BS: Long gone stationery supplies

Subject: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 05:15 PM

I was recently in correspondence with some former BBC colleagues about the days - back in the late '60s and early '70s - when we used to write and produce the magazine of the BBC Folk Club: "Clanfolk". Reminiscing about how we produced it reminded us of all sorts of office and stationery stuff we used to use - now all long gone, we think.

Do you remember names of duplicators like Roneo, Gestetner, Dymo tape with its distinctive alcoholic smell, Letraset rub-on lettering sheets, blotting paper, carbon paper...? Modern IT has made them all obsolete. I can't say I miss them, but I do have a certain mostalgia for their primitive nature!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 05:28 PM

My dad had a Gestetner duplicator. It seemed old fashioned even then. I remember Letraset, blotting paper and carbon paper, as you say all gone now. I always head for the stationary section in Pond Stores and I'm a sucker for mechanical pencils. I have more of them than I have guitars.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Michael
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 05:36 PM

Not forgetting Banda (Block and Anderson) the British spirit duplicators (other nationalities were available) and their pale purple printing.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 05:41 PM

Banda was central to my worksheets when I was teaching in East London in the seventies. I worked hard to produce them in multicolour!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Tangledwood
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 05:49 PM

Early 70s part of my duties were producing pilot briefing documents. Those with a longer relevance, monthly bulletins, were printed on the Roneo but short-term items were done on a different machine - Thermofax. This used a crinkly, translucent paper. The print was lucky to last longer than a week. The master "document" for producing this was a punched tape prepared on a Telex teleprinter.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 05:53 PM

It's not just paste-up materials, but graphic arts supplies of all sorts that are long gone. CAD (Computer-Aided Drafting) has made draftsmen's tools totally obsolete. I have a pair of triangles and a decent compass and divider set that I use in my pottery studio, and I guard them with my life. If they were lost, finding replacements would not be easy. The go-to source used to be college bookstores, but nobody teaches manual drafting anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 07:37 PM

My father was an architect and there were generations of engineers before him (you can find my ancestor Francis Campin's texts online). So I grew up with graphic equipment as toys, and have drawing instruments going back to the 19th century. I do hand lettered notices for my work (much faster than computer typesetting and they look better), which involves several different pens at once and occasional use of blotting paper.

I also have a shitload of slide rules and similar analogue calculators. Wish I had a planimeter and a use for one.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 Nov 18 - 09:52 PM

I'm currently scanning a collection of song sheets from the late 50s to the early 60s.

The singer was a teacher & typed most of them. Some are carbon copies on thin paper, others are original typed copies on foolscap & quarto paper. Paper with watermarks! A 2 page letter starts on company letterhead, but the second page is a very thin paper.

Some are roneoed (club history says an early member had access to a roneo machine)

We also have in the club archives cut & paste pages setting up our journal, & also several cut & paste posters. For young folks these are scissors & glue jobs, but the club was founded in 1954!

sandra

ps. I have a collection of carbon for use in the Club's bank deposit books!

pps. I also have a collection of blotting paper with the stamps I use in card making.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 01:35 AM

I don't recognise some of them but transfer letters still exist (eg. this)

I'd imagine the old style Dymo label where the letters were pressed on to a strip of plastic has gone but the brand still exists as do label printers. here's a modern Dymo

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 01:48 AM

(And even found an "older style" Dymo here)

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 02:38 AM

I overheard a couple of people in the post office queue yesterday saying that filofaxes are now extremely rare and worth big money (they didn't quote a figure). I don't know if it is true - charity shops used to be full of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 02:41 AM

Maybe I've placed another in memory and maybe one already mentioned but I don't know the make. When I was a pupil in Glanwydden primary school, I do remember things like sheets for the carol concert typed up by the headmaster on blue sheets and some drum duplicator wound round with a handle. I don't think I've seen one of those since.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 02:48 AM

The first scam I was ever aware of was probably back in the 1960s. A salesperson would telephone a business's office and persuade a junior secretary or receptionist to order a vast amount of carbon paper.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 03:35 AM

Again, Jos, Filofax are still going. Probably terrible security but I do use a small (and cheaper) index card ring binder. Tucked away in a desk and holds things I might need but forget like wifi passwords, registration keys for the web cam software...

