A late-production Duofold Senior

 

The black streamlined Duofold Senior shown above came my way at the recent Chicago pen show. With complete lack of foresight I cleaned the tarnish off the clip and cap bands before photographing it, even though I knew that that tarnish was interesting -- for it was that characteristic dark grey that forms on gold only when it is on top of a silver substrate. This is consistent with other features of this pen, most notably the late 1944 date code and the use of celluloid rather than hard rubber for the section, blind cap, and cap top/inner cap. The pressure bar is three-piece, consistent with all the rest.

So why is the tarnish interesting? We already know that Parker periodically cleared out excess inventory of older spare parts by assembling them into complete pens, and that such pens typically bear date codes from well after their regular production was discontinued (I write "periodically" because the date codes on these pens aren't evenly distributed, but rather form distinct clusters). We also know that in many cases parts had to be made to complete these pens, as they often differ in subtle ways from the parts from the original production run. That is surely the case here, for Parker only began to substitute silver for brass as a substrate with the advent of WW2, which tells us that the clip must have been made around the time the pen was assembled, and that it was not an older part taken from inventory. The cap bands also must be war-era, which suggests that the entire cap was made then as well -- though it is not inconceivable that this started out as one of those caps kept in inventory in bandless state, allowing for customization for special order trim configurations.

The Parker Wood Pen

The Parker Wood Pen is one of the most enigmatic of limited editions. Solid documentation is hard to come by, and most of what is known to collectors is hearsay. This is not surprising for a design that was reportedly squelched by Parker's top management before it was fully produced or marketed, as noted on Tony Fischier's page -- one of the few online references to discuss the Wood Pen at all. 

I recently acquired a small group of boxed Wood Pens and in one box came the letter shown below. Although undated, it must date between 1980, when Willi Sieberger became president of Parker's writing instruments division in Janesville, and 1982, when he resigned from Parker "for personal reasons".

This letter raises questions. If the Wood Pen really was launched by Parker Germany without authorization from Parker USA, how is it that Sieberger would be putting his name on a promotional letter such as this? Could it have been that Sieberger thought that his appointment gave him authority to produce such a pen, only to find out otherwise? The letter certainly suggests that even if the Wood Pen idea came out of Germany, it also met with the approval of the head of the writing equipment division in Janesville -- a German, but in charge of operations worldwide. It would seem the story must have a few more twists than Parker Germany simply going off on their own only to be reined in by Parker USA. I have been in touch with Tony Fischier about this question, and from what he understands the directive to kill the Wood Pen came from the very top: the Parker family, who felt the Wood Pen did not comport with their idea of a Parker. How this would be connected to Sieberger's sudden departure shortly thereafter is for now only a matter of speculation.

Another puzzle posed by the letter is the list of seven woods. Fischier's site lists and illustrates eight, and I know of at least two German sample sets of eight pens, all in one box. Confusingly enough, each of these sets has paperwork that identifies the woods used -- different paperwork, but each lists only seven woods! The presence of one additional wood (which would seem to be angelin or partridgewood) isn't that hard to explain, especially if very rare: likely as not it is a material that was tried out and then dropped. The difficulty is in reconciling the other seven. Cocus is to be identified with Jamaican ebony, which is fairly straightforward. "Grendailla" (sic) is a little tougher, since grenadilla is another name for the African blackwood that comes first in the list, but it seems what was meant was granadillo, whose bold striping is consistent with the pen shown second from the bottom in Fischier's photo. Quajak and guajak both refer to lignum vitae. The "rosewood from Peru" is not a true rosewood and is probably what Fischier's site calls redwood. That leaves the tough question of reconciling the violet wood (or purpleheart) in the letter with the cocobolo in the sample sets' paperwork and in Fischier's list. As I have yet to see a Wood Pen in purpleheart, which is quite distinctive, it seems most likely that this wood was dropped and cocobolo substituted. 

A more straightforward insight from the letter regards the observed mismatching of the woods used for pens and boxes. Nearly all Wood Pen boxes are of the same material, no matter the wood used for the pens inside. The letter specifies that all boxes were to be made of Pau Rosa wood -- a reddish tropical hardwood that has usually been misidentified as redwood by pen collectors. It is certainly possible that early on the intention was to match woods, but the extreme rarity of boxes in other woods suggests that the idea was abandoned by the time production started.

