221B Cooee: Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

Scuttlebutt from the Spermacetti Press is a Sherlockian institution that is older than many Sherlockians. Every month, Peter Blau BSI posts a newsletter with the latest news (scuttlebutt). Initiated by Peter in 1971 (fifty four years ago!) as a monthly summary of happenings for John Bennett Shaw, it was soon being mailed out to fellow Sherlockians. As it became more popular, Peter began to recover the cost of postage from subscribers.

From 1985, Peter started producing the newsletters on his first home computer, and from the first issue of 1988 (January) the newsletter was given the name 'Scuttlebutt from the Spermacetti Press'. There's lots of history on the Red Circle DC page that posts the monthly newsletters (and you can download every newsletter back to 1985 from there), and you can listen to Peter describe its creation as part of his interview with the 'I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere' podcast. Along with the digital copies, the Baker Street Almanac republishes the warts-and-all version 1.0 of the year's newsletters.

Recently, I was lucky enough - through the kindness of Chris Redmond BSI - to be offered 'back issues' of the newsletters.

What I thought I'd get from Chris were a small pile of loose-leaf newsletters. But no, it was a lot more than that - because it turns out that Chris, and his equally well-known Sherlockian dad Donald Redmond BSI, had been subscribing to the newsletter since 1980 (Peter checked his subscription spreadsheet!), and they had kept every issue. AND Chris had then had them bound, into five volumes from 1980 to 2010 (!).

Based on when the folds end - Chris switched from receiving mail-outs to printing the PDF version of the newsletter available on-line in 2007. That's when the pictures ended also - there was the occasional blank space, so I assume Peter continued sending out copies with images, but they weren't part of the PDFs that included the text only.

Here's an example of an early newsletter with an image placed into the newsletter - in this case the business card of a 'Sherlockian business':

Here's how Peter announced the switch from typewriter to word processor in 1985 - with a very dot-natix printer appearance:

Mar 85 #2. Computer, meet readers. Readers, meet computer. For those who care, it's a mixed system: Leading Edge CPU, Leading Edge high-resolution monochrome monitor, IBM PC keyboard, Volkswriter Deluxe software, and Epson RX-80 printer. For those who really care, I'll be glad to send you my essay on "How I Bought My Computer".

I'd love to read that essay!

I just had to show these to Peter, and he was thrilled. I was surprised to learn these are the only bound copies of the Scuttlebutt newsletter that Peter had ever seen!

Here's Peter checking out page 1. It had been a while since Peter had examined early issues of his newsletter, though of course all the originals are in Peter's archives.

Given that these were such unique artifacts, I asked Peter if he'd sign them. Peter's signature now sits next to Chris Redmond's book stamp in each of the five volumes.