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 03:35 AM

When I was teaching, all classrooms had a large stock cupboard. Every week we sent our order to the teacher in charge of stock and a handy Monitor would bring it to our classroom.
I once ordered a packet of holes.
This wasn't a joke. It referred to hole re-enforcers which one stuck round the holes after using the hole puncher.

We also ordered quantities of chalk, white and coloured. I expect teachers nowadays never see a bit of chalk. I believe interactive whiteboards are used instead. But apart from their use on the blackboard, they were handy for lobbing at inattentive pupils.

I have memories of every single item mentioned in posts above. I well remember being fascinated by simple carbon paper as a child. My father had brought some home from work and I played with it until the blue had all gone (mostly onto my hands and face)

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 03:41 AM

We'd send particularly badly-behaved pupils out to the prep room to ask the lab technician for a box of electrons/a litre of diluted water/atray of SH.1T valves.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 03:43 AM

Chalk, again still available ~(although often too hard) but I think the trend there is towards chalk pens for home use. We do have a "to buy/to do" board in the kitchen and it really is the best solution say if I'm the one who uses the last say stock pot. We are using the pens these days but sadly, the old board Pip wants to keep, is not that good with them - can be difficult to erase.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 03:50 AM

Hahahaaa Steve! That's like the apprentices sent for a 'short weight', a 'long stand' or 'tartan paint'.

We also ordered packets of stars, multicoloured, silver and - la creme de la creme - gold ones. It was so satisfying, the power these stars had over pupils' efforts. A gold star, rarely given, and the child would be floating on air all day, and allowed to take the exercise book home to show their equally enraptured parents.
I doubt whether today's youngsters would be quite so thrilled with a blooming old star.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 04:11 AM

My grandchildren come home from school with little certificates saying they have made a good effort or been helpful in class, etc.

When I was little, the first time I went to Sunday School I was given a little stamp like a postage stamp with a picture of Jesus, and a booklet to stick it in, and told I would get another stamp next time I went. But next time they announced that they weren't doing the stamps any more. I was very disillusioned.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 04:19 AM

Oh Jos, I remember those! Every week, as you describe, there was a set lesson about a Bible story, and at the end we received a coloured stamp depicting it to stick in our books. I loved those. Our Sunday School had these for years. I wonder why yours stopped so quickly?

After Christmas, I used to cut out small pictures from old Christmas cards and keep them in a tin. If a child had produced some good work they got to choose a picture and I glued it on the front of their exercise book. The smug faces of the pupils with a picture was a sight to see, and spurred the others on to get one too.

Each child had about eight books (one for each subject) and the aim was for every book to have a picture. Pathetic really, but it worked like magic. (Wouldn't nowadays though!)

I've always found carrots to be infinitely more effective than sticks!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 04:26 AM

My grandchildren got gold stars at primary school quite recently.

I can recall being sent to another teacher's room to get some particular stationery as our teacher had run out of it. Our dialogue ran something like:

Me: "Please sir, do you have some foolscap paper?"

Mr. Black: (Slowly takes keys from pocket, unlocks his desk drawer, opens it, looks inside, shuts drawer, locks it, puts keys back in pocket) "Yes."

Me: "Could Mr. White have some please?"

Mr. Black: (Slowly takes keys from pocket, unlocks his desk drawer, opens it, looks inside, takes paper out, shuts drawer, locks it, puts keys back in pocket and hands paper to me) "Yes."

An object lesson from 60 years ago in being clear and precise the first time!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 04:32 AM

Now people have largely moved to education, do the OHPs and say the Lumocolour pens have much use these days. Did in later life have to use such horrors (I loath giving presentations) on a course but maybe that's all Powerpoint or equivalents now?

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 04:36 AM

When I was working in libraries and giving presentations to research students, I avoided PowerPoint as much as possible - "Death by PowerPoint" was what we used to call it, as every lecturer seemed to use it.

I handed out pre-prepared presentation notes and then amplified the important points verbally and with the odd example on a whiteboard.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 04:54 AM

I remember learning to use an epidiascope. It was very satisfying, and I loved the name.


Will Fly, I suspect that Mr Black may have had Asperger's.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 05:03 AM

"An object lesson from 60 years ago in being clear and precise the first time!"

Another one of those:

"Sir, can I go to the toilet, please?"

"You can, but you may not..."

