THE PARKER DESK SET IN THE DUOFOLD AGE.
PART IX. PARKER’S DESK SETS 1930-1933.
A collaboration by Dan Zazove, Chris Odgers, Len Provisor, and Ramón Campos. March 2023.
At the beginning of 1930 Vest-Parker Duofolds, newcomers to the Parker family were introduced along with a set of bridge bases in painted ivory enamel with the four suits—spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs and matching color pencils. Each base was individually packaged in an attractive box and these four boxes in a larger gift box.
The individual bridge bases with matching pencils; ideal for gifts, bridge parties, and prizes, were offered at $6.50. The set of all four was $24.
Also introduced at the same time as the new Vest-Parkers pens and pencils desk set equipped with both a fountain pen ($5.00) and pencil ($2.50), each convertible could be changed in seconds from desk use to pocket use simply by exchanging the cap for the desk taper.
In place of cumbersome old inkwells, desk sets become popular in offices, banks, and hotels, with businesses equipping their facilities with Parker desk sets. Even airlines carried them on their planes.
“Every time you sell a pen, say to the customer, -Now you have half of a modem writing outfit, and then display the base.” Parker continued its commercial promotion and offered its dealers a free oval porcelain Desk Set, complete with a $5 Duofold Junior pen for purchases over $60, or two sets for purchases of $100.
The pen manufacturers, who by this time had already introduced their own desk sets, could now boast of the economic advantages of a desk fountain pen. Parker commissioned Edwin G. Booz Laboratories in Chicago to carry out a scientific survey to determine the efficiency of Parker Duofold desk sets, resulting in the conclusion that employers save 6.26% by equipping their employees with Parker utility desk sets. A sales pitch used by Parker informed potential customers that an employer could save $112.50 a year per office worker by purchasing Parker desk sets, repaying their cost in just a few months.
In the summer of 1930, Parker started an advertising campaign under the slogan «Courtesy writes its intimate letter by hand» with photos capturing poses of movie stars writing letters with their Duofold desk pens. Stars like Joan Crawford, Bessie Love, Lupe Velez, Kay Francis, Mary Brian, or Anita Page posed for Parker ads in a campaign that would last more than six months.
At the same time, Parker offers a desk lamp in a finish known as Pearltex; a bronze color, with an attractive design mountable on any of its bases. The lamp added $15 to the cost of the desk set.
In June, Guyot filed a new pen patent application for a novel swingable mounting for the socket base.
To their already diverse catalog, for Christmas 1930 Parker incorporated the possibility of mounting a lamp at $11 on the onyx double base model BBO. Another new item was a $2.50 bronze Utility Desk Base.
For this season, Parker designed the model C, a 6½” x 4½” new desk base in a modern style that could be used on a desk at home and in the office. Focused on the low-price market at $2.50, it was made of Britannia metal in a choice of three finishes: Verdi green, antique brown, and statuary bronze. It offered a pencil groove and depressions for rubber bands, clips, etc. The new style socket of model C was designed in deco style.
In April 1931, Kenneth Parker, Ivan Tefft, and Nathan Paquette, senior engineer and Parker Tool Room foreman, jointly filed a patent application improving the union assembly of a socket to the desk base. Just a few days later, Ivan Tefft, individually, filed another patent application simplifying this last improvement. Both patents would be assigned to the Parker Pen Co. and not to the Pen Desk Set Co. as all the previous ones had been.
At Christmas 1931 under the motto “Thrift Time Christmas Creations” the Company presents an octagonal black base with a gold-filled band in a travel desk set into a nice Bakelite gift box at $5.75 -$8.75 with a $3.00 “Thrift pen” or $10.75 accompanied by a Duofold Junior.
The last new model desk base offered prior to the introduction of the Vacumatic would be the Penparker, a name suggested by Kenneth Parker, for a simple and well-thought-out metal device finished in black and chromium metal in Art Deco design, adapted for ready and quick conversion from an ordinary pocket type fountain pen into a desk set unit and vice versa; where a single fountain pen unit may efficiently serve for both pocket and desk set purposes for which the cap serves the purpose of socket or receptacle usually found in fountain pen desk bases. The receptacle is eliminated, and the ordinarily detachable cap of the fountain pen is used for this purpose.
The Penparker patent was awarded to Ivan D. Tefft, the Parker patent attorney. As a professional with many years of experience in writing instrument design, not only at Parker Pen but previously with the Wahl Company where he obtained several patents, Tefft was very familiar with pen technology and spent many hours with the employees of the technical division so that he could apply for the patents and describe their inventions in greater detail. He also suggested improvements in some of the models that other employees created so they could be manufactured cost-effectively. Because you see his name on so many patents as either inventor, co-inventor or as the attorney for the inventor, he participated in the discussion for many new Parker improvements and major projects.
In 1932, the lack of sales resulted in hard times for pen manufacturers, and Parker Pen realized the need to stimulate the market with new innovative designs. Its venerable Duofold approached the end of its decade long run as it awaits the arrival of the new Vacumatic.
The authors wish to thank Tsachi Mitsenmacher, Gary (R.I.P.) and Myrna Lehrer, and PBA Galleries for his invaluable contributions.