Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1889-08-21
RIGHr TO rHEpoINr.
Traditions and Technique of the
Pln-The Head That Used to
OFF

Come OFF.
Not the modern pin, but its less deli
cate predecessor we hear of in old vorld
talesl 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 10 the middle of the six
/ teenth century, people made use OF
/ skewers of wood forthis purpose, though
there were pins of gold, silver and
/ brass.
But IL was not until about 1925 that
pin manufacture In England became a
settled thing. In 14S3, that such an in
dustry might best be fostered, the i'm
portation of pins was prohibited by
public statute. But the law became
very much OF dead letter, and ~ late
rs 1910 there Is cvidcu~e thss - least
one of the royal family WIS in the habit
of receiving her pins from France. For
at that time very large proportion of
those of English manufacture were
made of iron wire, blanched or whiten-
ed, and passed off rs the good quality
brass pin. Three years later this act
was declared.
No person shall put TO sale any pinnes
but only such rs shall be double-head-
ed, and have the heads soldered fast to
the shank of the pInnes, well smoothed,
the shank well shapen, the points well
and round filed, canted and sharpened.
To-day England is the greatest pin
making country in the world Its pro-
duct Is something like fifty million pins
year, and Birmingham Is the centre,
with an outturn of 81, 900, 900. There
are made the pins of the old trade marks
and the great regulations. and 1t mat
ters not that America is able to prodpce
exactly Us good; very many papers of
these are always sulable here.
In this country the first attempt at
pin manufacturing was made soon after
the war of 1912. Then, with wartime
prices. paper of pins sold for 81, and
they were of inferior quality to pins
bringing now but six cents. The first
place of manufacturing was in the old
States prison in that part of New York
known as Greenwich Village. The en-
terprise WAS soon abandoned, but the
plant vas used elsewhere. In 1884 the
first solid headed pin machinery was in
vented. but IL was several years later
before it was actually put into opera
tion.
Beyond mechanical improvements in
execution and finish the difference be-
tween the old and the present pin is
thus IN the heads. The ''spun" head
was of n finer wire thRn the shank 1t
WIS wound around a lathe into a spiral
Three turns of the spiral cut off fur
nished the head for one pin. The heads,
then annealed, were shaped by n ham
mer. Each, taken up upon pin wire
this introduced, point dOwuwards, in
Il g. .1,., Il
by "A hammers blow. Nowadays the
pin machine, the bit of wire having been
sharpened and filed, by q carrier takes
it TO the first heading die. Here a steel
punch forces one end of 1t into "A recess,
where the head Is partially formed, and
another heading die = little further on
completes the work. Thus the making
of the head Of the solid-headed pit
Brass Is now, as ever, the most ap-
proved material Iron and steel have
been tried, but iron and steel VIII rust
After the filing and the heading the
brass pins 60 into bath or sulutiOn 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" rs = pin man puts
1t, gone. And no wonder, for the ia
panning process IN its latter stages Is
that OF baking IN an oven Quite re-
Gently, however, a new method has been
devised A brass pin Is coated over
with black nickel wash No quality
of temper Is destroyed, and the neces-
sary lustre Is obtained
But the pin trade isn't growing. APP
preciably, 1t has no greater volume
than in lSS0. The calculation was then
made that every man, woman and child
IN America used IA pins year. Why
no more are used now Is explained by
the fact OF there being So very many
safety pins to take their place These
latter, IN fact, form . seperate business,
and since their invention eighteen years
ago have popularized rapidly.