SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | MARCH 2018 9
By Dick Roppé, Resident
My mother had a penchant for boxing.
Not with gloves but with actual boxes. She
saved a lot of "stuff." Granted, much of it was
in the form of family heirlooms. I really paid
more attention to the documents that related
to genealogy than the various artifacts she
stored.
Well, (no pun intended here) I was going
through one of those boxes and ran across
an old desktop inkwell. It had to have come
from my grandfather's cache. There were
markings on the bottom that begged further
inquiry. After some searching I ran across a
website that showed various markings used
to identify ceramics. Turns out the inkwell
was made by Rookwood Pottery founded
in 1880 by Maria Longworth Nichols Storer.
This particular inkwell was made in 1921.
I felt more probing was required. Just
how long have writers been writing and with
what? It probably started when the first cave
woman took a rock and scratched a honey-
do list on a cave wall.
Early systems of writing go back as far as
6000 BC. Prior to 539 BC, Babylonians used
a triangular stylus to write in soft clay that
was then baked. Big problem! These tablets
made it difficult for book clubs.
It is known that some of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, dating back to 100 BC, were written
with quills. Quill pens, made from the flight
feathers of large birds, held the ink that
flowed to the tip. The popularity of quills
lasted until the 19th century when the first
pens with metal nibs - or tips - appeared.
The fountain pen was invented in 1827,
the ballpoint pen in 1888 and improved
upon in 1938. More recently we've seen the
advent of the felt-tip marker, highlighters
and roller ball pen.
I did contact a pottery dealer and found
out that there is a big market for collectibles
such as grandpa's inkwell. And by the way,
in the world of what goes around, comes
around, the stylus is back. And it can be
used on a tablet!
All's Well That Ends Well!