The letter is silent on what happened to the pens remaining after the project was cancelled. There is some evidence in the packaging of the pens, however, which is notably inconsistent. Most have been found without boxes and some without numbers; the cardboard outer enclosures are seldom seen and yet still vary in how they are marked. While it is possible that unsold pens were recalled and destroyed, the evidence suggests that at least some ended up being disposed of otherwise, likely to Parker employees or their friends.

And though the sample size is too small to be definitive, the Wood Pen packaging that I have been able to examine also points to the pens being released in 1981 rather than 1980. A couple of examples would be pen #426 whose sale and guarantee certificate is dated October 20, 1981, and pen #368 which came with a generic Parker instruction sheet with a copyright date of January 1981. If any readers have other Wood Pens with documentation of date of sale, please let us know about them in the comments.

ADDENDUM: I have been informed of another example of the letter shown at top, accompanying a Wood Pen sold on eBay which came with warranty cards dated August 1981. There also seem to be multiple examples of boxes with the plaque engraved "A. B. Cremer" and "000". My guess is that this is a made-up name (the initials "ABC" are a clue) used for salesman's samples. 

Unpacking "made on original Parker machinery"

There is a misconception among pen collectors regarding the claim that certain aftermarket pen parts were made on original Parker machinery. While the claim might be narrowly true, the use of an ex-Parker buffing wheel or drill press isn't what is called to mind. Rather, the implication is that the aftermarket parts were made in exactly the same way as the originals and to the exact same specifications. If we are talking about plastic parts, this they were not.
These parts were machined, not molded. Parker made them using automatic screw machines, which were large and very expensive programmable analog machine tools that could be configured to produce all sorts of parts. The size and cost (even used) of such machines made them utterly impractical for a small shop, along with the difficulty and expense of setting them up. They were only suitable for large-scale mass production, and nowadays have been almost entirely replaced by digitally-controlled CNC machine tools. Even if one were to gain access to an ex-Parker screw machine, it wouldn't be any different from one that had been used to make bicycle or clock parts. The machine itself wasn't what made the parts so much as its programming. 

An appreciation of stubby pens

 

Big pens may be the most highly valued, but there's much to be said for their slightly smaller stubby siblings. The full-length Senior may be the flagship of the Duofold line (whether in classic orange-red, or Mandarin Yellow as above), yet will it even fit in the average shirt pocket? For pocketability, give me a Duofold Junior: the perfect length, with a comfortable girth. No wonder that Pelikan adopted very similar proportions for their pens, from their original piston-filler through the 100, 100N, and 400 series and beyond. Waterman also offered shorter versions of their full-sized pens, with the most common being the 52V -- a stubby version of their standard 52 lever-filler. Bigger "V" models (the "V" standing for Vest Pocket) are harder to find, and correspondingly sought after.

Some time ago it struck me that while Duofold Juniors are pretty common, it's not easy to find examples in clean condition. These pens hit a popular price point, and were carried and used for years, indeed decades: real working pens, an exemplar of successful design.

Yes, Aerometric Parker 51s can have hidden problems, too

It's often said that the Aerometric (squeeze-filling) Parker 51s of the late '40s to early '60s are virtually bulletproof: that even as-found examples usually need no more than to be cleaned out by repeated filling and emptying with water, and that their Pli-Glass sacs are nearly indestructible. There is some underlying truth to all this, but at the same time it obscures the fact that Aerometric 51s do have their vulnerabilities -- and that there are good reasons to have one properly serviced for best results. In fact, the ease with which most long-neglected Aerometric 51s can be put back into working order can be a bit of a trap, for many who offer Aerometric 51s as reconditioned (or who offer reconditioning services) don't bother taking the extra steps to make certain that they are truly 100% restored.

Proper reconditioning will entail complete disassembly. Removal of the hood (shell) is essential, inasmuch as the collector (at the left above) is prone to clogging -- and when dried ink residue packs the finely-ribbed ink trap, it often cannot be removed by soaking and ultrasonic cleaning alone. A 51 with gunk in the collector may work, but it will be more vulnerable to flooding and ink flow may not be consistent.

A 51 that isn't completely disassembled may also have problems with its breather tube. Again, the pen may still function, but less than optimally. The original sterling silver tube shown above has corroded away in patches, leaving holes in its side. New tubes in stainless steel are not expensive so there is really no excuse for not replacing a damaged original.

