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'....

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Iains
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 07:10 AM

Further to my mention of Leroy lettering sets

http://www.forgottenartsupplies.com/?what=artifacts&image_id=355

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 07:26 AM

'Alf a spud? Eeee, that wer ower dinner fer a week that wer.

My two friends (both called Susan) and I actually wrote a 'newspaper' each week when we were at grammar school. We laboriously copied it out by hand and did about twenty copies between us.
It was called The Atomic Brain. It had a regular column about The Rubber Girl (no idea, so don't ask me!) and the weekly doings of a remote tribe called the Zekowba Chua.

I so wish I'd kept some of these.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 07:39 AM

If the stationery supplies had stayed stationary, they wouldn't be long-gone...

I'll get me hoodie...

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 07:40 AM

"My two friends (both called Susan)"
Reminds me of Milly-Molly-Mandy and her Little Friend Susan. Did you have a Billy Blunt as well?

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 07:49 AM

Hahaha Jos! Susan was a very popular name when I was at school. So was Linda. In my Junior school there were five Lindas and six Susans in my class. And a Susan down the road. I was so jealous. My parents had chosen what they considered a 'classy' name for me, but I would have given my right arm to be a Susan or a Linda.

I only met my two Susans at the grammar school. They hadn't been at my Junior school. So that totals NINE!

Both were very fat indeed and I was like a tiny skeleton. We must have looked funny going round together. I was sometimes too weak to run, so one of my Susans would give me a piggy back and we'd gallop along together with me holding on to her pony tail.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Gda Music
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 12:01 PM

The BIRO pen was a great invention, I remember when it started to sell in W H Smiths in the late 1940s. It did have the fault of sometimes leaking, that was due to some changes in air pressure ...so they said! Also around this period of time I took it upon myself to save up and buy an ADANA flatbed printer, I just wish now that I had saved it in storage.

GJ

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 12:31 PM

Back to ballpoints. The Bic Cristal does seem to be an enduring design and probably still a staple of many office supplies?

We seem to get too many pens these days, mostly from charities popping the things in envelopes. Wish they wouldn't and can wonder why parents stock pile the never used things.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 01:02 PM

My father was one of the earliest users of a fibre-tip pen - I remember it from no later than 1958. He used it for architectural visualizations (those impossibly clean and tidy plazas in front of shiny new glass and concrete palaces you have probably seen in planners' fantasies of the period). It was as fat as a cigar and made of spun aluminium.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 01:15 PM

The rarest fountain pen I ever had belonged to my father. It was made of solid aluminium with an incredibly thick body - used by him as navigator in the RAF in WW2 and supposedly indestructible.

Alas, I swapped it for something in the late '60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: robomatic
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 03:45 PM

I used to run a machine that duplicated masters from the plastic sheets on which the drafter had plotted them to blueprint copies for the work folders that would be taken to the field. It was inadequately ventilated and one got a good whiff of ammonia whenever one used it. I don't know what that did to my lifespan. Then along came a XEROX large scale copier which did the same job without the chemicals. Now you can't find those much anymore as the modern plotters are so dam big.

I took drafting classes learning skills which are hardly in demand anymore but there was good discipline in much of the material one had to turn out. And a skosh of creativity.

And I used to love browsing in stationery stores looking at the variety of pens and particularly mechanical pencils. You could sometimes tell an engineer's importance, self-importance, or place on the food chain by the make and model of (usually) his mechanical pencil. That is not a euphemism.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Nov 18 - 10:33 PM

Those ammonia sheets would off-gas when they got warm and my sinuses took a real beating. I used to ride a bus home from work and there were a couple of times I was getting so sick from the motion after a day at the planimeter that I'd have to get off to walk in the fresh air.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 04:18 AM

In the 90s I knew a retired Engineer who said when he was working, he wore a plastic pocket containing pens/pencils in his shirt pocket. This was the sign of an Engineer in his day. Did your engineers have this plastic pocket that protected their shirts s from ink & pencil stains??

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 05:38 AM

I have heard of those but never seen one.