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 05:13 AM

Segue to the cats thread - we had a very old cat who had had loose diarrhoea for a very long time. Came home one day to find a firm and perfectly formed cat turd in the middle of the hall, the healthiest-looking one she'd done for a year. And sitting on top of it was one of those primary school gold stars.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 07:28 AM

I can remember when first teaching in Scotland ordering a large bottle of Quink blue-black ink for my classroom. All the children wrote with fountain pens (as did I) Also required was a large quantity of blotting paper. And red ink for marking my register.

When I was a child however, each class had an Ink Monitor, whose job was to go round filling up all the little inkwells set in the wooden desks. He/she used an enamel jug with a spout, and the ink was mixed using powder and water. Our pens were wooden things with a detachable nib. One merely dipped them into the inkwell. No fountain pens in those days.
God I'm blooming ancient!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 08:01 AM

They had gone before I was in primary school, Sen but many desks still had holders for inkwells. There was a std issue ballpoint pen which was fattened at the end where the fingers went (plus in primary, writing on that paper ruled for capitals and small letters).

I did at one point in secondary use a Parker fountain pen that could take cartridges or an ink filler but use the G2 (better known as Parker refill) ball points these days. Favourite is a heavy one I turned on a lathe out of aluminium with brass top and bottom but I do like the long existing Jotters.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 08:04 AM

Steel nibs and pot inkwells on sloping wooden desks for me...

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 08:08 AM

Same here. Total misery for us left-handers.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 08:30 AM

People even now don't seem to think of us left handers. I took a very basic (largely to something to do/show I could still do something) course fairly recently. I'm fairly adaptable (and can use a mouse either way and my attempts at instrument playing are RH) but for the test at the end they placed me who's natural orientation with a paper is to the left of the kb and monitor, the wrong side of someone who's natural orientation with a paper would have been to the right. I complained and they swapped our seating.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 08:34 AM

I remember how proud I was of the GOLD nib on my first fountain pen. I used to wipe it clean with blotting paper and admire the shine.
We also used to try to make quill pens with the feathers from our geese.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 08:52 AM

Some books on calligraphy (Edward Johnston?) describe how to make quill pens. There is one sneaky feature you'd never think of.

I don't see why it should make a difference which side of a desk the inkwell was, and I can't even remember which side was commoner. Reaching up or across are equally easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 09:23 AM

As teachers were were trained to sit left-handers on the left of right-handers.
I think if one had to reach across one's work to dip in the inkwell, one risked making a blot on the page as one returned to the left to start writing.
I can remember having blue fingers from all the ink, and blots on my page. (Teacher and my mother both very cross!)

Jack, what was the sneaky feature? Was it to cut off the plume of the feather?
I taught all my pupils to write correctly, and they had to practise in proper handwriting lessons. I have to say I was proud of their exercise books.
My neighbour's children have execrable handwriting, all over the place with badly-formed letters. I suppose with all the keyboard use, they really have little need to actually write nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 10:19 AM

You put a little metal spring inside the quill to retain the ink.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 11:03 AM

In the US in the 1960s there were desks with inkwell holes, but we used fat pencils and fat colored crayons for our early elementary school work. I don't remember having to purchase any of these things (writing implements, paper, classroom supplies). We used the blue mimeograph sheets for announcements and classwork through college in the 1970s. Ink pens, number 2 pencils, they were typical but you could go to the office supply store and buy fountain pens, pen nibs, and all sorts of old fashioned supplies.

I still use a dymo embossed tape label maker (it came from my Dad's house, and he died 20 years ago). Low tech compared to the print and sticky papers electronic ones out there now. When my son was a boy he was entranced by those things, so we gave him one for xmas. Lots of things in his room got labeled and when he went away to college I got all of his leftover label tape.

I still find old office supplies around the house, and a lot of them get listed on eBay with the beginning "Vintage . . . "

By the time my children started school in the mid-1990s extensive supply lists were sent home to parents that had to be sent to school for each child. Lined paper, colored construction paper, pencils, red pens (for the teacher), glue, paint, boxes of facial tissue (for the classroom), notebooks, binders with pockets (with or without fasteners). Some stores would get the lists and post them along with pre-filled bags; others simply had all of the supplies and posted the various lists so parents could refer to them. And the school's Parent Teacher Association (PTA) would offer bags for sale that raised money for their organization (and don't get me started on the PTA - big fish in a little pond who didn't have the best sense in what really helped a school and it's students and teachers.)

