August 2nd, 2019: Common Man’s Souvenir

[xoxoxoBruce]

If you go through your junk drawer(yes you do, everyone does) or your desk, you’ll probably find a lot of pens, and it’s a good bet
many will have writing on them. Be it advertising for the pen maker, or some business to hand out, or a souvenir.
Went to Vegas and came home with nothing but a free pen.
This 132mm(5.2in) iron stylus has writing and like a pen was used for writing ... in clay or wax... 2000 years ago.

“I have come from the city. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me. I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able [to give] as generously as the way is long [and] as my purse is empty,” it reads.

The message was inscribed on an iron stylus dating from around AD70, a few decades after Roman London was founded. The implement was discovered by Museum of London Archaeology during excavations for Bloomberg’s European headquarters next to Cannon Street station, on the bank of the river Walbrook, a now-lost tributary of the Thames.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” said Paul Roberts, curator of an exhibition titled Last Supper in Pompeii at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where the stylus is now on display until January 2020.

link

Bonus...
Speaking of writing implements, this Parker Fountain Pen, (Pat 6-30-91 & 1-3-05) was given to my Grandmother by my Grandfather
on their wedding day in 1907. Black bakelite, with gold trim and eight Mother-of-Pearl facets. This puppy has a lot of miles on her,
as Gram had beautiful handwriting she was often solicited to write letters for others as well as her own correspondence.
She kept the records for the Ladies Aid Society at the church, and kept a daily diary/journal. As near as I can tell from the journals
she changed pens just after WW II. Even up into the 1970's she never liked ball point pens.