Parker Pen Company
| Parker Pen Company | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid |
| founding | 1888 |
| Seat |
Newhaven , England
|
| Branch | Consumer goods |
| Website | http://www.parkerpen.com/ |
Parker Pen Company , or Parker for short , is an American company that manufactures various stationery items. Founded in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1888 , it specifically manufactures ballpoint pens and fountain pens that have had the nib arrow clip since 1933.
Foundation, history and models
George Safford Parker (* 1863 in Shullsburg ) took over after he graduated from Upper Iowa University and attended a course on telegraphy at the Valentine School in Janesville, Wisconsin , where he became a teacher within a year, a representation of the John Holland Fountain pen. Since he was not satisfied with the ink feed of the pens he sold, he began to redesign it. On December 10, 1889, he received a patent for the construct. With the help of a jeweler he knew, Parker managed to assemble his first own pens. He sold the 50 percent of the "Parker Pen Company", which had since been established , for $ 1,000 to WF Palmer , an insurance agent.
In the next few years Parker received numerous patents for inventions with which he improved fountain pens, including the Lucky Curve feeder , which ensured that the remaining ink was pulled out of the pen when the fountain pen was not in use. On June 28, 1899, he received the patent for the first push-fit cap and on May 3, 1904 for the invention of a new filling system that could be used to fill fountain pens without a pipette.
In 1918 the company's sales exceeded the million mark. His son Russell Parker joined the company in 1914, followed by his son Kenneth Parker in 1919.
Around 1917/1922 (the exact date is unclear) the company launched the men's fountain pen Duofold , it was a further development of the Jack Knife Saftey fountain pen (Jack Knife 25). This cost 7 dollars at the time, more than twice as much as a conventional fountain pen. The pen was red and had a gold nib. The Duofold was the idea of the park manager Lewis M. Tebbel. There were three models of this pen: Senior, Junior and Lady . At that time, Parker offered approximately 400 different types of pen. Since the Duofold quickly exhausted the company's production capacity, the range was reduced to 30 fountain pens that were easy to sell.
Georg Parker rented a factory in Toronto in 1923, expanding the company.
In 1924 the company set up a branch in England. This initially made considerable losses, which changed when the management of the branch was handed over to the English.
The very first plastic fountain pen was put on the market in 1926, it was made of Permanite.
In 1928, Bill Palmer, one of the company's shareholders, sold three quarters of his company shares to the investment bank AG Becker & Co. in Chicago. These shares were then listed on the Chicago Stock Exchange.
In the summer of 1932 a vacuum filler was brought onto the market. The patent had been bought from Professor Dahlberg of the University of Wisconsin and developed over five years. It was sold under the brand name Vacuum Filler and from 1933 under the name Vacumatic .
A range of inexpensive fountain pens and pencils was introduced in 1932 under the name Duette .
The upper-class model Smaragd / Perl was sold from 1935 and from 1936 the model The Senior . The Major models (pen and pencil) followed. In 1938 came the Junior Debutante series .
From 1934 to 1939, in addition to the upper-class models, cheaper models were also developed and offered, including the Parquet series, Challenger and Televisor .
The Vacumatics range was supplemented in 1939 by the luxury models Imperial and Major Signet . This was followed by the top models Imperial Ensign , Imperial Princess and the most expensive model, the Imperial Coronet, where the pencil cost $ 50 and the fountain pen $ 100.
The development of the Fiftone was completed in 1939 , it was first launched in Brazil and from 1941 worldwide under the name Parker 51 . In this series there followed more pens, which were designated with numbers. So in 1948 the models of the 21 series came on sale, which outwardly resembled the 51 series, but were not as elaborately processed as this one.
The Presidential 51 , offered in small numbers in 1949 , received the Fashion Academy Award in 1950 .
Parker's first ballpoint pen was launched in January 1954 under the name Jotter . He was advertised with the fact that he could endure a load of 180 kilograms. With this one could write five times longer than with conventional ballpoint pens, the tip wears out more slowly. It has been sold well over 750 million times.
With the filler model 61 , a completely new filling system was introduced in September 1956. The ink was sucked in by the capillary attraction. In 1960 the model 45 came , the first with an ink cartridge. According to a long-term study in 1962, the VP (Very Personal) model, of which a variant was later sold as the “Holy Water Sprinkler” for priests. In the model 75, which came in 1964, the gold nib could be twisted so that it could be adapted to the writing angle. From 1970 a titanium fountain pen was produced for a short time, the model T1 . In the 1970s came the Falcon (model 50) and model 180 , which could be used on both sides.
Web links
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- Juan Manuel Clark: Fountain pen , Flammarion, Paris 2005, ISBN 978-2-08-021032-6 .
- Andreas Lambrou: Fountain pen , Heyne, Munich 1992, ISBN 978-3-453-05442-4 .
- Johnathan Steinberg et al .: Fountain pen , Könemann, Cologne 1998, ISBN 978-3-8290-0526-5 .