[rhr]

Pompeian Orange

Parker's "Trench Pen" is an eyedropper pen that fills, as most do, at the section-end of the barrel. The blind-cap-end is not drilled out and is not able to receive a button-filling mechanism, and the blind cap is especially long because it is meant to hold a few solid ink tablets. That's another feature that Parker promoted to the boys in battle, and is advertized in the ads in another thread in this forum, the "Button Fillers, and Twist Fillers, and the duo-fold filler" thread. This ink-tablet pen has nothing to do with converting a button filler as an eyedropper, but it was marketed in parallel with the duo-filler conversion feature.

The "Trench Pen" does, however, have some features in common with the early Duofold, so I have attached a couple of pictures of the pen to illustrate these features. The picture of the BHR "Trench Pen" demonstrates the early "Lucky Curve" threads that the first Duofold also had. These threads are not compatible with the later Duofolds. But the picture of the RHR pen is the really interesting one. This pen sold on Ebay in 2003, and the image is very low resolution. The pen had a broken cap, so a very proficient pensmith made a replacement cap from a RHR Duofold Jr. The RHR material in the Duofold was a much brighter orange color, so that's why there is a color difference between the cap and barrel.

This pen is a perfect example of the difference in color between the earlier, darker RHR that Parker used in the Lucky Curve era, and the later, brighter orange color they used in the Duofold era. In fact, that darker shade is probably the color of the Pompeian Brown Duofold! It's not as brown as one would expect from the name, so maybe it's time that we started calling it Pompeian Orange. ;-)

George Kovalenko.

Attached File(s)

•  Trench_Pen_bhr.jpeg (46.65K)
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•  Trench_Pen_rhr.jpg (66.39K)
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[Rob Astyk]

Hi, George,

Very interesting post. At the Los Angeles or Chicago Show 2 years ago I saw a Parker trench pen that, I believe, was in the possession of Stephen Overbury. It was the negative image of your "Pompeian Orange" model with a black barrel and cap and RHR Jack-Knife Safety inner cap and ink pellet container. Quite a striking pen.

I think that it is worth making explicit that the Trench pens were made on the same machines that turned the Parker button fillers of the era. The only differences being the longer blind cap on the barrel end and the fact that the barrel is not bored through between the ink chamber and the blind cap.

Anyway, thanks for posting that information.

Take care,

Rob Astyk

[rhr]

At the Los Angeles or Chicago Show 2 years ago I saw a Parker trench pen that, I believe, was in the possession of Stephen Overbury. It was the negative image of your "Pompeian Orange" model with a black barrel and cap and RHR Jack-Knife Safety inner cap and ink pellet container. Quite a striking pen.

Rob, are you certain that it was a Trench Pen? That is, did it have the super long blind cap that held ink tablets? At about the same time, Parker also had a Nurse's Pen that had a bhr cap & barrel with rhr ends, also a striking pen. I am posting a scan from a photo of the pen from the Parker Archives. I was lucky enough to have attended the visit to the Parker Archives and factory in 1991. :-)

I might also add that the rhr ends on this Nurse's Pen are probably examples of this Pompeian Orange color.

George Kovalenko.

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•  nurse.jpg (76.18K)
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[John Danza]

Thanks very much George for starting this topic. The picture of the black pen that you posted is actually my pen, which I brought with me to the most recent meeting of the Chicago Pen Club, where it was photographed. As a result of picking up the pen on eBay (low priced because the picture was lousy and couldn't be recognized), I've been doing some research using the PCA library. The information below is relative only to the Parker trench pen.

First, I can tell you that this is not just a button filler with the hole not bored through. The diameter of the threaded portion on the barrel that the blind cap meets up with is considerably larger than that same piece on the various button fill Jack Knife Safety (JKS) "20" size pens that I have. The blind cap of the trench pen goes right over the top of the button filler without coming close to engaging the threads.

What I've been able to learn from various Parker publications along with talking to Mike Fultz is that the trench pen was made between mid-1916 and 1918. The 1918 catalog is the last time that it appears. While it's cataloged specifically as "The Trench Pen", none were ever marked as such and instead have the normal JKS markings. I've posted a copy of the page from the 1918 catalog showing the trench pen.

