Answer to: What is it?

April 25, 2008

What is it?
Photo: What is it?

I little while back we asked the question What is it?, well below is the answer to the question.

“Convicted forger A. Schiller was serving his time in Sing Sing prison in the late 1800s when guards found him dead in his cell. On his body they found seven regular straight pins whose heads measured the typical 47/1000ths of an inch or 1.17 millimeters in diameter. Under 500 magnification it was found that the tiny etchings seen on the heads of the pins were the words to The Lord’s prayer, which is 65 words and 254 letters long. Of the seven pins, six were silver and one was gold - the gold pin’s prayer was flawless and a true masterpiece. Schiller had spent the last 25 years of his life creating the pins, using a tool too small to be seen by the naked eye. It is estimated that it took 1,863 separate carving strokes to make it. Schiller went blind because of his artwork.”

So there you have it, that thing with 254 letters carved on it is the head of a pin. Pretty incredible.



Written by Craig · Filed Under Art, People 

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