A CERTAIN IMPROVE- MENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF METALLIC PENS, AND A CERTAIN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PENHOLDERS
Year: 1842

page_text: MITCHELL'S SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
MITCHELL, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Steel Pen Manufac-
turer, send greeting.
WHEREAS I did, by petition, humbly represent unto Her present most
Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, that I had invented "A CERTAIN IMPROVE-
MENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF METALLIC PENS, AND A CERTAIN IMPROVEMENT
IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PENHOLDERS," and Her said Majesty, being willing
to give encouragement to all arts and inventions which may be for the public
good, was graciously pleased, by Her Royal Letters Patent under the Great
Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster, the Eighth day of
November, One thousand eight hundred and forty-two, in the sixth year of Her
reign, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, to give and grant unto me, the
said John Mitchell, my executors, administrators, and assigns, Her especial
license, full power, sole privilege, and authority, that I or they, by myself or
themselves, or by my or their deputies, servants, or agents, or such others as I
or they should agree with, and no others, during the term of fourteen years
from the date of the said Letters Patent, should and lawfully might make, use,.
exercise, and vend my said Invention within that part of Her said Majesty's
Dominions called England and Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
in such manner as to me, my executors, administrators, and assigns, shall seem
meet, and as that I or they shall enjoy the whole profit and advantage arising
by reason of the said Invention during the said term of fourteen years; and for
that end Her said Majesty requires and strictly commands all Her subjects

page_text: whatsoever within Her dominions aforesaid, that they shall not, neither directly
nor indirectly, make use or put in practise my said Invention, or any part
thereof, nor in anywise counterfeit, imitate, or resemble the same, nor make
any addition thereto or subtraction therefrom, whereby to pretend himself or
themselves to be the inventor or inventors thereof; and whereas the said Letters
Patent contain a proviso, obliging me, the said John Mitchell, particularly to
describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, and to cause the same to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court
of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent, as in and by the same (reference being thereunto
had) will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Mitchell, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described and
ascertained in manner following, and by the aid of the one Sheet of Drawings
hereunto annexed (that is to say) :-
The object to be attained by either of my improvements is to avoid the
inconvenience that is frequently experienced from metallic or steel pens being
used in penholders which are not exactly fitted to the steel pens in respect of
the hollow curvature of that part of the pen which is held in the penholder, and
which part is commonly termed the barrel part of the pen, in consequence of
its answering to what is called the barrel of a quill, that barrel being a hollow
cylindrical tube which is preserved entire in the making and using of an
ordinary quil pen, except as regards the lower part towards the nib, where the
barrel is cut away obliquely at one side, so as to leave only half or less than a
half of the circumference of the complete tube; and although steel pens are
not usually made with a complete tube, but merely with a hollow concave
of about one-third portion of the circumference of a complete cylindrical
tube, the term barrel is nevertheless retained, to designate that hollow
concave portion of a tube or barrel of a steel pen which is inserted into 8
the penholder and held fast therein, in order that the penholder may serve as
a handle to hold the pen by with the fingers and thumb when writing. And
in case (as very frequently happens) the curvature of the hollow concave part
or barrel of the pen does not correspond to the curvature of the socket of the
holder, wherein the said barrel part is to be inserted and held, then the incon- 3
venience arises which it is the object of my improvement in the manufacture
of steel pens, or of my improvement in the manufacture of penholders, to
avoid, the inconvenience being either that the pen, if strong and rigid in its
barrel part, cannot be inserted into the penholder so as to be held therein, or.

