2 October 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NPV, UCCL 02042)
It occurs to me that we must patent the brass-application to keep others from doing it. Th If Joyce patented it, for instance (at Slote or Raubs’ suggestion,) there would just simply be no end of trouble, expense & publicity before I could get leave to use my own idea. Go & see Munn & Co about this patent as soon as you get back.
W. W. Ellsworth, of Scribners, will call on you when you return. He wants to talk about brass book stamps, mainly, & Kaolatype engraving incidentally. Show him your work. I said we should be ready to take orders for book stamps very soon, now, & that we would make them for 25 or 30 per cent less money than the cutters charge, & do them quicker. (He is the nephew of the man bussiness manager & chief owner of Scribner’s Monthly).
boxed: OVER
I told Ellsworth to put off his visit a week or two. Meantime, if you should find yourself ready for him to come, just drop him a note,—or drop in at the business department of Scribner’s Monthly (now called “The Century”) & see him. He is a young fellow; married his wife here. I have known him several years.
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Special Collections, NPV.
MicroPUL, reel 2.
See McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.