Parker Pen Company

The Parker Pen Company is a manufacturer of pens, founded in 1891 by George Safford Parker in Janesville, Wisconsin, United States.

History

George L Parker, the founder, had previously been a sales agent for the John Holland Gold Pen Company. He received his first fountain pen related patent in 1889. In 1894 Parker received a patent on his "Lucky Curve" feed, which was claimed to draw excess ink back into the pen body when the pen was not in use. The Lucky Curve feed was used in various forms until 1928.

"The Duofold was the pen that actually made the Parker Company one of the greatest pen-manufacturers of the world in the 1920's. Until the Duofold few pens were made of anything but black rubber. Parker found a method to make the rubber in a red-orange colour, and when the pens began to sell they really sold. The Duofolds had their world premier in early 1921. Marketing the red Duofolds was something of a risky venture since Parker previously, in the early 1900's, had tried marketing a red pen, the Red Giant, wich was disastrous. Especially the cap proved very brittle and the guarantee became very expensive. The production came to an abrupt halt.

While the Parker Lucky Curve pens were selling well, there was nothing special about them to catch the publics eye. In the early 1920's a district sales Manager, Lewis M Tebbel, persuaded a machinist at the Parker plant to make him a a Lucky Curve model #26 in some old stock red hard rubber. Tebble used the standard black rubber for the section and clip screw, which gave the prototype a stunning appearence. Tebbel returned tohis district, Spokane, with the pen and some local dealers were so impressed with it that they prompted him to ask the factory for a dozen. This was initially refused but when Tebble insisted, he was granted the dozen.

Soon thereafter Tebbel made another order for even more red pens. He now proposed to Parker that they should incorporate the "Duofold", as he called the new pen, in the regular line, selling it for $7. He was refused by the Parker management t still wasn't ready to roll over. Instead he contacted Kenneth Parker directly. He had just returned from an intership at an advertising agency and was eager to try the power of advertising.

It took a great deal of persuation and negociation but in august 1921 the first pens was in production. There were a few pens made with a lower concentrate of red pigment, making them more brown than red, but these were never sold. Collectors traditionally refer to the colour of the first Duofolds as Pompeiian Brown. This was however not a colour any different from the later models, but only refers to old advertisment which used the phrase to describe the colour in papers printed in black and white. They also wanted to avoid "red" which still could reminicent of the Red Giant débâcle. The first Duofolds was, save the colour, identical in size and appearence to the Lucky Curve #26 and came in one size only, later referred to as the Senior Duofold and only in Red. Very quickly this unusually large pen was nicknamed "Big Red", a name that still survives among collectors.

Within a few months the Duofold was the best selling high priced pen on the market but Parker soon realised that plastic was to be the new future material for pens, and quicky managed to sign a contract with the plastic manufacturer DuPont, who provided an orange coloured material that Parker called Permanite. Already in the spring of 1925 the red Duofolds in Permanite were finding their way to the costumers pockets. Parker did not, however, advertise the new material on account of Sheaffer having previously secured the rights to the new material with the largest manufacturers. Also, as usual, to allow for the selling out old hard rubber stock. Thus it took until August 1926 for Parker to launch a nationwide advertising campaign, promoting the new pen.

The Duofold was indeed the singularity that boosted Parker from being a small pen manufacturer among many others, to being one of the lead players in the pen world. It had sold in more than ten million items and had it not been for the stubborness of Mr. Tebbel and the foresight of Mr. Kenneth Parker, the history would have looked quite different."

From the 1920s to the 1960s, before the development of the ballpoint pen, Parker was either number one or number two in worldwide writing instrument sales. In 1931 Parker created Quink "quick drying ink" which eliminated the need for blotting and led to the development of the most widely used model of fountain pen in history (over $400 million worth of sales in its 30 year history) the Parker 51. Manufacturing facilities were set up over the years in Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Mexico, USA,India and Argentina. Parker pens were frequently selected (often as favorite pens of the signers) to sign important documents such as the World War II armistices, and commemorative editions were sometimes offered.

In 1976 Parker acquired Manpower just as the temporary staffing market was surging. In time Manpower provided more revenue than the pen business. A 1982 spinoff, Sintered Specialties, Inc., became SSI Technologies, a manufacturer of automotive sensors.

A management buyout in 1987 moved the company headquarters to Newhaven, East Sussex, England which was the original location of the Valentine Pen Company previously acquired by Parker. In 1993 Parker was acquired by the Gillette Company, which already owned the PaperMate brand, one of the best-selling disposable ballpoints. Gillette sold the writing instruments division in 2000 to Newell Rubbermaid, whose own Stationery Division, Sanford, became the largest in the world owning such brand names as Rotring, Sharpie, Reynolds as well as Parker, PaperMate, Waterman and Liquid Paper.

The old Parker Pen factory remained empty until around 2003 when it was converted to an industrial park called Arrow Park. Panoramic, Inc, which was once the packaging division of Parker Pen currently takes up most of the old building, which also houses Kandu. TAGOS Leadership Academy, a charter school, takes up an old warehouse behind the main building.

In July of 2009 the 180 workers at Parker Newhaven, UK, got notis that the factory was to be shut down and the production moved to France. BBC News

Models

2007 model.

Key models in the company's history include Jointless (1899), Jack Knife Safety (1909), Duofold (1921), Vacumatic (1932), "51" (1941), Jotter (1954), 61 (1956), 45, 75 (1964), Classic (1967), 25 (1975), Arrow (1982), Vector (1986), Duofold International (1987), 95 (1988), Sonnet (1993), and the Parker 100 (2004).

Martini formula

Parker pen ran an advertising campaign in the early 1970s, simply showing a hand using a Parker Pen to write the following 'mathematical' formula on a piece of paper:

${\frac {(3.5G+{\frac {V}{2}})}{4(H_{2}O)^{3}}}+3(360^{\circ })=M$

The result was that they received numerous inquiries by chemists, mathematicians, and physicists, asking for the meaning of the formula, as they could not figure it out. The formula is actually a humorous representation for the recipe of a Martini: 3.5 shots of gin and half a shot of vermouth over 4 parts H₂O³ (water cubed = ice), finished off with three stirs (the 3×360°).

Apparently the campaign received one very critical letter asking "Who ever heard of a martini without an olive?".

External links

• Official site
• Parker 51 Special Edition (Originally official site for re-issue of Parker 51, but seems to have other news about Parker pens, too.)
• www.parker75.com (Hobby site with great amount of information on how to date a Parker 75)
• Parker Pen Collection (A dealer's website - has useful illustrations)
• PenHero.com: Pengallery: Parker
• Parkercollector.com (Detailed information about most pen models made by the Parker Pen Company.)