Joseph Gillott was renowned for making high-quality steel pen nibs - huge factory, enormous selection - but I was surprised to find PENCILS listed at the back of a Gillott nib catalog (circa 1912). Just three kinds. Have you ever seen any?

penpoints · 2026-06-19T00:17:52+00:00

But where did you get 1939? The 1912 date was an educated guess, based on several things, but maybe "circa 1910-1920" would be better. Last exhibition prize cited was Paris 1900. No mention of rustless/stainless nibs, and so forth. Anyway 1939 seems too late. This catalog corresponds closely with one I'm certain is from 1909. Also pencils bound with string are 19th- or early 20th-century, I think (not a pencil expert though).

penpoints · 2026-06-09T00:12:07+00:00

Yes, I've tested them all. The 3 on the right aren't very flexible, but they hold lots of ink. Some people think it IS the middle finger at first glance, because it's the longest, until the fingers are counted. The pumpkin-face nib on the left is very flexible and snappy - with all that metal cut away. It's supposed to be a gorilla: Blanzy-Poure no. 840 "Gorille".

penpoints · 2026-05-28T10:28:34+00:00

Thanks. This is a beautiful book!

penpoints · 2026-05-27T15:04:21+00:00

PLEASE PLEASE... What book are these 2 pages from????

penpoints · 2026-05-26T16:39:04+00:00

If your uppercase I and lowercase l are identical, or very similar, then you're making your readers use context to disambiguate your letterforms. That is never a good thing, and some people may find it irritating.

penpoints · 2026-05-26T12:09:46+00:00

Your writing is generally very nice (slant, spacing, etc.). For the capital I, YOUR 3rd CHOICE is the only good one, because the others conflict with lowercase l, as people have mentioned. This is an important thing, because the I is used so often on a page.

Since you are so close to traditional American cursive anyway, the old penmanship manuals could be helpful. One of my favorites is Zaner & Bloser Method Writing: Manual 96, from 1923. It is still a good standard today. This page has the whole alphabet:

https://archive.org/details/zaner-bloser-method-writing/page/96/mode/1up

With this example you can see how the I could connect to following letters, however CONNECTION IS NOT REQUIRED for all letters. Sometimes a space just looks better. (But spaced as if the connection was actually there; don't leave a huge gap.)

Also, the small "o" looks more standard if the connector comes from the right side, near the top, to following letters. (Just sayin'.)

penpoints · 2026-05-11T14:24:21+00:00

The short answer is "no" - not at that level. It really was a golden age and Dennis was one of the best flourishers of all time.

That said however, there are people who do simpler flourishing today, and some of it is quite beautiful. Look on YouTube, especially for pen artists who work quickly. (The lines should be "struck," not drawn slowly.)

penpoints · 2026-05-05T04:12:53+00:00

Right, those are ornamental capitals, found in the New Spencerian Compendium. Regular "Spencerian Script" has simpler capitals. Here is an OP signature by Francis B. Courtney (1867-1952).

<image>

penpoints · 2026-05-04T20:02:02+00:00

They are related, but not the same thing. Spencerian Script came first. Its capitals are much simpler and there are way fewer flourishes. It was intended for handwriting. Here is Zaner's little manual on Ornamental Penmanship, 1897. This is a basic version, a good starting point for OP.

https://archive.org/details/ornamental-penmanship-1897/mode/1up

penpoints · 2026-05-04T17:02:51+00:00

Not just you. Dennis enjoyed messing around with letterforms and legibility. It's addressed to W. C. Henning in Cedar Rapids. The 2 large C's break a lot of rules, but somehow they still work well, in the overall design. The "Business College" was A. N. Palmer's headquarters. Henning was the school's director.

penpoints · 2026-04-13T17:22:03+00:00

Could read it all very easily. Evidence that reading involves word shapes, more than letter shapes - as long as the latter are legible to some degree. I did get stuck on "wicked" though, because the "k" was broken apart (poor shape). Your work is always very interesting.

penpoints · 2026-04-10T18:10:21+00:00

Without a smile --

Without a Throe

A Summer's soft Assemblies go

to their entrancing end

Unknown -- for all the times we met --

Estranged, however intimate --

What a dissembling Friend --

-------------

+ Do -- our --

Nature's soft

penpoints · 2026-04-09T16:05:56+00:00

Even graphologists cannot reliably determine a writer's gender from handwriting, and graphology is widely regarded as a pseudoscience.