Surely the most commonly neglected Aerometric reconditioning step, however, is making sure the connector is sound. This is the component that holds everything together: hood, clutch ring, nib assembly, sac, sac housing, and barrel -- all are mounted on the connector. For the first few years of Aerometric production the connector was made of machined acrylic, with threads at the back to attach the metal sac housing. Thereafter connectors were made of injection-molded styrene, with the metal sac protector redesigned to be mounted with a firm press fit. The earlier acrylic connectors (bottom, above) are pretty much invulnerable, though they sometimes will break when too much force is applied in removing a sac protector with corrosion on its interior threads. The styrene connectors (top, above) are another story, as they are notoriously vulnerable to plasticizer migration from the PVC of the Pli-Glass sacs. The usual result is softening of the sac nipple, but the connectors below show even more dramatic damage. These are Parker 21 connectors made from the same material, new old stock stored in a bin with sacs attached. The plasticizer from the sacs not only turned the material soft and rubbery where they were attached, but also melted it where the sacs rested against the sides of the connectors during years of storage. 

Damage to the sides of a connector is not going to happen under normal circumstances, yet sac nipples that are now the consistency of Silly Putty are all too common. Knowing this, many repairers will just turn a blind eye and simply not take off the sac protector so as to avoid the risk of having to deal with the added hassle of either replacing or rebuilding the connector. For repairers who are doing it right, however, cutting off the softened nipple and replacing it with fresh material is just part of the job, and one that doesn't take long with a lathe and the necessary fixtures (a repaired connector is shown below).

Finally, it should be noted that while Pli-Glass sacs may remain functional for decades, they do stain rather easily and once they start to go, can release some rather nasty acidic deterioration byproducts. Since new reproduction sacs are available, original sacs that are not in great condition really should be replaced even if they are not visibly leaking.

UPDATE: We've made a video illustrating these points which can be viewed on YouTube here.

Replacement Duofold arrow-imprint nibs

One thing new collectors soon learn about Parker Duofolds -- Senior and Junior sizes, in particular -- is that a large number are now found with later nibs. Whereas the original nibs from the 1920s and 1930s bear a PARKER/DUOFOLD imprint, these replacements are marked with an arrow similar to that used on the nibs of Vacumatics. Though these are often called Vacumatic nibs, those found on Senior-size Duofolds are something different: they are shaped completely differently from Vacumatic nibs, and if you want to get really into details, the arrow has a different number of feathers. In fact, these nibs were specifically made as replacements. If you pull one out of its section, you'll typically see two stamps, "R" denoting "replacement", and a star indicating coverage under the original Duofold guarantee (see the 1946 and 1947 Parker Service Manuals, pp. 44-5 and pp. 57-8 respectively). When you find an older Duofold with one of these factory replacement nibs, it will inevitably be mounted with a replacement comb feed, which Parker considered an improvement over and upgrade from the original "spearhead" feed.

I have not made a systematic study of these nibs as yet. Going through examples on hand, I found none earlier than 1941. Quite a few bear date codes for 1946 and 1951, suggesting significantly larger production runs in those years. This may have been due to a surge of postwar repair demand, but could also reflect Parker's practice of periodically clearing out stocks of older spare parts by assembling them into complete pens.

ADDENDUM: Arrow nibs found in 1920s and 1930s Duofold Juniors do seem to be standard Vac nibs with added stamps to the heel. I'll follow up on this to confirm, and will update in a few days.

Early examples of replacement Senior nibs, date codes for first quarter and last quarter 1941. Production clearly began before the USA's entrance into WW2.

These nibs were produced throughout the war years. These examples are dated 1944 and 1945.

Postwar nibs are more common, however: these are from 1946 and 1948. Parker clearly took customer service seriously, continuing to provide warranty support for their former flagship pens decades after they were originally sold.

Shellac on sections

The above passage is to be found in the July 1919 issue of Parkergrams, a Parker publication for dealers. By all evidence, this was standard practice for the era -- and for many modern-day repairers, remains so. Although some now advocate omitting the shellac, there are further reasons for using it that should be borne in mind. A shellac-sealed barrel-section joint must be warmed to be opened, which greatly reduces the brittleness of the parts and the risk of breakage in disassembly and reassembly. If the joint is not threaded, shellac reduces the risk of breakage in use, as the bond evenly distributes the stress of writing pressure across the entire section-barrel contact area. Without shellac, the stress is concentrated at the top front edge of the barrel mouth. Shellac also acts as a seal, preventing ingress of ink into the section-barrel joint should the pen be dipped too deeply into the ink bottle when being filled.

ADDENDUM: Shellac is also called for when the section is a tight fit inside the cap. We recently had to re-shellac a pen where the friction between the section and the cap interior was greater than that between the section and the barrel; uncapping the pen, the section ended up detached and stuck inside the cap. This is even more of a consideration where the cap threads onto the section, not the barrel.

