During the last public holiday long-weekend, I got the chance to visit the Ballarat Antiques Fair. Two hours’ drive outside of town was rewarded with two venues to visit, and dozens of stalls to peruse! A lot of the stuff on offer was fascinating, a great deal of it was extremely expensive ($1,200 for a silver card-case?), and all of it was very beautiful.

The fair had everything. Antique radios, inkwells, pocketwatches, watch chains, rings, silverware, carriage clocks, ceramics, a Victorian-era pudding-basin (why not?), posters, maps, jewelry and even some vintage clothing. But the item that I walked away from the fair with was a tiny little brass antique, small enough to fit into my pocket – and it’s adorable!

And here it is!

Made of brass, and filled with…most likely plaster…and topped with a stiff-bristled brush, this Victorian-era paperweight-and-pen-cleaner dates to around 1890-1910. At one time, fuzzy little devices like these could be found on well-appointed desktops all over the world, but while most people today will still know what an inkwell, a pen-tray, a letter-rack or stamp-box are for, and would recognise most of them in sight – the purpose of the pen-cleaner or ‘nib-wiper’, as they’re also called – has been largely lost from the public imagination of what constitutes a well-stocked Victorian-era desk.

What is a Pen Cleaner For?

Along with string-caddies, stamp-moisteners and blotter-pads, pen-cleaners were yet another desktop staple that used to be found on every well-appointed desk back in Victorian times. Their purpose was to remove the excess, or leftover ink from the nib of your pen. This saved you from fishing around for tissues or paper-towels, saving time, and reducing waste.

In the 1800s, the rise of the mass-produced, punch-pressed steel dip-pen made writing much easier and cheaper. Pens could be easily purchased in boxes of dozens each, which would last for weeks between uses. However, to make the pens so cheap, the steel that was used in their manufacture was usually cheap, brittle and prone to rusting. Constant contact with water-based ink caused the nibs to rust easily. In order to prolong the usefulness of their pens, writers had to keep their pens dry and clean between uses.

It’s for this reason that pen-wipers or pen-cleaners were invented. They were a simple, convenient way to remove the ink from the tip of your pen after writing, to stop the pen from rusting, if it had been used hard, and put away wet – since putting away a wet pen would literally cause it to start rusting.

Pen-cleaners ranged from the mundane to the fantastical. Cheap versions could easily be made from scrap cloth, more elaborate ones could be made of brass, or even silver. They came in all kinds of styles – chairs, boxes, animals…they were circular, rectangular…they came as part of desk-sets, along with inkwells and blotters…and their sole function was to remove ink from the tip of your pen.

In the 1890s and 1900s, with the rise of the fountain pen, pen-cleaners remained a popular desktop accessory, since they could still be used to wipe away the excess ink from the nib and feed of a pen, once it had been refilled in an inkwell. Again, this reduced, or even entirely eliminated the need – to find tissues to clean the pen.

Why Did I Buy It?

For one, it was very cheap. For two, it was in good condition, and for three, I’ve always wanted one!

I love collecting weird, whimsical, obscure antiques. Antiques which come with a story, or which require an explanation of some kind. It makes them more interesting if it’s not immediately obvious what they are.

Yet another reason why I bought it was because I’d been chasing after one of these for years, and I was thrilled to finally lay my hands on one. On top of that, I knew that it’d get a lot of good use out of me, and me, out of it, because of my daily use of fountain pens. I still need something to clean my nibs on, after all!

What Happened to Pen-Cleaners?

Pen-cleaners died out in the second half of the 1900s when people started using ballpoint pens. Like rocker-blotters and inkwells, all these other accessories were no-longer required to maintain or use a ballpoint pen, and so the pen-cleaner also saw a decline in use, until they eventually just faded into obscurity. There is a growing community of fountain pen collectors and users in the world today, though, so who knows? Perhaps the pen-cleaner might be due a revival, as a green, and convenient way to clean ink off of pen-nibs, without wasting so much paper?