The work that Fultz and Dan Zazove have done on this topic is pretty extensive. Fultz has an article about trench pens that's posted in the article archives of Penbid. I recommend going over there and reading it before that site shuts down (it's for sale). Fultz also sent me a copy of the information page that was printed in Pen World in 1996 along with a picture of a Parker Black Giant trench pen.

[attachmentid=146][attachmentid=147]

The picture postings I've done are at very low resolution to not blow past the maximum attachment sizes on the L&P board. If anyone would like the full size versions, just let me know and I'll email them to you.

Lastly, according to Fultz there are no known versions of this pen with a RHR blind cap. The RHR trench pens known all have BHR blind caps. Rob, if that pen you saw did have one, it would be a first. I think Stephen posts to this list occasionally. Stephen, if you do have such a pen, please post a message and a photo. It would be great to see.

Sorry for the long post, but this is a favorite subject of mine. All the best.

John Danza

[Rob Astyk]

Hi, George and John, et al.,

I only saw the pen I mentioned for a few minutes but I believe that it was a Trench Pen. I recognized it right away because the blind cap was exceptionally long. I will leave open the possibility that I was mistaken. The seller also identified it as a Trench Pen. Before I could remove the blind cap I was called away and then couldn't find the seller and pen when I got a chance to go back for another look quite a bit later. Therefore, I will state that I believe that I saw a Trench Pen in BHR with red ends.

As an aside, I always wondered why Parker didn't produce a BHR Duofold with red ends as a standard model, simply reversing the standard Duofold pattern instead of the all-black, it's-only-a-Duofold-because-it's-in-the-imprint variety. I figure that it has something to do with the relative weakness of RHR parts and the strength required for the end pieces, but that's only a guess.

Take care,

Rob Astyk

[rhr]

Sorry for the long post, but this is a favorite subject of mine.

You call that a long post? You should see some of the posts by Rob, or Rick, or me.

Thanks for posting the extra info and pics, John. Can you just imagine the #25-sized Trench Pen? With the longer blind cap, it would be enormous! I have two Parker Jack Knife Safety #25s in bhr. The older one is slightly shorter than a Duofold, but the later one, probably one from the 1920s, is exactly the same size as a Duofold overall, but with a narrower nib and a smaller feed and bore in the section. When capped, the #25 Trench Pen would be longer than a Duofold.

George Kovalenko.

[rhr]

. . . the trench pen was made between mid-1916 and 1918. The 1918 catalog is the last time that it appears. While it's cataloged specifically as "The Trench Pen", none were ever marked as such and instead have the normal JKS markings. I've posted a copy of the page from the 1918 catalog showing the trench pen.

John, did you notice that the pen in the 1918 catalogue has a different type of ink-tablet compartment? Instead of a blind-cap compartment, the compartment is inside the end of the barrel. And the blind cap is reduced to a barrel-end plug that screws into the internal barrel-end threads, instead of onto the external threads of a button-filler remnant.

[attachmentid=150]

So there are two different styles of the Trench Pen, and many different sizes to find. It all makes for a very interesting sub-collection.

George Kovalenko.

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•  Trench_2.jpg (519.33K)
  Number of downloads: 68

[Vintagepens]

I have never seen a trench pen with the alternative end plug arrangement discussed above. I wonder if any are known?

As for Rob's query, keep in mind that Parker did offer BHR pens with colored end caps, so he may well have seen a JKS (not a trench pen, though) in black with red ends.

[John Danza]

John, did you notice that the pen in the 1918 catalogue has a different type of ink-tablet compartment? Instead of a blind-cap compartment, the compartment is inside the end of the barrel. And the blind cap is reduced to a barrel-end plug that screws into the internal barrel-end threads, instead of onto the external threads of a button-filler remnant.

So there are two different styles of the Trench Pen, and many different sizes to find. It all makes for a very interesting sub-collection.

I did see that in the picture, but i chalked it up to advertising hyperbole to better illustrate the storage of the ink tablets. I think it's unlikely that there is a variation of the storage style.

George, you're right that a 25 JKS trench would be pretty large. Take a look at the attached, which is a picture of an actual Black Giant trench pen. Talk about large! This thing probably required a whole container of tablets to fill it.