Setting things straight about Parker Quink

It seems the battle against misinformation is never-ending. Once one old collectors' myth is put to rest, new ones arise to take its place. I've recently noticed a sudden upsurge of confused factoids about Parker inks in the fountain pen groups on Facebook. Inks are rather outside my main areas of research interest, but I know enough to be able to see a problem in the making -- so let's set things straight before they get totally out of hand.

First, when we're looking at Parker ink production from the 1930s through the 1950s, we're talking about three product lines: Quink, "51" ink, and Superchrome. Quink is the oldest of the three, and the only one still in production (with minor reformulations). Quink was introduced in 1931; despite what the confused Wikipedia article states (at least, until I can get a chance to correct it [now corrected; let's hope no one changes it back -- D.]), Quink was a mild ink that would not harm pens such as Parker's top-line Vacumatics which held their ink directly within celluloid barrels, as well as models such as the Challenger whose sections featured transparent celluloid ink windows. 

The strongly alkaline pH balance and isopropyl alcohol content that distinguished "51" ink were NEVER features of Quink. The Parker 51 and "51" ink were developed in tandem, the pen designed specifically so it would be able to hold up to its special caustic ink. The ink was explicitly promoted and sold as suitable only for the Parker 51. Parker openly stated that it would clog and damage pens not specifically made to use it. "51" ink was introduced in 1941, and was replaced in 1947 by Superchrome -- a somewhat milder but still corrosive reformulation, similarly marketed for use exclusively in pens made to use it: the Parker 51 and its budget offspring, the Parker 21. 

It does appear that there was an initial release of "51" ink as "Double Quink" (discussion here), but I very much suspect that this took place only as unadvertised market trials done as part of the well-documented market trials of preproduction Parker 51 pens from 1939 on. It is telling that I have yet to see a photo of an actual surviving Double Quink bottle, and that David Shepherd was unable to come up with one for his Parker 51 monograph despite years of diligent focused collecting and free access to Parker's own archives.

ADDENDUM: While rewriting the Wikipedia article on Quink, I took a closer look at the apocryphal story that Quink had been invented by and named for a Filipino chemist, Francisco Quisumbing. While clearly false -- the details of the development and naming of Quink have been thoroughly documented -- it was puzzling how such a story could have arisen in the first place. As it turned out, a Francisco A. Quisumbing had in fact founded a successful ink company in the Philippines in 1923, a few years after completing his Ph.D. at Columbia University. The basic biographical details appear in the 1937 volume of Who's Who in the Philippines, pp. 128-29. Quisumbing contributed the preface to a 1960 book, Forensic Chemistry of Ink in Documentary Investigation, by Paul R. Verzosa, in which it is mentioned that the Quisumbing Ink Products company supplied all agencies of the Philippine government under an exclusive contract (p. 22).
I was also able to find mention (and dismissal) of the Quisumbing/Quink myth in a book published in 1999, so the story has been around for a good long time (Virgilio L. Malang, Inventions & Innovations: A Glimpse of the Filipino Legacy, p. xiv).

The introduction of Waterman's "Spoon Feed"

Waterman's original feed was narrow, just wide enough to carry the grooved ink channel. It was protected by US patent 293545, issued on February 12, 1884 with a term of 17 years and thus due to expire on February 12, 1901. So it made sense that the successor design, the wider Spoon Feed, would have been introduced in 1901 -- as per the conventional wisdom -- even though it had already been patented a few years earlier (US625722, filed August 24, 1898, issued May 23, 1899). But pinning down an exact date wasn't easy. Waterman often introduced new models or features well before advertising them, and the application for the Spoon Feed trademark (37530, filed April 27, 1901, registered December 31, 1901) claimed use since August 1, 1900. And yet a Google Books search for "Waterman" and "spoon feed" from 1899-1900 yields no hits at all, while an ad in Scribner's Magazine Advertiser, vol. 29, 1901, p. 59, suggests an introduction at the very beginning of 1901:

"Most bookkeepers and stenographers have used Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pens for years. After January 1st, 1901, you will not be up-to-date without one, since our new Spoon Feed brings them to absolute perfection for professional writers."

