A Nice Blend

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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If you look at this one and think Parker, there’s a good reason for that:

The color is Parker’s “Moderne” black and pearl, and this faintly resembles a Streamline Duofold . . . but with kind of an odd mix of other features.  The fluted barrel and three narrow trim rings are definitely not Duofold, but these features do appear on the lower tier Parkette Deluxe line.  The top cap?  On a Duofold in this color, that would be a plain black button, not the color matched, stepped cap you see here.   As for the mechanism, it isn’t a Duofold rear drive affair, but a nose drive – although Parker did make nose drive pencils in the series, they are the exception rather than the rule.

Yes, there’s an oppressive name imprint on the barrel, and since the barrel halves screw together (and there’s only one threadset), I can’t even turn it around to the back side of the pencil for display purposes.  But that’s to be expected, since from the brand we know it was free with the purchase of the pencil:

It’s a Diamond Medal, a brand marketed by Sears, Roebuck & Co.  Earlier examples were made by the Rex Manufacturing Company, but sometime in the early to mid 1930s, Parker took over the contract.  Why, I believe, is connected to Parker's patent infringement case against Rex over Parker's 1916 patent washer clip (see http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-working-theory.html).

And fortunately, that name imprint isn’t the only one on the barrel:

Now that looks a little better.