File:Bookbinders type holder (1).jpg

A metal box like compartment set on the end of a short wooden handle. Used for holding separate type sufficient to make up a few words. There is a thumb-screw for holding letters securely in the box. Initials J P on handle.

Accession Number: hh.4726.6.88

This holder would have been used by the bookbinder to imprint letters onto the spine or cover of a book. The type and holder would have been heated on a gas stove and then the letters applied to the book cover with gold or foil.

Used at Waverley Cameron, Blair Street.Waverley Cameron started as Nisbet MacNiven, a paper maker, in 1770 at Balerno, just outside Edinburgh. It then developed as a stationery wholesaler, after moving into the middle of Edinburgh in 1788. The first Camerons appeared on the scene in 1840 and the name was changed to MacNiven and Cameron in 1845. The Waverley nib (narrow waist and upturned point) was first manufactured for the company by Gillott in 1864, and later by Hinks, Wells. Gillott made the Waverley Pens until the mid 1870s, when they were transferred to Hinks Wells. In 1900, MacNiven and Cameron bought a factory in Birmingham and started to manufacture their pens themselves. The Birmingham factory was at the Watery Lane site from 1900 to 1964. Towards the end of that period, the factory was making mainly paper clips, of the barrel spring type, but some nib manufaturing continued to the end. The Waverley Pen continued, little changed, in production for exactly 100 years, until the Birmingham factory was closed in 1964.

This item is on display at the People's Story Museum, the Canongate, Edinburgh.