For a time, I collected vintage stylographs, particularly ones made by rOtring, labeled as Tintenkuli.
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Impressive collection! Do you happen to have found also the MP version of the âKuliâ variety, the so-called rOtring Blei-Kuli?
In your pictures I see many members of the family, including some delicious ballpoint pens, but Iâm not sure I see a knock pencil in the bunch.
PS: I collect drafting supplies from the âgolden eraâ of hand-drawn projects (1900âs-1980âs) because Iâm in love with the idea of technical drawings made by humans with just their sheer ability, plus a crowd of ingenious aids of uncanny quality. So I try to gather as many templates, set squares, compass inserts, compass sets, normographs, and arcane analogue technologies as I can.
Alas, the variety of objects produced by the draughtsmen over the centuries is much bigger than that of MPâs, so mine is most certainly a lost cause, even though so far I managed to find an interesting sample of the things I originally intended to own, plus many weird add-ons I couldnât even imagine (still) existed somewhere. The journey goes onâŚ
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I have a small coin collection, too, but I stopped adding many years ago. I found out recently that the value increase is near zero (mainly German commemorative coins) âŚ
In school a friend of mine and me had a common collection of car pin needles (half of the class collected them, you got them at automotive fairs like IAA at Frankfurt). I donât know where the collection is, but the collecting domain seems to be dead now and we donât have lost a treasure 
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Thanks. It was built up over about a 5 year period. There were some marbleized celluloid models Iâd wanted but never managed to snag⌠but for the most part, got a majority of the colorways. The only real vexing thing about doing this was the stylo tips. As you can see, they came in a variety of shapes, from sharp conical to ellipsoid. One would think theyâd have standardized on a given screw thread setup, but I ended up encountering differences⌠and I donât know if that was by purposeful changes or if in aging the plastic contracted on some models. It meant you could not swap stylo tips on some models. VERY frustrating! But in the end⌠these are so rare, that it would be rather foolish to use the rarer celluloid ones, so the stylo tip not functional isnât as big a problem.
Yes, I was aware of the Blei-Kuli, but I didnât strive very hard to collect those. I had one and the mechanism was faulty, unable to be fixed⌠so I just assumed that theyâre mostly fragile and problematic to collect, versus the ballpoints.
Yes, the arena of drawing assist tools is fascinating. So many templates! Even ones for lettering and numbering in various fonts. The manual labor of creating worded graphics was a challenge for so many years. Computers have so greatly simplified it.
One thing that still has a âmystiqueâ for me on these old stylographs is the thought of who might have used them. And what events in history they may have been utilized. In one case I learned about, a stylograph was assisted in helping to locate the family of a holocaust survivor. LINK
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Hi Leonov, I managed to obtain a Blei Kuli on eBay back around 2018⌠It works well although there is some wear on the brass cone.
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A bit too much, to be frank.
Pencils pushed me slightly into the âEDCâ world, So i have plenty of multi tools, knives, flashlights. (thankfully not to the same expensive extent as mechanical pencils)
Pencils also pushed me into pens, so I have quite a few of those, pretty similar âcollection levelâ as pencils, frankly.
Sneaker head to some extent, though i stick to things that I know I will wear so thatâs not too bad (maybe 10 pairs)
And most recently, Mechanical Keyboards, I have about 3 of those⌠typing this chat on my most recent purchase 
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So much to take in, OMG 
I have only added ONE vintage Rapidograph Nr.3 which I have not dared to ink up yet. Got it mostly as a historical companion to the Blei Kuli and Tikk Kuli ballpoints⌠all with that thick red ring emblazoned with white engraved names.
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âNormographâ? Or is that a typo for the nomograph (a type of visual analog calculator)? Nomographs are cool.
I have way too many LPs and a whole lot of jackets, many are Carhartts but not all.
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Oh, and I have some Rapidographs myself.
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Ok, this deserves a few words.
I did intend ânormographâ in my reply, but I became aware soon after your post that this might be a linguistic interpolation (a made-up word, to be straightforward) rather than a real English term.
I know about nomographs, and I agree that they are really cool; they are a form of âfixed versionâ of a slide rule, but they offer the great advantage of allowing for more than two levels of interpolation. So far, my favourite nomographs are the ones coming with my Haff plastic ellipsographs, where I can pick two out of three measurements among major axis, minor axis, and projection angle/eccentricity of the ellipse, and the plot will provide the value for the third element swiftly and precisely, to set the system correctly and deliver every single time the perfect shape. Delightful.
In Italian, however, the word ânormògrafoâ (with an R), which I hurriedly translated as ânormographâ, is used to denote those plastic lettering templates used once as drafting aids â think about Berol Rapidesign, or Pickett, or any other brand of drafting templates also offering lettering stencils â as it literally means âthe object writing (grĂ phein in ancient Greek) in a standardised form (nòrmos, still Greek)â.