Even this mention is less than authoritative, though, inasmuch as it appears in a spring advertising supplement that is undated, but full of ads for summer cruises and the like, and bound messily with tables of contents for issues up to July 1901. Another early mention is found in a different spring advertising supplement, this one in McClure's (vol. 16, no. 6, p. 109):

"Painting the Lily and improving the Waterman Feed seem equally absurd. Yet Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pen is now furnished with a new Spoon Feed which is better than the old."

This also can only be dated indirectly, including as it does an ad on p. 20 for the Pan-American Exhibition, which ran from May to November of 1901. Otherwise, the only securely datable ads that I was ever able to find mentioned the Spoon Feed date no earlier than May (Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, vol. 52, May 1901).

The material cited so far was assembled some time ago. But now with the recent digitization of the key issues of The American Stationer spanning the years 1900 to 1901, the longstanding question of when and how Waterman introduced its "Spoon Feed" can finally be answered. As it turns out, an unexpected factor in the rollout appears to have been the rivalry with Parker, which had taken its most recent ugly turn with litigation arising from Waterman's attempt to enforce its limited and rather questionable patent on a slip-cap (US604690). That Waterman was engaging in serious lawfare is in no doubt, with the extent nicely illustrated by this entry (August 10, 1901, p. 23 -- oh, to have access to those twelve volumes now!):

At the Philadelphia Export Exhibition in fall of 1899, Waterman had served papers on a Parker exhibitor for a claim of patent infringement. The wrangling lasted until March 1901: Parker's lawyers objected and the service was ruled invalid; Waterman appealed, but lost again (American Stationer, Oct 13, 1900, p. 34; Mar 30, 1901, p. 11). Meanwhile, Parker struck back with ads in July 1900 that openly taunted Waterman over their respective cap patent claims (July 7, 1900, p. 16; also July 14, p. 16):

The taunting took on a new twist in the American Stationer of January 12, 1901, with a series of Parker ads that touted the Jointless as not being "covered with EXPIRED patents" (p. 7; also January 19, 26, Feb 2, all p. 7; the January 5 ad lacks the dig).

The week after the last of the above ads ran, the gloves came off. What had been alluded to was now spelled out in black and white. It was a barefaced attack, without even the pretense of being part of advertising Parker's own products.

These ads ran for three weeks, starting February 9, in Parker's usual spot on p. 7. Waterman's response was immediate, with their front cover ad in the next issue (February 16) formally announcing the Spoon Feed, noting that "Most of our customers have seen this successful invention, since it has already been offered in our special bookkeepers' and stenographers' pens".

Further mention of the new feed appeared inside the same issue (p. 23), as part of a report on a recent Waterman's publicity coup in which each guest at a dinner of the Stationers' Board of Trade was given a gold-mounted fountain pen (that is, with gold filled trim bands).

Reading between the lines, it seems as if the transition from the old feed to the new feed was intended to be gradual, but the company ended up scrambling to speed up the changeover. And though the professed reason was market demand, the threat of Parker trumpeting the expiry of the patent and the implicit obsolescence of the old feed to the general public (the salvos above were in a trade journal) surely weighed heavily in Waterman's decision to kill off the old feed sooner rather than later. This is consistent with the account below -- all mention of patent status discreetly omitted -- published once the dust had settled, in the American Stationer of August 17, 1901, p. 62:

The key passages include: "Early in the spring of the present year [1901] they started to introduce their new spoon feed", "the company supposed it would be nearly a year before a complete change in their output would be necessary", "in two months they were almost swamped", and "now . . . the plant has been entirely changed over".

It would seem then that the August 1, 1900 "first use" date for "Spoon Feed" in Waterman's trademark application would represent the beginning of market testing, which according to the earliest ads began with pens for bookkeepers and stenographers -- long and slender models, presumably. The switchover for other models would have been underway by early 1901, but drastically accelerated in mid-February, old feed production being phased out over the next few months, ending by mid-August at the very latest.

A re-imprinted Duofold Senior

The Parker Duofold Senior shown above has several unusual features, all of which would seem to be old and original. Capped, the pen appears to be a completely standard Mandarin from around 1927.

The nib, however, is a Lucky Curve #7 of the sort found on Senior-sized non-Duofold pens of the pre-streamline era. It sits atop a Vacumatic-era comb feed. Comb feeds are often found retrofitted to Duofolds originally equipped with "spearhead" Lucky Curve feeds, but with either an original Duofold nib, or with an arrow-imprint nib marked on the heel with a star to denote the Duofold guarantee. One just doesn't see #7 Lucky Curve nibs used as replacements.

