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[rhr]

David, I wished you had started a separate topic about Livermore instead of tacking your message onto the MacKinnon stylo war topic because Livermore deserved a thread of his own, so I started one for you by quoting our two messages from the other thread.

Vintagepens, on 09 June 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

Although Livermore was a tangential player in the conflict discussed here, I've taken an interest in his operations after belatedly realizing that his Providence factory stood very close to home -- across the street, in fact, from the park where my daughters go during school recesses when the weather is good. That building was still standing up until at least the 1950s; I hope to find out more next week. What I've found so far, I've posted here. I've also posted a picture of the 1879 Medal of Excellence awarded to Livermore by the American Institute. Oddly enough, I don't recall seeing it specifically mentioned in Livermore ads, though most every other penmaker prominently trumpeted any medals won.

rhr, on 10 June 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

David, thanks for the link to the article "Livermore in Providence" on your blog.  I wish I had a pen company with factory buildings so close to my home.  The only thing that comes even close to this for me was finding a pen repairman's shop just three blocks from where I live, the one in these two threads, Topic 3, and Topic 410.

It was also nice to see the picture of the 1879 Medal of Excellence from the American Institute.  Here's the reason you haven't seen it specifically mentioned in Livermore ads.  It's almost the same medal that MacKinnon received, except his was the gold medal, and it was inscribed "Medal of Superiority" instead of "Medal of Excellence".  MacKinnon started featuring his medal in ads in Am. Stat. on Mar 11, 1880, p.5, and continued using it in his ads throughout 1880 and into 1881.  It's pictured in the ad in Topic 2033.  Livermore received his patents in July 1879 and March 1880, and didn't start advertizing in Am. Stat. until an article on May 20, 1880, p.6, and an ad on p.9.  Livermore's and MacKinnon's ads appeared on the same page, one above the other, starting on July 8, 1880, p.3, and throughout the rest of July and August.  On Sept 2, 1880, p.18, and thereafter MacKinnon's ads appeared on the same page as an ad for Caw's ink, and they featured the ad line, "The only pen in the world with a complete circle of solid iridium around the point".  Not even one Livermore ad in Am. Stat. featured his medal for these reasons.  Livermore probably didn't want to advertise his bronze medal on the same page as and in comparison with MacKinnon's gold medal.  Since Livermore's pen had a softer tip of platinum alloy, he also didn't want to draw attention to being third best.  I wonder who got the silver medal.  ;~)

I haven't been able to find an ad that shows your 1879 medal, but I did find some Livermore ads from 1886 that show their "Grand Prize" medal from the 1885 "International Inventions Exhibition" in London.  There are three ads in Am. Stat. that show this 1885 medal, and they appear on May 13, 20 and 27, 1886, pp.567, 597, and 629.  There might be more ads in June, and in the next volume for the second half of the year, but both of those pieces of the puzzle are missing from Google Books.

George Kovalenko.



Lewis Carrol's Writing Instruments
Ron Dutcher has mentioned on several occasions that he is working on a book on Mark Twain's Pens.  The various chapters will deal with the pencils, steel pens, quills, stylographs, fountain pens, and typewriters that Twain owned and used.  Well, here's a reference I ran across lately to Lewis Carroll's pens that's sort of in the same blood line, for Lewis also was a lover of "toys and gadgets", and "peculiar Victorian devices".

The reference from which those quotes are taken is Jenny Woolf's book, The Mystery Of Lewis Carroll.  She deduced all this when she recently discovered Carroll's detailed bank account and financial records in the archive of a large modern financial institution that absorbed Carroll's old bank.  The records kept in those days were much more detailed than they are now, and recorded all the names of the people and the businesses he dealt with and what exactly he purchased.  Other items were also mentioned in his letters and his diaries.  On p.129 of her book she writes that his "capacious cupboards...were full of treasures" such as a mechanical bear that spoke, a flying bat driven by elastic bands, musical boxes, a mechanical barrel organ called an "orguinette" that played piano rolls, which he loaded backwards and played in reverse, a hand-propelled "Velociman" tricycle for adult invalids, and one of the earliest typewriters.  He also invented "novelties" himself, such as a "contraption for writing in bed at night in the dark".  But best of all, on p.282 she writes that he was "an eager purchaser" of such peculiar Victorian devices as "the Stylographic pen".  She doesn't state which brand of stylo it was, but both MacKinnon and Cross stylographs were sold under that name.  He probably also used wooden pencils, and pen and pencil cases, and quills, and steel pens in penholders, and maybe even some early fountain pens, but someone is going to have to read all his letters and diaries and financial records to glean that neglected, and overlooked, or even discarded information.

George Kovalenko.