Also, a drafting template allowing the artist to draw basic geometric shapes is instead called âortògrafoâ â once again, literally meaning âthe object drawing (grĂ phein in ancient Greek) things in the correct way (orthòs, still Greek)â. I recently discovered this word, and it made my day.
Over the years, I happened to find very unusual lettering templates, e.g. those mimicking Gothic blackletter (in two variants I think: classic Textura and rounder Fraktur) by Standardgraph, or templates for mathematical symbols, and even a couple for musical symbols (a famous one by Berol, and a much less-famous one by Linex Denmark).
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I saved a few Norm font templates from my office (Din1541 font). But I prefer the digital version of fontfont 
Found this website: https://musicprintinghistory.org/music-printing-stencils/
A lot easier today
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Yes, a lot easier. There are a couple of videos on YT showing how music was typeset before the computer era, and they are mesmerising. The tools alone used to stamp the notes on metal sheets are uncanny.
And even when computers did finally arrive, typesetting music (and math) was still among the greatest challenges in typography â ultimately solved by Donald Knuth for math with LaTeX, and still threatening with nightmarish difficulty the music composition world today.
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Yes, LaTeX closed the gap to scientific books set by hand. With music scores, today still the old handset pieces have a certain flair in comparison to state-of-the-art results from Sibelius or Dorico.
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Glad I asked! Interesting, and thanks for the wide-ranging answer. I have a couple of drafting shape guides - I guess you could also call them templates? - but I canât say Iâve used them much so far. And maybe one very basic lettering guide?
I first encountered nomographs in some electronics applications, based as you say on linear layouts, very much a companion to/simplification of a slide rule. The multidimensional ones on polar coordinates kind of blow my mind! I have a book that describes how to create nomographs, let me see if I can find it.
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You had me at âbookâ. Should you find the reference, Iâd appreciate very much if you could share it: I have a couple of sources on how to read nomographs â mostly reference books or leaflet-format guides, for slide rules, plus a couple of catalogue scans from drafting materials manufacturers which also happened to sell paper with unusual grid layout, nomograph-oriented.
But an entire book on how to make those⌠This is on a totally different level. Wow!
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I donât collect bottle openers, but I do like to collect objects of interesting and pleasing designs. The product company called Umbra has designed many kinds of products. Some utilitarian and others with artful flair. A friend of mine had one of their bottle openers, called the Wobble. It looks almost like a merging of a kidâs toy and a teething ring. A bit silly⌠at first. Until you hold it in your hands. Itâs quite substantial, bottom weighted. And it opens bottle caps like a breeze.
Umbra had discontinued these about 10~15 years ago. A friend of mine has one in white. Iâd been looking to get one over the years, but theyâd seldom turn up. I discovered a buyer who is an OCD vintage bottle opener collector and they seemed insistent on nabbing one of every color, plus backups. Always getting to auctions first. Infuriating, like they have some special watch program. I even missed one BIN by just 10 minutes. Well, they finally slipped up and I got it for 50% cheaper than theyâve sold for in the past. I got it in green. Itâs a very nice avocado kind of shade. 
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Youâre not wrong - I was surprised to come across a book like this too. I think itâs in a bookcase that has some stuff blocking access to it - I will look for it tonight though.
OK. Success. There are actually three titles on that subject - âNomographyâ by A. S. Levens, this edition 1948. âElements of Nomographyâ by Raymond. D. Douglass and Douglas P. Adams, 1947. (I wonder if this is the Hitchhiker"s Guide guy Douglas Adams?!) Electronic Engineering Nomograms by Max H. Applebaum, 1968.
The two inside photos show a nomogram for solving quadratic equations and the ruler included in Douglass & Adams. Cool weird books. It looks like âElementsâŚâ is at a much higher level than the others from a quick look through. D & A are both credited as MIT faculty and the book has an inscription showing the ownerâs Cambridge MA address, so this is some heavy post-WW2 nerdfest material here!
If you have any requests for specific things youâd like to see scanned, send me a message and we can discuss.
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First of all, thank you for searching for the books, and for providing the pictures!
I am truly fascinated by the âElements of Nomographyâ specimen: from the few glimpses allowed by your shots, it seems very promising. The publisher is McGrawâHill, top-level provider of scientific literature; the print quality is gorgeous; the content looks nothing but spectacular (I found pictures from the inside flap of the dust jacket, and the list of topics covered speaks for itself).
Iâm afraid Iâm going to buy a physical copy of the book online: the price range is even reasonable, but the shipping costs are killing my hopes to get a good deal. At the same time, this title is perfect for my library, soâŚ
[Aaand once again this board proves to be a source of amazement, while simultaneously increasing the odds Iâll soon be very, very poor. ]
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You guys should see my huge collection of unresolved traumas and personality flaws.
Edit: Been adding to it for many years.
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