After I organized all of my Wartime or Striped Duofolds and wrote about them here a few weeks ago, I had a fair understanding of the variations that were out there and what I was missing. Back I went to the online auctions to fill those last few holes, when I found this:
The black ones don’t show their stripes very well, so it is a challenge spotting Duofolds when you don’t have the patterns on the plastics . . . and fuzzy pictures from online sellers can make it an even bigger challenge. The band on this one looked like the later version of the Senior band (after it was simplified from a 3-part band to the ///\\\/// band) – but wait, I learned in the coure of writing that last article . . . only the lesser models were offered in black. The Senior or Ingenue pencils were only offered in the three “Laidtone” colors of green, maroon, and blue.
That would be news indeed if I found one, I thought to myself as I pulled the trigger.
When it arrived, though, there was something amiss. The nose wasn’t right, and the barrel was a little fatter.
My first thought was that Parker did weird things, particularly in 1939 – but for a later Duofold, that doesn’t make sense; the later Senior bands came after the Striped Duofold’s introduction in 1940, not before. Yet there it is, a clear Duofold imprint and 9 date code, for 1939 . . . and with the pencil in hand I could see the band was plain, lacking the ///\\\/// decoration.
In that last article, I had noted two types of clips I had found on the smaller sized striped Duofolds - this one has the less common of the two.
Now I thought I’d really found something interesting that didn’t fit into conventional wisdom: a larger sized Duofold, introduced not in 1940 but in 1939 with different, “proto-Duofold” trim? Oh, I couldn’t wait to break the news! Before I did, though, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and I scoured newspapers looking for evidence that the Duofold name was revived in 1939, not 1940.
The clues were tantalizing: yes, I was finding stationer’s advertisements for Duofolds - most were for clearing out flattop or streamlined versions. However, there were a few stock holiday ads published at the end of 1939 showing what looks like the striped Duofold’s profile, but none were clear enough for a definitive diagnosis.
Back I went to Parker’s 1939 catalog, looking for any indication that Striped Duofold might have been launched a year earlier than we thought.
It wasn’t. The Duofold name was, though. Of course it was, I said as I smacked myself upon my well-worn forehead . . . I just never associated these with the Duofold name.
Collectors like to call these the “geometric” or “toothbrush” Parker. Officially, though, the 1939 catalog calls it a “distinctive Mosaic-like pattern.” Pens were button fillers, like the Duofolds that had been retired, and they included “Visometer Ink Windows” in their sections. The pencils, just like the example I turned up, were a little fatter, had the same big nose as the Parkette and Challenger lines, and a plain trim band. They even have the same clips. Now that I’ve reunited my new find with its easier-to-spot siblings, here are all four cataloged colors.
And now that I was looking in the right drawer in the museum, I also noticed that I already had one in black.
What’s up with the longer clip? It’s probably a transplant from something else – maybe from the matching toothbrush pen, maybe from a later large-size striped Duofold pencil. Or maybe, I thought to myself as I looked more closely at that last image . . . “Marca Registrada.” Maybe the ones made for export had different clips?
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