18 October 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NPV, UCCL 02055)
Mr. Wm. Hamersley, our City Attorney, will call on you at your Engraving office, at 10 o’clock Thursday morning.
He & I are stockholders in the Page Type-Setting Machine. This company wants to let a contract to somebody with $300,000 in his pocket, who can clear $2,000,000 on said contract in four or five years. I said Mr. Whitford, or you & Mr. Whitford between you, could probably find such a man (or men) if it could be made pecuniarily worth your while to do it. Mr. Hamersley will explain the matter to you; & then perhaps both of you had better step over & explain it to Mr. Whitford. It seems to me that it is a thing which might be arranged in New York without much difficulty. It ought to be easier than to make capitalists see money in Kaolatype.
I was sorry to hear of your father’s illness, & hope you left him restored to health.
I had to order new Prince & Pauper stamps from the die-sinkers. The fault was not in the casting, but in the crudeness of the original pattern; the lines were not perfect in shape, the lettering was not shapely. The cutting in Kaolatype was too hurriedly done, I suppose.
It is only a temporary failure; for we can make a nice & sharp & shapely Kaolatype patterns; & we can reproduce them in brass, too. What has been done in brass during your absence? Let me know.
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Special Collections, NPV.
MTBus, 171–72.
See McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.