The ickiest writing material I know of is indelible pencil - the "lead" was clay impregnated with purple dye, which got everywhere. The first job I was ever paid money for was counting votes in a local election, where voters were issued with indelible pencils to tick with. My hands ended up purple to the wrists for days.

They use an ink with somewhat similar (but less aggressive) properties in those medical pens for writing on people's skin ("irradiate this bit", "infection got this far by Tuesday" or grids for allergy patch tests).

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 10:48 AM

I know this is below the line, but how many people still use manuscript paper? I still have a big block of it, which has hardly been touched for years, as well as a couple of beautiful bound books with Florentine covers and manuscript paper, just made for you to write your songs and tunes into.
These days, if I hear a tune I like, I'll either record it and then transcribe it direct to music editing software on computer, or jot it down in my own variant of ABC until I've got time to put it on computer. And of course, now you can just convert ABC direct to notation.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 12:27 PM

I have a vague memory of seeing somewhere, maybe at school, a pen with five nibs for drawing your own manuscript paper.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 01:05 PM

I've got one. Never found an occasion to use it though.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 01:10 PM

I 'did' Music at grammar school for two years before I had to drop it for German :(
Our exercise books for Music were printed with staves on the left-hand page and ordinary lines on the right. (verso and recto if we're being pedantic!)
I was heartbroken to have to give the subject up, as I was beginning to learn Theory, the different scales etc, and we were played records of the more famous composers' works.
Amazon sells stave-liner pens. (I think it's called a 'staff' in USA).

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Nov 18 - 09:00 PM

Sandra in Sydney:
The 'pocket protectors' you refer to were in fact worn from junior high school thru to NASA, but not by the 'cool' kids. They put one in the same social class as those who wore white socks outside of gym class!

Me? I'd've rather stained my shirt than worn a pocket protector. Which didn't happen too often.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 18 Nov 18 - 06:02 AM

Can't remembèr the exact year, but when we returned to school for the two day inservice after the summer holidays, the Business Studies dept had received their order of super duper new electric typewriters (enough for two classrooms - 40?). However in the interim pcs had been delivered - by the government? - to every school, brand new technology etc - and the now defunct electric typewriters were never unboxed!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Nov 18 - 08:28 AM

Pocket protectors were invented in 1943 & are still around - This fashion-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.


Wikipedia knows it's a fashion item & so does this bloke - The Fashion Accessory for the New Millennium

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Nov 18 - 08:44 AM

I've read Americans writing about them on the web since before the Internet was invented, but reading this thread yesterday was the first time I've realized what pocket protectors actually were.

Seem to have been exclusively American. Do Americans have the world's leakiest pens?

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Nov 18 - 08:59 AM

For a couple of decades I've made and used pocket protectors for my keys. I have house, car and all sorts of other keys in a big bunch, including a couple of small padlock keys. These keys go through pocket material faster than a kid through candy floss if there is no protective pocket.

I bought a length of plastic leather material from a flea market some years ago and also a large reel of what might be called knicker elastic. A pocket of the material is attached to a key ring with the elastic. Even if a small hole appears in a pocket the keys wont fall through.

A protector lasts between six months and a year. This reminds me I'm just about due to make a new one.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 03:26 AM

anyone remember the Rapidograph pen? And you could buy plastic templates/stencils separately which amounted to your Leroy set. The Rapidograph was more like a fountain pen but used the same hollow nib and wire plunger, but you shook the pen and the internal weight pushed the wire to break the seal on congealed indian ink. (remember that?)

ADANA flatbed printer

I bought one too. Then in later life I had a larger one given to me. Printed all my Xmas cards. At one time I carved lino cuts with the image of brass rubbings, using miniature woodworking tools and sanded the lino dead flat.
A retired art master was incredulous that anyone could carve lino in such fine detail, but the trick was those woodcarving tools. That and young eyes.

I now print my Xmas cards from the PC and still make (steal sometimes) the jokes. The best one (I claim entirely as my own) is a picture of Mount Victoire and underneath
Cezanne's Greetings


Ho ho ho ho.............

