Bruce Wicks loves his pens and loves putting in long hours to tell people all about them, including the technology that went in to the early ones, after the quills became somewhat obsolete. They aren’t obsolete to a man who has devoted his life to the tool which has allowed mankind to spread knowledge all over the world.
The Times spoke with Bruce about how the holiday period kept him busy this year and about his passion.
“I was open seven days a week for 13 hours a day and was even open Christmas Day.” He said. “I was surprised as I had more visitors on Christmas Day. Last year on Christmas Day when I opened I only had one, but this year I had quite a few people and that gave them entertainment for the day because no one else was open.
“I’ve observed this year that there is an awful lot of people doing tours of the countryside and they hadn’t gone overseas spending their money and I put that down to the suppressed economy and people are doing it tough. People are doing it tough right around the world.
“There’s a lot of people in vans and a lot of people staying in the local accommodation because Gundagai is well known for the saturation of the accommodation here and you have to book ahead in Gundagai to get a room.
“Our Pen Museum is rather unique as there’s only two other Pen Museums in the world. One was built last year in Italy, it was the first in Bermingham in England and this one is nothing like the other two just by the contents and not only that but the antiquity of the building as well.
“This building was built by Mr Fry. He built the hotel over the road and he also built this assembly hall and this was known as Fry’s assembly hall, he completed this is 1881.
“It is the original brickwork and it’s called the English bond which is common for thick brick wall. The bricks are butted up together to create the width and that keeps the wall stabilised as it’s such a heavy structure and it’s also tied by the bars so one can’t move independent of the other so it balances.
“I’m also very grateful that the original owner or builder put Australian cedar on the ceiling and he shellacked it and didn’t paint it. Had he painted it you would be forever up there painting it. It still has the original sheen on it as well.
“I have a favourite pen in the Museum, it’s the Paul E Wirt.
“Paul E Wirt was the very early pioneer of the fountain pen. He was American. He was a doctor and his mansion was in Bloomsworth. He went back to 1878. He goes back so far that George Parker actually worked for Paul E Wirt. That’s how George Parker learnt how to make fountain pens.
“Paul E Wirt couldn’t stop his fountain pens from leaking and Parker had his ideas about how to do that, but he wasn’t going to share it with his boss, so he borrowed money and he went out on his own in 1888 and that was the beginning of the Parker Pen Company which everybody knows.
“He patented the Lucky Curve mechanism in 1893 and that was just a little pipe that comes up the fountain pen and it just had a bend over it, not a shepherds hook, but it just had a slight bend over it, and that one was successful and really, to those modern fountain pens, they are all made the same as that one back in 1893, except they don’t put a little curve on it, it just has a straight pipe.
“My favourite is the Paul E Wirt 1903 Abalone Slab. The pen maker didn’t do the jewellery work, that was sent to a jeweller and the jeweller performed that task. They decorated and cut the slabs and I don’t know if it was ever recorded which jeweller did the work. The pen maker got the credit for it. They were quite expensive and when you look at the receipt, 1898, and that receipt is $37.60. That was a lot of money in 1898. That is why only wealthy people could afford to buy these new writing pens.
“Our Museum has close to 1000 pens and various other paraphernalia. I have documents. The oldest document I have is 1569 and that is written on velum, which is calf skin and no modern French person can actually translate it because it’s an old language. In 1569 if a document was written in the north of France, people in the south of France would not have been able to read it anyway.
“Another document we have is a prenuptial agreement. This is parchment, which is calf skin and it has been written with a quill and this sets out that these two are not married yet, so they were able to write that document out and it is witnessed by no less than four different witnesses and it sets out which of their children would inherit their properties.
“The only way she would have had property to start with is because her husband (as she talks about children), so obviously she was previously married and the husband has passed away and left her the property.
“Back in those times when a woman had to marry she had to hand all her possessions over to her husband. That was the law, it wasn’t anybody’s choice. That was in 1767.”
Bruce is open at 8am and closes at 9pm every day.
“The reason I do that is people are staying, I reiterate that Gundagai is saturated as far as accommodation goes, but when the sun goes down and people like to go for a walk and there’s nobody open, I’m open, so it gives them something to do.”
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