The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-09-04
PINS In ALL AGES.
THEY RUN UP TO COUNTLESS MIL
LIONS NoW, BUT ONCE WERE RABE.
Points on a ShapeIy Female Figure
Baths and Excrcise-A Joke on n
Naval Officer, and One on a Teacher
A Fable from Smyrna.

tales. The Egyptians themselves used
something of the kind, and among the
Romans, so the records say, there were
pins of bronze, with ornamented head,
from one to eight inches long; and, also
they were made of ivory, bone or WOOD.
In England, up to the middle of the SIX
teenth century, people made use Oh
skewers of wood for this purpose, though
there were pins of gold, silver and brass.
But it was not until about 1926 that the
pin manufacture in England became q
settled thing. In 1883, that such an IN
dustry might best be fostered, the inn
p~ortation of pins was prohibited by public
statute. But the law became very much
of q dead letter, and as late as 1910 there
is evidence that at least one of the royal
family was in the habit of receiving her
pins from France. For at that time a
very large proportion OF those or Engllsh
manufacture were made OF iron WIRE,
blanched or whitened, and passed off as
the good quality brass pin. Three years
later this act was declared
mo person shall put to sale any p1nneS
but only such as shall be double-headed,
and have the heads soldered fast to the
shank of the pinnes, well smoothed, the
Sllttuh well ouapGht JIG POIhec y HAA
round filed, canted and s~harpened."
Today England is the greatest pin-mak-
ing country of the world. Its product is
something like $4,000 900 pins a year, nj
Birmingham is the centre, with an out
turn of $4,000, 900. There are made the
pins of the old trade marks and the great
regulations, and it matters not that Amer
lea is able to groduce exactly as good;
very many papers of these are always
saleable here. The old form of pin, for
tunately obsolete, spoken OF nowadays as
the ''pin of the old German head" was
what was made in the early days OF the
industry in the United States. The era OF
the solid headed pin of now dates from
somewhere in the eighteen thirties. The
old pin has been wisely described as "a
shank with a separate head of fine wire
twisted around it," This head, variously
known as a ''spun head" or a wound
head" would sometimes fit on tightly and
Their again loosely. So apt was it to com
entirely away from the shank that among
the old women of early in the century this
popular warning to children arose:-
''Don't scratch your ear with the heed of
q pin, if you do the he8du come of and
make you deaf"
In this country the first attempt at pin
manufacturing was made soon after the
war OF 1912. Then, with war time prices,
a paper of pins sold for 81, and they were
of inferior quality to pins bringing now
but six cents. The first place OF manu-
featuring was in the old States Prison In
that part Of New York known as Green
witch Village. This enterprise was soon
abandoned, but the plant was used else
where. In 1924 the first solid headed pin
machinery was invented, but it was sew
eraI years later before it was actually put
into operation. Beyond mechanical i'm
provements in execution n finish the
difference between the old and the pres
ent pin is thus in the heads. The Spun"
head was of a finer wire than the shank.
1t was wound around a lathe into a spiral.
Three turns of the spiral cutoff furnished
the head for one pin. The heads, when
annealed, were shaped by a hammer,
Each taken up upon a pin wire-this in
troduced point downward, in a hole, the
| centre of a die-was secured by O ham,
mer's blow. Nowadays the pin machine,
the bit of wire having been s~harpened
and filed by u carrier. takes it to the first
heading die. Here a steel punch forces
! one end of it into a recess, where the head
is partially formed, and another heading
| die a little further OF completes the work.
Thus making the head of the solid headed
pin. !.
Brass is now, as ever, the most approved
material. Iron and steel have been tried,
but iron and steel win rust. After the
filing and the heading, the brass pins go
into a bath or solution of tin, from which
they come of silvery appearance. Many
of the mourning pins one sees, however,
are of iron wire japanned. And thereby
is all their temper or spring as d pin
man puts it, gone. And no wonder, for
the japanning process in its latter stages
is that of baking in an oven. Quite re-
Gently, however, a new method has been
a block-nickel wash. No quality of tenn
per Is destroyed and the necessary lustre
is obtained. But the pin trade isn't grow
ing. Appreciably, it has no greater vol
ume than in 1880. The calculation was
then made that every man, woman and
| child in America used IA pins q year.
Why no more are used now is explained
by the fact Of there being so many safety
pins to take their place. These latter, in
fact, form d separate business, and since
their invention eighteen years ago have
popularized rapidly. The making up OF
the paper of p~ins-entirely by machinery
it isis in two ways. The American
stuck is fourteen rows of twenty pins
each, the English 'stuck" twelve row OF
thirty each.-AmcrtcGn analyst.
m cu-..n fy-nl Eg-x-~