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 03:37 AM

I used to do lino cuts Mr Red, but the very sharp tools would slip on the shiny surface of the lino and I must have slit my fingers dozens of times. But the advantage of lino cuts was that one could add more detail to them at any time. Did you have one of those roller things to spread the ink evenly on the surface?
Love your Cezanne's Greetings! One could also make Birthday cards with 'Monet Happy Returns'.
Does anyone remember Spirograph? I adored using that - it was an ingenious toy.

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

Yup - had a Spirograph - great fun.

A graphic designer friend of mine from London days (1960s) worked in a trendy advertising firm near Carnaby Street. He designed his own card one year - 'twas a cartoon of Father Christmas, trousers down, screwing one of his (startled) reindeer. The caption?

"Santa is coming..."

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 04:35 AM

Spirographs needed a steady hand and a goodly supply of paper - our house was scattered with discarded swirls abandoned halfway through, when the thing slipped.

I used to like the Etch-a-Sketch, until someone slipped and broke it. We got a replacement but the screen on the new one was plastic. It suffered badly from static and clearing the screen never quite worked properly. It was soon abandoned.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 05:47 AM

For producing multiple copies of a notice, before we had access to the necessary machinery, our Scout Group used to use a Hectograph
A system where the original was written with special ink, placed face down on a gel pad, and copies made by placing fresh sheets of paper onto that same pad to pick up the writing/image.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 06:05 AM

Do you remember a pantograph? Hinged thing which enlarged a drawing when one passed the point along the lines, while the other end held a pencil?
Honestly, when one considers all the advances in technology today, it's astonishing what we made do with in 'the olden days'!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 06:07 AM

For a couple of decades I've made and used pocket protectors for my keys. I have house, car and all sorts of other keys in a big bunch, including a couple of small padlock keys. These keys go through pocket material faster than a kid through candy floss if there is no protective pocket.

I keep my keys attached by a string to a souvenir-of-Corfu leather pouch which is finally falling apart after 25 years. It's to protect me, not my pocket. I have a nickel allergy and enough nickel gets through cotton to produce a raw bleeding patch on my thigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 06:09 AM

As children we used to pinch Izal toilet paper from the school loos to use as tracing paper. Trouble was, it had a horrible carbolic smell.

My friends and I once laid Izal toilet paper under the keys of the music teacher's piano in our assembly hall. When he played the hymn for the whole school next morning, there was the most wonderful accompanying percussion, rather like a snare drum. He was livid, but we never let on.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 06:10 AM

I had Rapidograph pens, I think they are in a box in the loft now. They had replaceable nibs in various diameters to give different line widths from 0.5mm up to about 2mm (perhaps larger). I remember that the nibs were colour coded. Polygraph made compatible ones as well.
I used them for technical drawings but a friend of mine did remarkable intricate artwork with them in the style of the Pink Floyd "Relics" album cover.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 07:17 AM

Bronco toilet paper was better for tracing as it didn't stink, and I used to like the way 'Bronco' was written in loopy copperplate letters, a bit like my grandmother's handwriting.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 07:30 AM

I wonder if school stockrooms nowadays offer all those grades of pencil? When we put in our order, we could choose from HB, 2B, 2H, 3B, 3H and so on. I suppose it was because our pupils did a lot of drawing, and the grades of softness/hardness added to the effect.

I also remember the joys of 'sticky coloured paper'. A pack contained about eight colours, which after cutting out could be licked and stuck onto a collage. The teacher would always collect up the off-cuts and bits, which were carefully saved to make grass or flower petals etc. Nothing was wasted.

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

I can still remember the smell of the sticky coloured paper.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 12:12 PM

Aren't memories like that poignant Jos?

I often had student teachers assigned to me during their Teaching Practice time. One young woman was very good with Art and had lots of lovely ideas. But she was terribly profligate with our stock.

One day, I left her in charge (they were supposed to be alone with the class for an hour) and came back to find she'd given out loads and loads of sticky coloured paper, and a single flower had been cut from the centre of each sheet by every child, and the rest slung in the waste bin!