This all makes more sense upon examination of the barrel, which bears two imprints. One is the expected later 1920s Lucky Curve imprint, which has largely been polished away. The other is the typical 1930s one-line generic Parker imprint with no model name, which only shows modest wear and is clearly legible. The pen can best be characterized as a downgraded Duofold Senior, assembled from surplus parts to be sold without the Duofold name or guarantee. Given the comb feed and the lack of a date code on the barrel, this assembly likely took place around 1933-34.

Other downgraded Duofolds are known; a pristine Lapis Blue Senior set was sold at an Ohio pen show auction a few years ago, if I remember correctly, though that pen bore but a single barrel imprint, with the Lucky Curve banner but without the Duofold name. And a double-imprinted Big Red was the topic of discussion some years back in one of the online forums. Such pens are rare, though, so this Mandarin is a welcome discovery.

ADDENDUM: Opening up the pen revealed the petrified sac shown in fragments below. It is lightly stenciled "PARKER ANODE", strongly suggesting that this is the original factory-installed sac. The pressure bar is also original, and two-piece (Parker button-fillers assembled later in the 1930s were fitted with a three-piece pressure bar instead).

Overall condition of the pen as it came to us was excellent, with only a few small spots of ink inside the cap.

Which came first: the blue, or the diamond?

Hindsight bias is a powerful thing.
For pen people, the Blue Diamond guarantee mark is indelibly associated with Parker. So when I recently catalogued some pens and pencils made by Parker for resale by Sears under their Diamond Medal and Webster house brands, I didn't think twice before writing that their imprints incorporated the Parker diamond logo. And then, the realization suddenly hit me: these Sears imprints were from the mid-1930s, a few years before Parker first put the Blue Diamond on its own pens. Whose logo was that diamond anyway?

I have not had much luck with my trademark search efforts so far, but the diamond in these imprints was already part of Sears' Diamond Medal logo back in the 1920s.

Originally posted by ToasterPastry at Fountain Pen Network

Without the medal, however, the diamond by itself would not have been an easy trademark to defend. Diamond Point had been using a diamond-shaped logo (with lettering inside) going back to the hard rubber eyedropper era. So when Parker began using the Blue Diamond as its lifetime guarantee mark in 1939, Sears might not have been able to do much about it -- the question remaining open, however, regarding Sears' opinion of the "borrowing".

In a recent article Jon Veley makes a compelling case that Sheaffer's White Dot was copied from Dunhill's White Spot -- an instance of trademark appropriation that was entirely legal, since Dunhill's mark had been registered for "tobacco products" and not for writing instruments. The background to Parker's Blue Diamond mark differs, in that both the Blue Diamond and its precursors were registered for the same class of items, color being added to set the marks sufficiently apart. Nonetheless, it now appears that both of these two famous pen trademarks were not purely original creations.

Parker colored Bakelite pens

Today's second under-our-noses discovery was in another issue of Parkergrams, dated September 1918, also in the PCA Library. Key passage:

" . . .we are now making the Bakelite in a translucent barrel in two or three very beautiful colors. It has been practically impossible for use to get any more of the Ivorine [this casein-based plastic was imported from France], so we have developed two or three colors in the Bakelite. A very pretty shade of green, for instance, one or two shades in red and pink that are really very beautiful."

Green and pink Bakelite Parker eyedropper-fillers . . . has anyone found one?  I'll have to review my photos of the Parker Archives -- perhaps some of these have been sitting there, misidentified as Ivorines.

Mystery pen: Parker pneumatic-filler

Those of us who research pen history often bemoan the gaps in the available documents, yet one can still stumble across the most amazing things in documents that have been available for years. Today's discovery was in a copy of Parkergrams -- Parker's newsletter for dealers -- that has been in the PCA Library since the days it consisted of photocopies, probably a good 25 years if not more.

This entry, pencil-dated February 1917, announces a new pneumatic-filling economy-line pen, to be called the "Parker Finger Filler". The description of the pen is uncanny, as it sounds just like a post-1926 Chilton, though much too early. In fact, the only pneumatic-filling pen of such an early date that fits the Parkergrams description is the Bender, patented in 1906 and profiled here. Bender died in 1912, and it seems his pen company did not long outlive him. This could fit the Parkergrams statement that "We have at last perfected and acquired the patents covering a device that is entirely new in the way of a Self Filling Pen."

As yet, this is the only mention of the "Finger Filler" that I have been able to find. It is promised that "In the next issue of Parkergrams a further announcement will be made and cuts [engravings] shown of the pen." Unfortunately, the next issue in the PCA compilation is dated illegibly, and the one following is dated June 1917. Perhaps some mention may be found in the missing issues, but for now Parker's pneumatic-filler remains an intriguing phantom.

