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 he "Big Red" line of Duofolds, introduced in the 1920's was put in a moth bag in the mid 1930's. A few years later Parker decided, a bit surprisingly, to re-use the once status-filled name for an inexpensive line introduced in 1939. It had a very distinct pattern, sometimes referred to as the "Toothbrush" or "Geometric" Duofold. It was a button filler but was not very popular and it was discontinued within a year, making it very collectible. It was replaced in 1940 by the Duofold Vacumatic, among collectors often referred to as the Duovac, it was an attractive, striped pen, the design initially referred to by Parker as |
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the "Laidtone". Although it replaced the Geometric Duofold the Duovacs was a quality pen. They came in three sizes, Debutante, Major and Senior. that began to be produced in 1940. With the exception of the colours it followed the design of the late, second generation long Major Vacumatics very closely. Some rare 1942 items actually have the Vacumatic imprint, the Vacumatic clip and a "stacked coin" cap band, usually found on the Vacumatics only, Some even have been found with both the Vacumatic and the Duofold imprint.
 t sported a tapered clip with a Parker engraving and the most expensive models had the blue diamond.
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 The largest model, called the Senior, had three cap bands, the middle one being very wide. Later, in mid 1941, the model adopted the ///\\\/// pattern also found on the very popular (confusingly enough) Major Vacumatics. Initially it sported a blind cap tassie, or rather a girdle, that gave the underlying material the appearance of a "jewel", but this feature was removed in 1942. The clip also had the blue diamond, introduced with the Parker "51". A ladies version of this pen, the Ingenue, was also offered. Later items had a nice two-tone nib with a V engraved under the breather hole, reaching for the nib wings.
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hree kinds of fillers in the striped Duofold line were offered. The first had an aluminium speedline filler (1940-1942), the second a later style plastic vacumatic filler (1942-1948) and the third kind was a Duofold style button filler. The striped Duofolds were offered in four colours: Black; Blue, Silver and Black (Blue);Pink, Silver and Black (Maroon), Green, Gold and Black (Green); and Black. The black was however not offered in all models. There was also a period during 1942 when Parker decided to clean out old stocks, letting us collectors find many un-catalogued variants of Vacumatics and Vacufolds. Over a hundred variations of the striped Duofolds have been found.
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The 1940 set-up:
Senior: 135 mm. A blue Diamond pen with three cap bands, the middle one being broader. Bottom tassie girdle. Aluminium Speedline filler. The size of a Slender Maxima.
Ingenue: dito but 125 mm. These two models cost $8.75 each and a matching pencil was offered for $4.00 or $12.75 as a pen/pencil set. Offered in the three colours of Blue, Maroon and Green.
Major: No blue diamond. Wide single cap band with a boxed ellipse design unique to this model. Bottom tassie girdle. Aluminium Speedline filler.
Debutante: Dito. These two models cost $5.00, a matching pencil for $2.50 or $7.50 as a pen/pencil set. Offered in the three colours of Blue, Maroon and Green.
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Junior: No Blue diamond. Two narrow cap bands, Aluminium Speedline filler.
Sub Deb: Dito. These two models cost $3.95, a matching pencil for $2.50 or $5.00 as a pen/pencil set. Offered in the four colours of Blue, Maroon, Green and black.
Duofold "For Men": This model had triple, narrow cap bands, much resembling the Standard Vacumatic, although it was an opaque button filler.
Duofold Lady: Dito, but with a wide jeweller's band. These two models cost $2.95, a matching pencil for $2.00 or $3.95 as a pen/pencil set. Offered in the four colours of Blue, Maroon, Green and black.
Desk pens were also offered.
The easiest way to identify the button filled striped Duofold is by the black blind cap. |
n the 1941 catalogue the Duofolds transparent features were referred to as Full Television ink supply, while the button fillers had the small, transparent window at the end of the section allowing the |
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user to determine not how much ink the pen held, but at least gave a hint when it was close to empty, this was referred to as the Visiometer ink supply. This was a feature adopted from the 1939 Geometric Duofolds.
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n 1942 the tassie girdle was removed from the Senior, and Ingenue, whilde the Major and Debutante was discontinued. On the button fillers the triple narrow bands were replaced with a wide, jewellers band on the larger Duofold and a smooth mid-sized cap band on the Lady Duofold. The aluminium |
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speedline fillers were also replaced with a plastic plunger model.
The striped Duofolds were phased out with the Vacumatics in 1948.
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