Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Identical . . . Or, Almost So

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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These are Parker Royal Challengers, made in 1936 and 1937, with the more desirable sword clips that cause Parker aficionados to swoon:


Oohworthy and aahworthy they are, for certain, but this article isn’t going to be just a Parker peepshow.  I’m showing these off today because of some things often said about two ends of the spectrum, the sublime and the ridiculous:


Diamond Point in its heyday produced some very well made and attractive pens and pencils, but by the time these were made, the company emphasized style and visual appeal well ahead of technological innovation and performance.  Within about a decade of the time these were made, the company was gone.

This pair obviously copies the Parker Royal Challenger, but pen pundits consistently make a statement that always sticks in my craw a little bit: that Diamond Point used “the same” celluloid Parker used on the Royal Challenger.  “Almost the same,” I interject whenever I’m a party to the conversation . . . which usually results in my ejection from the conversation.

Here’s why I valiantly attempt to qualify that statement:


You might think I’m being anal about this, but look at those feather-like motifs in the celluloid – do you see how much fatter and wider the fingers are on the Diamond Point than on the Parker?


I encourage you to look at every pen and pencil you can find in this Parker and Diamond Point line, and you will see this same difference, without fail, every time.  This isn’t a minor deviation within manufacturing tolerances within a single run of celluloid: these are different production batches.

Does it matter?  I think it does, since it busts collectors’ lore that Parker liquidated remaining stock to Diamond Point.  I believe the evidence points towards Diamond Point ordering a new batch independently of Parker, requesting the stuff Parker had used a few years earlier, which the manufacturer reproduced almost exactly.

Almost.

Note:  after this article ran, I received my Fall 2018 issue of Fountain Pen Journal, in which David Isaacson's article regarding the Parker Royal Challenger appeared, which has me circling around to clarify a couple things.  First, there were two clip styles used on the series; I always thought the sword clip was just an option, but David indicates they were the earliest models in the series made in early and mid-1937. The straight clips (what David calls the "blade clips") were introduced in late 1937 and were used until the end of the Royal Challenger's run.

That's where things get interesting.

I had tracked down newspaper advertisements announcing the introduction of Diamond Point's "De Luxe," made from "the new DuPont miracle material," in 1940:


When I found these advertisements, I thought they further supported my contention that the Diamond Point De Luxe was made from a different batch of celluloid acquired from DuPont, not leftover stock acquired from Parker, since these were introduced so much later than the Parker Royal Challenger.

It may be more complicated than that.  David's article establishes that the Royal Challenger was not discontinued until 1940 and further, he indicates that there was a third type within the series introduced "likely" in late 1938 or early 1939, which continued the "blade clip" and substituted a single wide cap band for the earlier three narrow ones.  

And one of the examples he shows in his article, a gray pen, clearly shows the wider "fingers" on the cap band and narrower ones on the barrel.

So we know Parker also used this "fat-fingered" batch of stuff from DuPont, albeit very briefly and at nearly the same time as Diamond Point came out with its "De Luxe."   Parker did hold a design patent on the sword clip (Design patent 107,708 issued on December 28, 1937), but not on the fingered celluloid, fat or otherwise.  If DuPont was stuck with a batch of celluloid Parker no longer wanted because the company had discontinued the model, DuPont would have been free to sell it to anyone else, and Diamond Point would have been playing close to the line -- but not over it -- by touting "the new DuPont miracle material" on a new line of pens that didn't use Parker's patented sword clip.

I still think that's the more likely explanation than Parker giving blessing to a third-tier company to mimic its product line so closely -- and as David has revealed, so soon after it was discontinued. 

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