Word: quills
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...type of pen wielded by a forger can be a giveaway. The quaint quill was used exclusively until 1780, when its successor, the steel pen, came into existence. The difference in writing between the two can be seen under a microscope. Fiber-tipped pens were not used extensively in the U.S. until 1964. Any forger using a pen not common in the period his document purports to derive from risks quick discovery. The modern proliferation of pens, particularly ballpoints, complicates the task of current document analysts, but can provide fresh clues. A ballpoint requires the writer to exert more pressure...
None of the four--at one time or another stellar junior skaters--competes on "the circuit" anymore, having bartered sit spins and waltz jumps for the pen and quill of academia; needless to say, studies just don't mix with the seven and eight hours daily competitive figure skaters pump into workouts (you decide which one settles to the bottom). "An Evening" affords skaters like Rehkamp et al a prestigious opportunity to showcase the fruits of what was obviously once a large part of their lives, and they take advantage of it. All four have participated before; all but Rehkamp...
...serious doubt since the last century. As North America's largest land bird, the condor has always made a seductively easy target. Indians prized its tough, 2-ft.-long feathers; 19th century hobbyists collected condor eggs, which could fetch $300. During the 1849 gold rush, its hollow quill feathers, waterproof and ½ in. in diameter, were favored as gold-dust containers. Even after the condor became a federally protected species in 1963, farming and development continued to destroy its habitat. Where condors once flourished by the thousands, all the way from Canada to Baja California, today fewer than...
Americans, too, were once fairly agile at the art, though they tended to use a club more than a quill. There was William Allen White's little note on Mencken, for example...
...assembly lines to forklifts. Office workers, on the other hand, are aided by a paltry $2,000 in capital investment; that often amounts to little more than a telephone, a typewriter and a photocopy machine. Such offices will soon be as antique as those with stand-up desks and quill pens...