[attachmentid=151]

This picture came from Fultz, but I don't know who's collection the pen came from. This is one of those unique combinations in collecting, a rarity layered upon a rarity. There are so few trench pens of any style known that to lump one in with a Giant is pretty exciting. All that's left is to find a Red Giant trench! Ok, I'll stop dreaming now.

All the best,
John

[rhr]

At the Los Angeles or Chicago Show 2 years ago I saw a Parker trench pen that, I believe, was in the possession of Stephen Overbury. It was the negative image of your "Pompeian Orange" model with a black barrel and cap and RHR Jack-Knife Safety inner cap and ink pellet container. Quite a striking pen.

Looks like Rob's memory might not be deceiving him after all. In his article on Penbid titled "Ink Pills and Trench Pens",
Michael Fultz writes,

"Parker’s advertising indicated that he had given a large quantity of these Trench Pens to the American troops sent to France. The ads said that those pens were black but had the blind caps holding the ink tablets made of red hard rubber. It is unclear whether Parker ever got his pen gifts to the troops, or if so, whether they actually had red blind caps. Parker Trench Pens are quite rare today, and none of the existing pens seen by the author has a red blind cap. In fact, the Trench Pen in the factory archives is made of red hard rubber but has a black blind cap."
http://www.penbid.co...e.asp?art_id=76

The Trench Pen in black with red ends should exist after all. Now, can anybody find some of those ads?

George Kovalenko.

[Vintagepens]

Let us revive this thread in order to rehouse the "trench pen" discussion that evolved out of the RHR thread.

I will start by responding to this post, in which it is claimed

It appears that there probably was indeed a contract between the War Department and Parker for the "trench pens". Although, it is more of an exclusive dealership arrangement where Parker made the pens and the War Department SOLD them to the troops.

Yet the linked references that follow are either glaringly unreliable or not directly apropos. Most are the usual online "histories" that are nothing more than sloppy paraphrases of other sloppy paraphrases (bad plagiarism, in other words). None provides more than unsupported assertions.

The most solid reference is Fultz's short Penbid article, yet read the relevant passage for yourself:

Parker’s advertising indicated that he had given a large quantity of these Trench Pens to the American troops sent to France. The ads said that those pens were black but had the blind caps holding the ink tablets made of red hard rubber. It is unclear whether Parker ever got his pen gifts to the troops or, if so, whether they actually had red blind caps.

This in no way suggests any sort of government contract, no matter how you might twist it. It does suggest that some "Trench Pens" were given to soldiers on their way abroad, but take the "large quantity" with a big grain of salt. Old GSP probably had a few dozen distributed to local Janesville doughboys.

Incidentally, we might want to be more careful about terminology. "Trench Pen" was, to my knowledge, Parker's coinage, and possibly trademarked. Other companies that made ink-pellet pens called them by other names, usually incorporating "ink-tab" or "ink-pellet". They did not call them "trench pens".

PS I would also take issue with Fultz's assertion that the most popular ink-pellet pens of the era were the Swan and the Parker. The Swan qualifies, as one finds examples regularly. The Parker does not -- it is seriously rare, and should not be put in the same category. Moore ink-tab safeties are considerably more common, as are even Diamond Point ink-pellet pens.

[John Danza]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread David.

I agree that it's extremely unlikely that there would have been a government contract for trench pens. The 1918 Parker catalog page that is devoted to "Trench Pens" states nothing about a contract, and they certainly would have used that information in advertising if it had existed.

I would also agree that the comment about the popularity of the Parker is suspect. I've only seen two come across eBay in the past 5 or 6 years, one of which I bought pretty inexpensively because the picture was so bad it was hard to tell what it was. I don't think I've ever seen one at a pen show.

The Parker advertising comment about the pens being black with the blind caps being red is also suspect. As I recall, Fultz told me he's never seen one in that configuration. I know they exist the other way around, as Tsachi sent me a picture of his pen which IIRC was a Jack Knife 24 in RHR with a black blind cap.

I have to admit that the Black Giant Trench Pen that was pictured in Fultz's Pen World article was pretty darned impressive though!

All the best,
John