1952 Chevrolet. There are clearly parallels between automobile styles and typewriter styles, though I’m still waiting for someone to write a book about it.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

⬆\ufe0e A Parker Duofold Centenntial fountain pen, first bought in London in 1995, now in my hands Earlier today, Henry, who frequently comments here, sent me a link to a Washington Post story that I had almost missed. It’s “Beyond the keyboard: Fountain pen collectors find beauty in ink.” I was about three weeks ahead … Continue reading “The Royal family (of writing instruments)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24400"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24435,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24400\/revisions\/24435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}