I drew maps for the Forest Service many years ago, and still have some of the straight edges and proportional scales around that I used back then. I used a digitizing planimeter on a light table looking through diazo copies of maps - and every time I rested my arm on the metal edge of the light table and touched the planimeter I got a small shock. The table was warm and the diazo copies gave off ammonia fumes, giving me sinus headaches. I don't miss that part of that old technology.

Old mechanical typewriters are all the rage these days. I suppose someone is still making the ribbons?

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 11:19 AM

The only time I was "good" on a mechanical typewriter was back when dad was an Abbey National branch manager, sometimes got to hammer on keys then as a kid but probably shouldn't say that...

More seriously, a quick look on Amazon (UK) does yield some results for typewriter ribbons and I'd speculate Ebay would also offer some as well if nowhere else does but I'd have no clue as to what fits what.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 12:52 PM

The museum of science and technology in Košice (Slovakia) has an enormous Hall of Typewriters - the city used to be one of the pioneers in typewriter technology. It's a monument to the kind of eccentric obsessiveness Central Europe does so well.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 01:34 PM

At Keswick there's the Derwent Pencil Museum. Sounds like exciting fun...

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 01:50 PM

Henry Petroski's book "The Pencil" is great fun. He has another one, "One Good Turn", about the history of screws, bolts and screwdrivers which is even more surprising.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 09:56 PM

You can still buy fountain pens, carbon paper, bottles of ink, white out (both liquids and tape), and other "dead" stationery items on Amazon.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 15 Nov 18 - 10:33 PM

"An object lesson from 60 years ago in being clear and precise the first time!"

And in my Physics mock 'O' Level exam:

"Sir, can we write on both sides of the paper?"

"Naylor, you can write on all six sides if you want."

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 03:41 AM

My father taught me to make goose feather quill pens, with the metal reservoir piece made from the metal foil seals that you used to get on large coffee tins.
He always claimed that swan feathers were better but difficult to obtain!

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 04:28 AM

This dialogue occasionally occurs in our household:

Wife: "Can you pass me the paper?"

Me (looking at paper): "Yes, I can."

Wife: "Then pass me the paper - NOW!"

Me: Yes dear, of course dear..."

Wot larks.

Getting back to the thread topic - last year I went to a specialist stationery shop, stocked up on refills for my various Cross, Waterman and Parker fountain pens and Lamie rollerballs, Space pen, etc., and bought some nice writing paper and envelopes. My niece in Portland, Oregon, was amazed and delighted to receive a hand-written letter!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 04:40 AM

I wrote out all my Christmas card yesterday (about seventy of them). I like to write a short message in each one, and for some (those who live far away that I don't see very often) a little news and update.

I don't suffer from rheumatism or arthritis, but goodness me my handwriting has become a bit wobbly!

I don't drink, so it isn't the DT's.

I had to be extra-careful with the addresses on the envelopes, as they must be legible for the Sorting Office.

My only satisfaction was the nice Christmas stickers (Father Christmas, snowmen, holly, presents etc) I buy a sheet of these and put one on each envelope to cheer them up a bit.

I then started on the Christmas 'boxes' for the postman, binmen (we have three teams of these for the different-coloured bins) and window cleaner. Christmas card and a tenner for each. When I looked at them afterwards, it looked as if I'd written Bunmen, Pistman and Wondow Clooner.
Gawd, I reckon it's nearly time for the care home! :)

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 04:42 AM

an enormous Hall of Typewriters

to paraphrase Mat the cartoonist (yesteday)- "all we need is a load of monkeys - and we can produce Shakespear ..... er Brexshit Deal?"

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Iains
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 05:04 AM

I was very happy when wide carriage plotters and computers did away with the need for Leroy lettering sets and ammonia printing when producing geological logs.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 05:20 AM

I got a 'John Bull Printing Set' for Christmas when I was about five years old. Rubber letters and a little wooden rack, plus an ink pad.
I loved it.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 06:32 AM

Ooh, yes - I had one of those. Me and a friend immediately decided to print a newspaper - I think that venture lasted about a day!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 06:33 AM

Luckshury. We 'ad ter mek do wi' 'alf a spud fer t'do us printin'....