The children had made a delightful Spring frieze, but after the bell I spent quite a time rescuing the bits, smoothing them out and putting them in a tin.
Later, I had 'A Word' with her. School stock was very precious in those days!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 07:27 PM

Since we're on to toilet paper, there us still a use for the Bronco/Izal type: the annual paper and comb championships at Stonehaven Folk Festival! Remember doong that as kids too: piece of toilet paper wrapped over a comb and then sing through it? You have to get the buzz on your lips, a bit like the sound of a kazoo. It's always hilarious, as there us often a theme, and people dress up to suit the theme. Negative marks for any attempt at positive musicality!
Don't know where they get the paper from each year, as it's impossible to do it with modern day soft stuff. But one year, it was stamped " Government property"!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Gurney
Date: 19 Nov 18 - 09:44 PM

Her Indoors wanted some blotting paper for use in her sometimes hobby of calligraphy. At several stationary-suppliers, we had to explain what it was. No-one under about the age of 60 had ever heard of it.
One attractive young counter-hand didn't even know what a fountain-pen and a writing-pad was.
Printer paper, even of high quality, doesn't take liquid ink very well.
Oddly, some shops DID sell calligraphy pens and ink. Old stock?
Paper kitchen towels will blot fairly well. If used with care.

It was only in my last year of school (England, 1956) were we allowed to use biros/ballpoints. And only posh kids had fountain-pens.

There are DINOSAURS among you.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 04:10 AM

Oooh Tattie, I remember comb-and-paper! We were always playing on them. It did used to tingle on the lips didn't it?

The teacher always issued each pupil with blotting paper at the beginning of term. Ink made enough mess as it was without having no way of soaking it up. Fancy people not knowing what it it nowadays!

Can one still buy Basildon Bond writing pads and matching envelopes? I used to buy them with some of my pocket money and write to my grandparents, numerous Irish aunts and uncles and so on. Letters were the norm and the Post was fast. I think stamps were thruppence.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 04:17 AM

I often patronise this lovely shop in. Brighton - a cornucopia of goodies for the writer by hand...

Pen to Paper

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:03 AM

Did you have one of those roller things to spread the ink evenly on the surface?

No, I had the printing press, but the roller was needed to transfer ink to the platen. Adana sold mounted lino at "type" height. But you still had to emery down the stippled surface, I did that on a flat bed. For using in a printing press it needed all that attention. The wood carving tools were essential, they look like doll's tools. And I had a whetstone to sharpen them. The fine cuts and flat lino could print in a press because the pressure was more finely tuned.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:13 AM

In the first school I worked at, in 1973, the rock-hard, non-absorbent bog paper had "Property of London County Council" printed on every sheet, and you couldn't begin to think of stealing the roll as the toilet roll holder had a lock on one end with a key that only the schoolkeeper possessed!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jos
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:26 AM

It always amused me that the brand name of the toilet roll holders at Exeter University was "Dreadnought" - they were designed to prevent students nicking them for any nefarious purposes whatsoever.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: JHW
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:36 AM

All my leaf tea jars have Dymo labels at least 40 years old still firmly stuck and entirely legible.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 08:56 AM

We have 2 more “up to date” label printers both Brother.

I’ve not noticed any problems with labels with the plastic top layer (usage has included labelling plug tops and sticking to plastic tags to go in flower pots) produced by one.

The other uses a paper label. The first task I used this for (using the genuine Brother thermal paper) was to print labels for the A4 ring binders holding dad’s postcard collection. These labels have faded badly, going from black print to a pale brown in 2-3 years and I’ll probably need to re-print next year. They are OK for a more common usage here, ie. jam jars, which don’t normally hang around here as long and are stored in a dark cupboard but I’d have reservations as to their suitability for longer term use, possibly particularly when there will be some exposure to sunlight.

I suppose one advantage with the embossed type label is that there will always be something readable even if the plastic fades.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 09:46 PM

There is a tradition of prison literature being written on toilet paper. I guess this is because it was tough stuff like Izal? If the Fascists had really wanted to silence Gramsci they'd have issued political prisoners with quilted Andrex.

British institutional shiny toilet paper used to have NOW WASH YOUR HANDS on every sheet.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 04:03 AM

The late Monty Parkin sang a pastiche blues song - 'All day, working on the Kalamazoo'.......(inspired by an office duplicator, not that he ever worked in an office, or at all.)

