I got these 2 for $4! All the guy said was that they were OLD. They’re wooden advertising dip pens and I haven’t had much luck finding out when they’re from. I reckon maybe 1920s or 30s.
The captions are brilliant:
Hotel Morgan
Only Fireproof Hotel In The City
Morgantown, W. VA.
Ask For
Butter-Nut Bread
Rich As Butter
Sweet As A Nut
At All Leading Grocers
I’ve never had a dip pen before so I had to take a little trip to an art shop to get some ink. I went with a basic black ink from Winsor & Newton, £3.19 from Atlantis Art.
It was SO nice to write with! Kind of scratchy, but I liked it, and it made a really satisfying sound. It was quite different from a normal fountain pen.
Does anyone know anything more about these pens? Or when they’re from? I’d love to know.
Tomorrow’s post will be about some 1980s (ish, I think) NFL Pencils by Faber Castell.
Apparently Hotel Morgan opened in 1925, and there’s an envelope from 1928 on Ebay that uses the ‘only fireproof hotel in the city’ slogan. (Catchy, but somehow not all that reassuring)
Great research – thank you!! I know, that slogan is hilarious… Just found that envelope on Ebay, def adding it to my watch list…
There’s at least one hotel of that era which proclaimed itself to be fireproof and then proved that it actually wasn’t. A bit like the Titanic.
Gosh, yeah.. I suppose you wouldn’t ever actually know until the time came…