I’ve been searching all over the web for a metal pen picture I know is out there. It seems to have gone the way of some other historic metal pen pictures. If you’re like me you’re another scribe wanting to know metal pens and nibs are pre-17th Century.

While metal pens and nibs have roots in ancient Egypt where they were made of copper or bronze those did not have the writing quality of their common reed pens. All the way through the 18th-century metal pens seem to have been made as unique or luxury items.

If you’re curious, Ian the Green has more information you’ll want to check out on pre-17th Century metal pens.

You find history’s first hint of metal nibs in a 1792 ad, The Times offering ‘New invented’ metal pens. Then in 1822, John Mitchell of Birmingham, England, began making large quantity steel pen nibs. They were easily produced, affordable, had uniform tip sizes, outlasted quills, and didn’t need recutting. They soon became the favored, replacing the long-serving feather quill.

Pointed Nibs showing flexed and unflexed strokes. Click on the image for the attribution.