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last week, I bought this tin full of fibre needles on ebay. The images provided have been very bad, but I took a gamble and was pleasantly surprised and intrigued.
The 500 needles look pinkish, redish, with sadly no maker on it. (The pictures below are hd for your pixel peeping pleasure!)

These look similar to the Burmese thorn needles still available from this UK supplier :

Interesting, they don't look anything like my fibre needles !!

briankeith wrote:Interesting, they don't look anything like my fibre needles !!

This is the other type of fibre needle, made from bamboo :

epigramophone wrote:These look similar to the Burmese thorn needles still available from this UK supplier :

I will announce / advertise this more fully in due course, but just to avoid David Williams receiving unnecessary correspondence - I have recently taken over the entire Burmese Thorn needle manufacture and supply operation from him, so if anyone would like any, please PM or email me. Stocks are plentiful, and the price will remain unchanged in the short term pending a gentle re-launch, website, etc. in a month or two's time.

The needles sound quite good, but it looks like I have bought a needle sharper for steel instead of fibre needles. The chuck is way to small for thorns. Is there a way to tell with the point master machines (colour?)?
The fine gentleman also threw in a couple of other needles. Two seem to have jeweled tips (ruby and ?). One is a curious contraption for small needles? I do not know what these would have been used for.

The Pointmaster you have is fine for use with thorns.
It is the same as mine and I use it exclusively.
Check the following...
Try this and see if it works.
Unscrew the end and place a thorn in the fingers. Now screw it back together.
It just may be that fingers are closed more that they should be.

James.

Orchorsol wrote:

epigramophone wrote:These look similar to the Burmese thorn needles still available from this UK supplier :

I will announce / advertise this more fully in due course, but just to avoid David Williams receiving unnecessary correspondence - I have recently taken over the entire Burmese Thorn needle manufacture and supply operation from him, so if anyone would like any, please PM or email me. Stocks are plentiful, and the price will remain unchanged in the short term pending a gentle re-launch, website, etc. in a month or two's time.

Are there still Burmese thorn plants from which to make them? I had been under the impression that they had been harvested to extinction...

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:

Orchorsol wrote:

epigramophone wrote:These look similar to the Burmese thorn needles still available from this UK supplier :

I will announce / advertise this more fully in due course, but just to avoid David Williams receiving unnecessary correspondence - I have recently taken over the entire Burmese Thorn needle manufacture and supply operation from him, so if anyone would like any, please PM or email me. Stocks are plentiful, and the price will remain unchanged in the short term pending a gentle re-launch, website, etc. in a month or two's time.

Are there still Burmese thorn plants from which to make them? I had been under the impression that they had been harvested to extinction...

Bill

Stocks of thorns harvested many decades ago are still in perfect condition and plentiful, enough for many decades to come!

Teak wrote:The needles sound quite good, but it looks like I have bought a needle sharper for steel instead of fibre needles. The chuck is way to small for thorns. Is there a way to tell with the point master machines (colour?)?

It may be possible to ease the fingers of the chuck apart, but be careful not to break them off. Some sharpeners originally came with several chucks for different sized thorns, especially into the 1950s when electric pickup designs used miniature thorns (about ⅓ the size of regular ones).

The small needle holder/adaptor might be for Edison Bell Chromic-Sympathetic needles.