IMPROVEMENTS IN LADIES' FANS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Ernest Kees at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd July 1879.
ERNEST KEES, of No. 46, Rue Poissonnière, in the City of Paris, in the Republic
of France, Fan Manufacturer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN LADIES' FANS."
The object of this Invention is to arrange the fan so that it will combine many
articles useful to ladies, and which they mostly now carry about them with
inconvenience.
Provided with my improved fan a lady may dispense with a variety of little
boxes and receptacles, more or less cumbersome, and as the articles which the fan
holds are completely hidden from sight without any apparent increase of its bulk,
it becomes much more useful, while its elegance is wholly preserved.
The various little necessaries held by the fan are enclosed in the two sticks, the
thickness of which is not however increased. For example, I may hollow out or
recess either of the sticks near the top, and form a sort of box divided into two
compartments, in one of which I may place a nail-file, in the other a small comb,
and I may shut them in by a lid hinged to the top of the stick, and secured by a
small pin or stud passing through it when closed.
I may however use any suitable kind of fastening; for example, instead of
making this cover to lift on a hinge, I may attach it to the stick by a pin so that it
may pivot or slide right or left to open the box, and be securely fastened by means
of a stud taking into a groove or slot in the stick, with sufficient friction to prevent
it from coming out accidentally.
The lids or covers of the recesses or compartments will appear simply as raised
or embossed ornaments upon the face of the sticks, and the joints or hinges either
be concealed or appear as parts of the ornamentation.
At the lower part of the stick I may also make another recess to hold say violet
powder, in which case I propose to provide the inside of the lid with a pad of satin
or other material, which will hermetically close the box when the hinged lid is
brought down.
I may also place a bottle of salts, or of any perfume, in a recess formed near the
top of the stick, shutting the bottle in with a sliding cover or panel, and fitting a
small hinged piece on the top of the stick, which may be thrown open, exposing the
stopper of the bottle when required.
may make the ball of the tassel hollow so as to form a compartment for
holding a powder puff, closing the compartment by a hinged lid or other suitable

page_text: cover; and I may fix a looking glass on the inner face of one of the lids, closing
any of the boxes or recesses in the sticks. I may also suspend a pencil within
the tassel, or conceal therein any useful article which may be similarly hung.
I might also utilize the handle of the fan-to enclose-a-variety-of-articles.-
It will be evident that I may form any suitable number of compartments in the
thickness of the sticks, that I cannot possibly enumerate all the useful articles, such
as_scissors, needle and thread, and others, which might thus be carried by my
combined fan and ladies' companion or chatelaine, and that the distinctive
characteristic of my Invention is mainly the utilization of the sticks of the fan
to hold a variety of articles without any very perceptible addition to the bulk of
the fan or decrease of elegance in its form or appearance.