This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. The Steel Pen Trade. Soon after taking to the split-ring business, Mr. Mason added to it a new enterprise--that of steel pen making. At first the manufacture was conducted by him on a small scale, and was confined to the production of barrel pens; but after a little while it was extended, and by his connection with Mr. James Perry, the inventor of the Perryian pens, Mason became very largely engaged in the trade, and ultimately obtained the position of being the largest pen-maker in the world. It has been mentioned that his predecessor, Mr. Harrison, made steel pens for Dr. Priestley, as far back as the year 1780; but these were not in any sense articles of commerce. Early in the present century, however, barrel pens began to be made in Sheffield, in Staffordshire, and in Birmingham; and in 1828 Mason began to make them. Some time before this date--as early as 1825--Mr. James Perry had engaged in the pen trade in Manchester, and afterwards in London. He was thus in advance of Mitchell, or Gillott, or Mason; but his pens differed from theirs by not being entirely machine made. The blank was stamped, and was then filed into shape, and a mark for the slit was made while the STEEL PEN MAKING. 31 metal remained in a soft condition. After hardening, the pen was struck with a small hammer, and by thus cracking it at the place previously marked, the slit was formed. Pens thus made were, of course, much more costly than if they had been produced entirely by machinery. Mr. Perry not only made barrel pens, but also "slip" pens, for which goose quills were used as holders, but these were also slit in the manner above described. "Perry," Sir Josiah Mason says in a memorandum in the writer's possession, "was not the first maker of steel...