Welcome to the bottom of
the Parker lineup, c. 1938! I can't honestly see where the
savings in production are in this pen, except that the point is not as
heavy as that in the then-top ranked Vacumatic. The
interior mechanism is simpler than that of the Vacumatic, too, but
otherwise there's not a lot of difference-- certainly not in evident
material quality. The celluloid is attractive, the plating is
firm, and the writing is... well, a little dry, to be honest, but
that's one pen as an example. The catalogue for 1939 hints that
the tipping material is different between this and the slightly
higher-priced Duofold ("iridium"
as opposed to "osmiridium"), but given how little of it there is I
can't see there being a huge cost savings in applying one or the other.
The funny thing is that this is a rather larger pen than either that
1939 Duofold, or the later version
which pushed the Challenger out of the low-end. One might even
call it "squat", given its relative width. You might not
have paid a lot for it ($2.75), but you sure got a great big pen for
the money.
Specifications: Fine 14k gold
point. Button filler. 13.0 cm long capped, 15.5 cm
posted. Canadian model.
Condition: Toothmarks on the blind-cap, not deep but well
distributed. A couple of similar marks on the cap. A bare
hint of brassing on the point of the clip. Barrel impression is
light but easily read. Ink window is ambered, not yet red
but a dark amber, and the colour
of the body is also slightly affected.
Repairs: Cleaning, polishing of fittings, and a silicone sac to
arrest ambering.
Location: Murrell's
Inlet, South Carolina
Sold for:
$45.00, which I hesitate to leave in place, as the pen was bought as a
Christmas gift to replace one once used to write letters home from the
Pacific Theatre, and destroyed in the following decade by the son who
bought this replacement.
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