UPDATE: Richard Binder has pointed out that Julius Abegg's US patent 1,134,936, issued April 6, 1915, would be a more likely basis for the Finger Filler's design. The "nickeled metal tube" plunger described in the Parkergrams entry corresponds much more closely to Abegg's specification than to Bender's.

George Rimakis has also noted the survival of at least one experimental Jack-Knife Safety with an Abegg-style filling system, and has shared the photo below. This pen is a #5-size, so considerably larger than the three models mentioned in Parkergrams.

UPDATE #2: Dan Zazove has pointed out William Edgar Moore's patent, US 1,801,635, filed March 15, 1929 and issued April 21, 1931, assigned to Parker. Although I am baffled at how the Moore patent could have been approved, given that it is a virtual duplicate of Abegg's, it does complicate efforts to associate the pen shown above with any one patent.

Painted Parker part

I was digging deep into the parts bins this afternoon, and ran across a cap I've had for at least fifteen years. It's a lined black cap from Parker's economy line of the 1920s, dressed up with swirled marbling of the sort commonly used in times past to decorate endpapers in fancy bookbindings. Back when I got it, few collectors were paying much attention to painted pens. Interest and knowledge has grown since then, yet very few examples of this type of painted decoration have turned up.

Although entirely different in appearance and effect than the hand-painted geometric patterns most commonly seen on Hollands, Sheaffers, and Conklins, this swirled decoration was surely aiming at the same result: to increase the saleability of pens that were beginning to seem a bit dull and old-fashioned next to newer models in colored celluloids.

NOTE: The cap is as likely to be black celluloid as hard rubber. The paint is probably oil paint. A site that discusses the various ways this technique can be implemented can be found here.

Sub-brands, house brands, and private labels

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in major penmakers' pens sold under other brand names. In some cases these other brands were wholly owned by the penmakers, and were typically used for economy models. Such sub-brands allowed companies to sell at a lower price point without tarnishing the image of their top-line models. Pen companies also supplied department stores and other retailers with pens bearing the retailers' brand names. Where the pens are otherwise very similar to models sold by their makers under their own names, some collectors have taken to describing these pens as "rebadged", while others prefer to call them "private label" or "house brand" versions.

Whether a given marque is a sub-brand or a house brand isn't always apparent. The pen shown above is an example: a bulb-filling Pencopen Deluxe, clearly made by Parker and bearing Parker-style date codes for 1937 -- but did the Pencopen brand belong to Parker, or to someone else?

An online search for Pencopen isn't very helpful, but Penco turns out to have been a house brand of J. C. Penney -- initially for toys and games, but by the late 1920s one finds old newspaper ads for Penco pencils and pens, all unillustrated. And in the 1939 Consumers Union buying guide, there is a review of fountain pens where Penco's connection with J. C. Penney is clearly listed. 

In addition, Kreko (also spelled "Kreco") is shown to be a house brand of S. H. Kress, and Fifth Avenue a Woolworth brand. The situation of other lower-end brands isn't always so clear, however, as Majestic is listed as "sold in Emporium stores" much as Wallace is listed as made by Inkograph but "sold in Woolworth's", suggesting that these brands might not have been exclusive to these particular retailers.

This is certainly the case with Wearever, which is linked to a number of different stores in this review. But what about the association of Onward with Grand stores, Varsity with Walgreen, and Ambassador with Sontag's?

Parker 1.0 mm lead pencil converter

By the 1930s, lead sizes for American mechanical pencils had been thoroughly standardized. There was the older standard of 0.046 inches (metricized as 1.1 or 1.2 mm) and the newer standard of 0.036 inches  (0.9 mm), and for drafting pencils there was 0.075 inches (2 mm). The plethora of odd sizes used in the 19th century had all been dropped in the first decades of the 20th.

So it was to my complete astonishment that I recently discovered that Parker, in the later 1960s, briefly adopted a completely nonstandard lead diameter of 0.040 inches (1.01 mm). Not in a mechanical pencil, strictly speaking, but for its "pencil cartridge", shaped like a Jotter ballpoint refill and used to convert any Jotter-style ballpoint into an injector pencil. The example shown above came in a sterling silver Classic ballpoint; it was still full of lead, but I thought I'd add a little more before offering it for sale (Parker didn't advertise these cartridges as refillable, but all it takes is to hold one tip-up, press the back button down, and feed new lead into the front). Yet when I put in some 0.9 mm lead, it didn't work properly. The lead was held firmly when the end button was released, but when the button was depressed, the lead shot out instead of advancing a millimeter or two at a time. Upon closer examination, the original lead that came inside the cartridge measured a hair over 1 mm and worked perfectly -- as did some 1.0 mm lead that I then added as a test.