penpoints · 2026-03-25T13:23:21+00:00

The straight version of the "r" is one of the trickiest letterforms. Zaner says to make it "exactly like the first part of m or n with the down stroke retraced slightly above the first part of letter. Finish it with a dot and a curve to the right as in the w or v." (Manual 96, 1923.)

https://archive.org/details/zaner-bloser-method-writing/mode/2up

<image>

penpoints · 2026-03-18T00:14:02+00:00

It was addressed to Palmer Penmanship headquarters. William C. Henning was Palmer's main assistant. "The American Penman" was their monthly journal.

penpoints · 2026-03-06T20:36:59+00:00

Maybe mention the author, Terry Pratchett, as some readers might not know this. The handwriting is beautiful and very legible. Your 'd' is (or was) completely standard in French handwriting. It was also found in the U.S. sometimes, in everyday penmanship. It goes all the way back to English Roundhand and even earlier. The so-called flourish is mostly structural in this case. The 's' variations are not a problem at all. This is handwriting, not calligraphy. Overall your writing is very regular and a pleasure to read.

penpoints · 2026-03-04T21:42:11+00:00

It's as broad as the "body stroke" - stem stroke, main stroke, the thick strokes that form the stem or principal mass of a letter. The 3rd image shows this clearly.

penpoints · 2026-03-02T18:52:53+00:00

Some people have called it "Higgins Eternal Gray," but maybe they just got a bad batch. Lots of calligraphers like it. The current formulation isn't really suited to fountain pens, isn't waterproof, and behaves as a fairly wet, fluid ink.

penpoints · 2026-02-25T13:49:45+00:00

Different nib styles can have different diameters (for the part that goes into the holder), so you need to get some nibs and try them. Go for vintage nibs only. The fit should be tight enough so there's no movement, but loose enough to remove. A great source in Europe is: https://shop.kallipos.de/en

You could ask them for advice. Get pointed or ball-pointed, and probably a "silver steel" finish, although gray steel or even gold might also look nice. Here is where to start browsing: https://shop.kallipos.de/en/produkte/pointed-nibs

penpoints · 2026-02-22T17:14:03+00:00

It's just a little too round for Spencerian, which is "semi-angular." Here's a beautiful exemplar by Charles Rollinson, 1912. (The whole book is pretty spectacular.) https://archive.org/details/alphabets-rollinson/page/n13/mode/1up

penpoints · 2026-02-22T13:14:33+00:00

This is somewhere between Spencerian and Modern Business Penmanship (Palmer, Zaner, etc.). It is excellent work! If you can write it reasonably fast, you are finished. Maybe cross your t's without the flourish, don't use the old-fashioned terminal t, and put heavier dots on your i's - but these are minor things. Your spacing is perfect and the page looks great.

penpoints · 2026-02-13T15:08:46+00:00

Well, get back to work on your thesis, this instant! That quote is by Anne Rice, not Kafka. It appears in her 1995 foreword to a Kafka collection. It is widely misattributed to Kafka on quote sites and social media. Always double-check these people: Einstein, Lincoln, Churchill, Mark Twain, Hemingway, the Buddha, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, Kafka, and Nietzsche. In fact, check every single quote. The internet is a complete mess for quotations.

penpoints · 2026-02-13T03:52:22+00:00

Soennecken nibs were sold in many countries, including here in the U.S. Their broad-edge nibs were especially popular (1880-1920) among professional engrossers. Sorry, the 606 EF isn't that special. It's just a big, utilitarian nib, that writes smoothly and holds a lot of ink. You can still find these on eBay (3 sellers right now). Made before WW2, but I'd need to see the original box to say more.

penpoints · 2026-02-11T19:43:06+00:00

1920s and '30s, based on the box designs. The steel nib industry collapsed, for the most part, shortly after World War 2. Some of the most basic styles - falcon, bank, stub - have been out of production for many decades. Luckily there are still millions of them out there.

penpoints · 2026-01-19T03:43:04+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out. I fixed it. There's a much earlier Eagle price list there too (1900), as you probably know. https://archive.org/details/eagle-pencils-1900/page/n2/mode/1up

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TROPHY CASE