page_text: else, if the pen is yielding and elastic, and is inserted by force into the holder
and held fast therein, an alteration of the curvature of the barrel part of the
pen is produced by the force of so inserting the pen and holding the same in
the holder, which force causes a distortion of the whole pen, and interferes with
the proper and intended action of the nib in writing therewith.
The manner whereby my improvement in the manufacture of metallic pens
obviates the said inconvenience is, that the barrel part of the metallic or
steel pen, which part is to be inserted or partly inserted and held fast in the
holder, is, according to my said improvement, cut or perforated with openings or
slits in any suitable manner for enabling the said barrel part to alter its curva-
ture readily, so that the said part may yield easily, in order to accommodate its
curvature to the curvature of the penholder; and other openings or slits must
also be cut laterally in each side of the pen, so as to partly separate the barrel
part thereof from the nib part at each side of those parts respectively. The
said lateral openings or slits being so disposed that any alteration of the
curvature of the barrel part of the pen, which may be occasioned by the force
of inserting and holding that barrel part fast in the holder, shall not, in con-
sequence of the said lateral openings or slits, have any effect upon the
curvature of the nib part of the pen to alter or affect the curvature of that
said part. The manner of disposing openings, perforations, or slits in the
barrel part of metallic or steel pens, and openings or slits at each side of
such pens between the barrel part and the nib part thereof, suitably for the
purpose aforesaid may be very greatly varied and for illustration thereof
several metallic pens are represented in the Drawing hereunto annexed, by
way of example. For instance, the metallic or steel pen marked 1 in the
said Drawing has its lower or nib part a formed in the usual manner of
metallic or steel pens, or with any variation from that usual manner which
may be preferred, the improvement having no reference to the said lower
or nib part a, by which the ink is to be held and the writing performed,
but only having reference to the upper or barrel part 6 of the pen, which
is to be inserted into the penholder, and to the partial separation of one
of those parts a from the other 6 by means of lateral openings or slits, as
herein-before mentioned, that is to say, the said two parts a and b are so
much separated one from the other by means of lateral openings or slits c, c,
at each side of the pen, as that the nib part a will not be affected or its curva-
ture altered by any such alteration of the curvature of the barrel part b, as may
occasioned by forcibly inserting and holding the said barrel part 6 in a pen-
holder whereof the curvature does not correspond to the curvature of the said
barrel part b. But note, it is not essential that the direction of the said lateral
b

page_text: openings or slits should be exactly at right angles to the length of the pen as
is represented at c, c, in the pen marked 1; for the said openings or slits
may be in an inclined direction, and either inclining upwards or inclining
downwards, as is sufficiently explained in the pen marked A at e, e, or in the pen
marked B at f, f. In either of the three cases, the effect of such lateral
openings or slits will be to make a partial separation of the upper and lower
parts b and a of the pen, whether the direction of the said lateral openings or
slits is like c, c, or like e, e, or like f, f. Wherefore the said lateral openings or
slits c, c, or e, e, or f, f, are part of my said improvement, when the same are
used in combination with openings or slits in the barrel part 6 of the same
pen. For instance, the barrel part 6 of the said metallic pen 1 is cut with an
opening or slit d, which consists of a longitudinal opening or slit along the
middle of the barrel part b, and a transverse opening or slit conjoining with
the said longitudinal opening or slit at each of the ends thereof. The effect
of the said opening or slit d in the barrel part 6 is to permit the said part 6 to
yield easily in respect to its curvature, so that the said curvature may accom-
modate itself to the curvature of the penholder; but, nevertheless, in conse-
quence of the lateral openings or slits c, c, any such yielding of the barrel
part 6 will not have any effect on the nib part a. The other Figures of pens in
the Drawing require very little explanation, as they are only variations of the
manner of disposing the openings or slits in the barrel part b, the lateral
openings or slits c, c, being the same or nearly the same in all the Figures; but
note, they might be the same as e, e, or as f, f, in all these Figures. In the
pen marked 2, the longitudinal opening or slit & in the barrel part 6 does not
conjoin with the transverse opening or slit at one end of it, although it does
conjoin with the transverse opening or slit at the other end of it; but the pen
might be made without any conjoining of the longitudinal opening or slit d
with either of the transverse openings or slits. In the pen marked 3, the
longitudinal opening or slit is not conjoined at all with the transverse opening
or slit, and there is only one such transverse opening or slit. In the pen marked
4, there are three longitudinal openings or slits side by side, and a transverse
opening or slit across each of the ends of all the said three, but not conjoining
with them. In the pen marked 5, there are two longitudinal openings or
slits with short transverse enlargements at each end of each opening, but
the two openings are not conjoined. In the pen marked 6, there are two
curved or crescent-shaped slits, disposed in a longitudinal direction, and
two other like slits in a transverse direction, one of the latter conjoining
with the said two slits, which are longitudinal. Note, the slits are only shewn
by dark lines, as no metal is removed to leave any opening. In the pen