According to Jotter: History of an Icon, p. 204, Parker's pencil cartridge was introduced in 1968 (other authorities specify that it was at the beginning of that year). No mention is made of the lead size used, however, though in external form our 1 mm cartridge is the earliest model shown, all metal with only a bit of black plastic at the end, and no eraser. How long it remained in production is not clear, though I was able to find the image below from a 1969 Parker catalog, originally posted by Graham Hogg here.

It seems clear that Parker adopted a slightly oversize lead diameter to prevent users refilling their cartridges instead of buying new ones. Customers would assume that the cartridges were worn out, never suspecting that the lead diameter was the issue. Indeed, Parker advertised the cartridges as being good for up to a year, or up to 50,000 words -- clearly positioning them as consumables, despite building them stoutly enough for years of service.

I haven't had the time to go back through all the different Parker pencil cartridges in my shop to check lead diameters, but I've handled quite a few of them over the years and this is the first I've found that didn't work when refilled with standard-sized lead. My guess is that later models all used standard lead, and that perhaps even the original model was reconfigured at some point to use standard lead as well.

ADDENDUM: At the Columbus pen show I was able to ask around about this. I found only one person -- a former Parker employee -- who knew about the 1 mm lead. Unfortunately, this was from observation, not company lore, so we still don't know how this all came to be. Did Parker anticipate that consumers would try to refill the cartridges, and made them to use the nonstandard lead from the beginning? Or were they originally made to use standard lead, and a modified version using nonstandard lead was introduced only later, after the problem of refilling became apparent?

George W. Heath & Co.

 

Heath is a name well known to pen collectors -- though less for their own pens and pencils than for the overlays they supplied to some of the most prominent American penmakers at the beginning of the 20th century. Heath overlays are found on the pens of Waterman, Parker, Conklin, Moore, A. A. Waterman, Carey, and others, yet little is currently known about how the companies worked together, or for how long. Some Heath articles can be identified by a maker's mark, the most common of which is an "H" in a square, the square with two short lines extending right and left -- but this mark is only seen on silver, never on gold or gold filled items, even those in all other ways identical to their silver equivalents.

A much less common variant is an "H" in a spiky diamond, as shown below, also found only on silver.

The mark below is not restricted to silver objects, but I have never seen it applied to a fountain pen overlay. It seems most common on gold filled pencils.

This post will concentrate on Heath's earlier history. A good starting point is a rather boosterish volume published in 1912, Newark, the City of Industry. On page 116 we find the picture above, and the following entry:

IN the year 1892, George W. and Alfred C. Heath began business as partners in New York as "chasers and designers to the trade." The original location was at 137 Elm street, New York, but owing to increasing business more commodious quarters were obtained at 27 Thames street, and later at 380, 382 and 384 Canal street.

In May, 1912, desiring to avail themselves of the splendid manufacturing facilities afforded by Newark, and being disposed to do their share in making Newark famous, and proving that "Newark Knows How," the firm of George W. Heath & Co. moved the office and factory to the modern fireproof structure which they had erected at 206, 208, 210 First street.

The company is engaged in the manufacture of fountain pens, and in these days of universal education when everybody can write, there is an ever increasing demand for its product.

The pens made by this concern are known as Heath's Tribune Fountain Pens, the component parts of which are made of the best material obtainable, and are carefully assembled and adjusted by skilled men under the direct supervision of the members of the firm.

Besides fountain pens the company also manufactures gold pens, gold and silver pencils and art metal goods which are sold all over the world, through agencies established by correspondents and frequent visits of traveling salesmen among the dealers in various foreign countries.

All products that are made by this company bear the imprint "Made in Newark," and the goods are worthy of the city in which they were made.

This outline history is consistent with the other records I have consulted. In the Twelfth Annual Report of the Factory Inspector of the State of New York, submitted Jan 24, 1898, p. 260, "Heath Bros." is listed as engaged in "Silver chasing", with 5 employees. The following year's report (p. 272) is the same, but with 4 employees. The report for the year following, 1899 (p. 313) is shown below (the space between the Heaths' listing and the header has been trimmed for ready reference).