I'm not sure if this belongs solidly in The Nib, but bear with me. It's my interest in pens and writing that prompts me to post it.
The note on the left reads, "Please send me a watch, $1 enclosed...Mark Twain". The other is from a couple of weeks later and reads, "Please send me another watch. Obliged"...S.L. Clemens.
I had a free pass to the Timexpo museum, a small corporate history museum for Timex in Waterbury, CT. It has some items of interest, although I won't guarantee that it's worth the usual admission fee. What Sam Clemens, or Mark Twain as we usually know him, was ordering was one of the famous Ingersoll Dollar watches, an affordable pocket watch good enough for anyone who didn't need precision timekeeping, and who didn't mind setting it every day. He must have liked the first one, since he ordered the second. Ingersoll has a place in the corporate ancestry of Timex.
As many around here know, Mark Twain was also a user (and endorser) of Conklin Crescent fountain pens, which can be found in restorable vintage condition, and are also available in a decent modern replica. I'd like to think that these notes were written with one of his Conklins, but suspect that they were not. They date from 1901, which was the year that the patent on the Crescent was granted, and there had been some earlier models, but I don't think they were being widely marketed yet. Still, you never know.
A tourist attraction in Hartford is Mark Twain's preserved house. I've never taken the tour, but if I ever do, it will be interesting to see what personal artifacts of his have been preserved.
The note on the left reads, "Please send me a watch, $1 enclosed...Mark Twain". The other is from a couple of weeks later and reads, "Please send me another watch. Obliged"...S.L. Clemens.
I had a free pass to the Timexpo museum, a small corporate history museum for Timex in Waterbury, CT. It has some items of interest, although I won't guarantee that it's worth the usual admission fee. What Sam Clemens, or Mark Twain as we usually know him, was ordering was one of the famous Ingersoll Dollar watches, an affordable pocket watch good enough for anyone who didn't need precision timekeeping, and who didn't mind setting it every day. He must have liked the first one, since he ordered the second. Ingersoll has a place in the corporate ancestry of Timex.
As many around here know, Mark Twain was also a user (and endorser) of Conklin Crescent fountain pens, which can be found in restorable vintage condition, and are also available in a decent modern replica. I'd like to think that these notes were written with one of his Conklins, but suspect that they were not. They date from 1901, which was the year that the patent on the Crescent was granted, and there had been some earlier models, but I don't think they were being widely marketed yet. Still, you never know.
A tourist attraction in Hartford is Mark Twain's preserved house. I've never taken the tour, but if I ever do, it will be interesting to see what personal artifacts of his have been preserved.