page_text: marked 7, there is a longitudinal opening in the middle of the barrel part,
and a crescent-shaped slit disposed longitudinally on each side of the said
longitudinal opening, also another crescent-shaped slit in a transverse direction,
the said slits and opening not being conjoined. In the pen marked 8, there is
an opening of a zig-zag form cut out in the barrel part b, as is plainly shewn.
In the pen marked 9, there is a longitudinal slit in the middle with a curved
slit at each side thereof, also curved slits disposed crossways at each end, but
the several slits do not conjoin. In the pen marked 10, there is a series of
small openings cut in the barrel part 6, each opening being partly in a longi-
tudinal and partly in a transverse direction, but each opening is distinct and is
not conjoined with any of the others. In the pen marked 11, there are two
crescent-shaped slits disposed longitudinally, but conjoining and intersecting
at their convex parts, so as to form a longitudinal opening in the middle of the
barrel part of the pen; and there is also a crescent-shaped slit in a transverse
direction, but which does not conjoin with the others. In the pen marked 12,
there are two crescent-shaped slits in a longitudinal direction, which do not
conjoin one with the other, and although they may appear in the Drawing to
conjoin at one end of each with the lateral openings or slits c, c, they only
approach very near thereto, and do not actually conjoin therewith; there is also
a crescent-shaped slit disposed in a transverse direction, and which does not
conjoin with the other slits. In the pen marked 13, there are four crescent-
shaped openings, two of them disposed in a longitudinal and the other two in
a transverse direction, but the said openings do not conjoin. In the pen
marked 14, there are two openings, each of which is partly longitudinal and
partly transverse, and they are disposed as is plainly shewn, but without
conjoining one with another. In the pen marked 15, there are two longi-
tudinal openings, with short transverse enlargements at each end of each
opening, very similar to those in the pen marked 5, but reversed as to the
relative positions of the said two openings, one in respect to the other. In the
pen marked 16, there are five longitudinal openings, side by side, but not con-
joined. In the pen marked 17 there are two crooked openings in a longitudinal
direction and one curved opening in a transverse direction, as is plainly shewn,
but they are not conjoined. In the pen marked 18, there is a broad opening
cut out in a longitudinal direction, as is apparent in the Drawing. And note,
although the lower or nib part of the several pens are represented with some
small differences, that is immaterial to my improvement, as the nib part of any
of the pens may be formed in any way that metallic pens are or can be formed,
as already mentioned. The metallic pen marked 19 is of that kind which is
made with a cylindrical or nearly cylindrical barrel resembling the barrel or

page_text: quill of a quill pen, except inasmuch as that a longitudinal slit or opening is
left open along one side of the cylindrical barrel, the lateral openings or slits
c, c, are the same as herein-before described in all the pens, marked 1 to 18,
and the opening d in the barrel part is very similar to that in the pen marked 1.
The metallic pen marked 20 is similar to the last, except as to size, and the
above description, together with the Figure, will render it clear how the open-
ings are to be cut. In the metallic pen marked 21, the two lateral openings
or slits c, c, are the same as in all the other pens marked 1 to 20, and the
longitudinal opening d in the barrel part is of the same nature with that
already described in reference to the pen marked 1, except as respects the
size and proportion of the opening. In the metallic pen marked 22, the barrel
part 6 is cut out with an opening, whereof the general course is longitudinal,
but it has several short branches proceeding laterally from it at opposite sides
alternately, as is plainly shewn, and in such manner as will render the barrel
part 6 susceptible of yielding easily as to its curvature. In the pen marked
23, the barrel part 6 is perforated with a number of holes or openings of a
diamond shape, and also transverse openings disposed as in the Figure, but
without conjoining one hole or opening with another. In the pen marked 24,
the barrel part 6 is perforated with a number of round or oblong holes or
openings, disposed as in the Figure. In the pen marked 25, the barrel part b
is cut with several crooked openings, disposed transversely one above another,
but without conjoining. In the pen marked A, the barrel part 6 is cut with a
longitudinal opening or slit d along the middle and branches, diverging from
each end thereof in oblique directions corresponding to the oblique directions
of the lateral openings or slits e, e; and in the pen marked B the barrel
part bis cut with a longitudinal opening or slit d along the middle and
branches, diverging from each end thereof in oblique directions corresponding
to the oblique directions of the lateral openings or slits f. f. But note, the
lateral openings or slits c, c, in any of the pens which are marked with
numeral characters in the Drawing, might be cut in the oblique directions
shewn at e, e, or at f, f, instead of being cut in the direction shewn at c, c,
provided that in each case of oblique direction being given to the lateral
openings or slits, as e, e, or f, f, that they do not, in consequence of their
oblique direction, approach too near to the openings or slits or perforations
which are made in the barrel part b; but that sufficient strength of metal will
be left, as is represented in the Drawing, in each case respectively, but that
between the lateral openings or slits c, c, or e, e, or f, f, and the openings, slits,
or perforations in the barrel part b.
It would be useless to describe or represent further examples of the modes