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 04:30 AM

It did indeed Jack. We had to cut that bit off before the paper was any good for tracing.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 06:42 AM

IRA prisoners used to write letters on Rizla papers for smuggling out.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 08:44 AM

The prisoners I visited used frequently to order dental floss from the Prison Store when they filled in their order sheet.

One would imagine they were to be congratulated for their interest in dental hygiene, but the floss was used to lower/raise various drugs in a paper cup through the bars from one window to another on a Wing above or below.

I expect the Prison Officers were well aware. They turned a blind eye to much that went on Inside.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 10:39 AM

100!

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 10:51 AM

About long-gone stationery: Years ago I owned sealing wax and a seal. It had a rose on it. I don't know where they went;I don't have them any more. But they were fun to play with while they lasted.

Remember how people sometimes put their return address on the back of the envelope? Word from the post office is not to do that anymore, because if the envelope goes into the scanner upside-down, the system will take the return address for the recipient's address and shoot your letter right back to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Nov 18 - 03:20 AM

Years ago I owned sealing wax and a seal.

Years ago I had a ring engraved with my own logo, a combination of intials. Used it a few times to seal registered parcels.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Nov 18 - 04:12 AM

My grandfather wore a signet ring and my father inherited it. I think Prince Charles wears one. My father's wasn't very fancy, just his initials in a flowery style (they were fortunately the same as his dad's - 'ASR'). But they were worn quite a lot then.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: CupOfTea
Date: 22 Nov 18 - 10:15 AM

I grew up infatuated with all the stationery and office supplies. The family business was office machinery, and with all adults in my home working, I spent vacations hanging out there. It was bliss for art and creative efforts. Paper construction with odd bits trimmed off the huge paper cutter, watercolor pencils for drawing. Large pieces of brown wrapping paper off the roll & objects created out of the brown paper tape that came out of the hand cranked dispenser with a bottle of water to wet the glue. Plastic lettering templates that required a technical pen. Rubber stamps made to order. Sheets of carbon paper, in typewriters or transferring designs on craft projects. Typing Paper in colors!

Fluid duplicators were the main part of the business, and the smell, and chilly feel of freshly printed sheets lasted well into the Xerox copy years for me. Red and green were added to the common purple for us.

Burroughs was the local stationery supply store, a favourite place. Paints and brushes, fountain pens and ink. Pads of watercolor paper, blank books, folders, page dividers, hole reinforcers, hole punches, staplers, markers, erasers for pencil and chalkboards (still have a slate board in use in my kitchen) When Burroughs was gone, art supply stores took the place of much of it. Still have drawing templates (circle, square, oval, hearts, alphabets) French curve sets, see-through rulers in 1/16 inch grids, Exact-o knives and replacement blades. Rub-on lettering in interesting fonts (still have vinyl glue on letters on my bowed psaltery marking the notes) used for making fancy flyers and spiffy presentations.

The smell of paper and ink, paint, boxes of new crayons, all ambrosia to me; a big part of the charm of these repositories of supplies was the POSSIBILITY of wonderful things coming out of their use. Still feel that way.

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Nov 18 - 11:14 AM

Remember how people sometimes put their return address on the back of the envelope? Word from the post office is not to do that anymore, because if the envelope goes into the scanner upside-down, the system will take the return address for the recipient's address and shoot your letter right back to you.

The scanner can't make that mistake if you do what I do - my return address is written in cursive script fitted into a single diagonal line corner to corner across the back. Only a human has a prayer of interpreting that.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: BobL
Date: 23 Nov 18 - 02:51 AM

If you print your return address, either directly onto the envelope or via sticky labels, you can avoid the problem by using any suitably outlandish font. Such as Sans Forgetica. Sorry, I drift.

Subject: RE: BS: Long gone stationery supplies
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Nov 18 - 03:44 AM

Sans Forgetica?

A curious juxtaposition of meanings. Sans is without - in this case serifs. But Sans Forgetica - no forgetting - sounds like the opposite of the purpose proposed above. And being designed as an aide memoire - it looks less like the one for the job to me, but what do I know.

call me a philistine but I am determined not to remember it!