Raymond Bailey's c. 1900 Vertical Writing Penmanship Practice Notebook hand-carved jointed figure There is one small area

There is one small area of loss on the back along the edge where one hinge would attach the lid to the body

They're great for stacking but also nice for arranging just laid flat on a tabletop

hence the notion to hang it on the wall--though perhaps someone more industrious than I could put this vise to good practical use

And just a marvelous patina accrued over a century and a quarter of so I believe

this one with a more dense and saturated concentration of elongated triangular forms

Raymond Bailey's c. 1900 Vertical Writing Penmanship Practice Notebook hand-carved jointed figure There is one small areaI continue to find it difficult to resist a completed penmanship notebook, in part just for the pleasure of seeing all these carefully formed letters, but also for the selection of words and phrases chosen for instruction which, like the manner of lettering itself, changed significantly over time and reveals a whole lot about the values of the times. This booklet, with a 1900 copyright, proscribes a system of "Vertical Writing", replacing Spencerian