page_text: b
whereby the barrel part 6 may be cut or perforated with openings, perforations,
or slits, as the said modes may be varied according to any pattern or device
which fancy may suggest, provided that the barrel part 6 of the pen is ren-
dered yielding and flexible as to its curvature, and at the same time retains
sufficient strength for holding the pen by. And the same may be said of the
lateral openings or slits c, c, or e, e, or f, f, in any of the pens, they may be
mere slits without any metal being removed, or may be narrow openings, as
represented in the Figures, or they may be openings of any other kind or shape,
which being cut out from each side of the pen, and extending partly across
the width thereof, will have the effect of partially separating the barrel part b
of the pen which is inserted into the penholder from the nib part a, by which
the ink is to be held, and the writing performed, that is to say, separating the
said parts a and b, so much as that any alteration of the curvature of the
barrel
part 6, which may result from holding the same in the penholder, will
not effect the curvature of the nib part a, or distort the nib, so as to interfere
with its proper and intended action in writing, at the same time that the
metal which is left, notwithstanding such cutting of the lateral openings or
slits c, c, or e, e, or f, f, will give sufficient strength to the pen for holding the
same and writing therewith..
And the manner whereby my improvement in the manufacture of penholders
obviates the inconvenience herein-before mentioned of metallic pens being
forcibly inserted and held in penholders, whereof the curvature does not cor-
respond to the curvature of the barrel part of the penholder, is that the pen-
holder is, according to my said improvement in the manufacture thereof, cut
with slits or openings, in any suitable manner, for giving so much expansibility
to that part of the penholder which is to receive and hold the barrel part
of the pen, as that the said barrel part will not have its curvature altered by
being inserted and held fast in the penholder, because the penholder will
yield or expand in consequence of being so cut with openings, and will thereby
accomodate its curvature to that of the barrel part of the pen without dis-
torting or altering the curvature of the said barrel part so as to injure the
action of the nib part of the pen, that is, supposing the pen is not made
according to my improvement, but in the common manner, with the barrel
part of the pen rigid and unyielding as to the curvature of its barrel part,
in such case penholders manufactured according to my improvement therein
are to be used, in order that such penholders may yield and accomodate
their curvature to the curvature of the barrel part of the pen; but when
pens manufactured according to my improvement therein are to be used,
then ordinary penholders may be used for such pens, because the barrel

page_text: part of such pens, so manufactured according to my improvement therein,
will yield and accomodate their curvature to the curvature of the ordinary
penholder.
The manner of disposing slits or openings in penholders for such purpose may
be greatly varied, and for illustration thereof five penholders are represented in
the Drawing, by way of example. For instance, in the penholder marked 26,
the outer shell r of the penholder is divided longitudinally by an opening or
slit s in the middle, and that slit conjoins at its upper end with an opening t
disposed in a transverse direction, by that means the said outer shell r is as
it were divided into two parts, which can yield easily one in respect to the
other, or expand so as to accomodate themselves to suit the curvature of the
barrel part of the metallic pen which is inserted in the holder in the usual
manner of ordinary penholders, and held firmly between the said expansible
outer shell r and the interior shell of the penholder, which interior shell is shewn
atv beneath the penholder marked 26, and although the curvature of the said
interior shell v being as usual is not susceptible of yielding, and although it
may not conform to the curvature of the barrel part of the pen which is
inserted and held in the holder, nevertheless the outer shell r, in consequence
of being divided by the opening or slit s, t, according to my improvement, will
yield and accomodate itself to the curvature of the barrel part of the pen
without altering that curvature so as to distort or injure the action of the nib
part of the pen. The other four penholders, marked 27, 28, 29, and 30, are
similar to that already described, except as to the form of the opening t,
which is crescent-shaped in the penholders 27 and 28, and angular-shaped
in 29 and 30; in each case the said opening t conjoins with the upper end
of the longitudinal opening or slit s.
Having now described my said improvements, I, the said John Mitchell,
do hereby declare that what I claim as new Invention is,-First, the improve-
ment herein-before described in the manufacture of metallic pens, which
improvement consists in cutting openings or slits in the barrel part of such
pens, or that part thereof which is inserted and held in the penholder, the
said openings or slits being suitably disposed for the purpose of allowing
the said barrel part (or so much thereof as is inserted and held in the holder)
to yield in its curvature, so as to suit and accomodate itself to the curvature
of the penholder, as herein-before described, and also in combination with
such openings or slits, as aforesaid, cutting other openings or slits laterally
on each side of the pen, so as to partly separate the barrel part thereof from
the nib part at each side of those parts respectively; such lateral openings or
slits being disposed, as herein before described, so as to permit of the yielding