Image from Len Provisor

Tebbel's Duofold
by Tim Barker

I’m sure many of you are tired of the seemingly endless discussion about the origins of the Duofold name. I’m a little surprised to hear some collectors, however, protest this sort of discussion, since I think it is the sort of historical analysis that makes the hobby so fascinating. While the discussions on the Internet are very entertaining and often educational, there is an “extra-web” tradition of pen scholarship, the fruits of which have been found for years in “The PENnant”, the newsletter of the Pen Collectors of America. Michael Fultz, Daniel Zazove, and David Nishimura, all of whom contribute generously to the pen debate, are examples of collectors whom I would also call pen scholars. They have written several excellent, thoroughly researched articles that I highly recommend. Fultz and Zazove have written a seven-part history of Parker’s great Duofold, published in serial form in “The PENnant”. Although the authors don’t say specifically “this is how the Duofold got its name”, they clearly point out the answer, which I’ll explain below.

Some time ago, I posted on a couple of pen sites my theory on this subject. I said then (and I still think now) that the name derives from the pen’s distinctive two-color scheme (Duo) and specialty, manifolding (Fold) nib. My thinking was that these were the essential, distinctive features of this pen when it was introduced in 1921. Now I’ve found some compelling historical information in support of this theory.

The pen was the creation of a Parker salesman, Lewis Tebbel, who traveled to Janesville to have the factory assemble a pen similar to a #26, but with a red and black color scheme and a manifolding (very hard, for carbon copy work) nib. Tebbel did not get a favorable reaction at first from the Parker management hierarchy, but he did take some prototype pens back to his sales district. These prototypes were made in the early part of 1921.

George Parker was traveling overseas in 1921, and he didn’t hear firsthand about the Duofold until he arrived at port in San Francisco in very early August 1921. Here, a district manager much more popular than Tebbel, E. W. Davies, pitched the pen’s concept to him. George Parker explained the concept within days of hearing about it firsthand in a mimeographed newsletter distributed to salesmen on August 4. I won’t quote all of Parker’s comments here--they can be read in Vol. X, No. 1 of “The PENnant”--but his descriptive points all relate to the dual color scheme and the specialty purpose, manifolding nib. Parker states: “it is made of maroon rubber with a cap at the end of the fountain opposite the pen point and also the blind cap which sets over the pen, black rubber, the rest of the fountain Maroon, making a most distinctive looking pen. The pen is manifold and especially ground for this Duofold pen”. In fact, in bold all-caps Parker summarizes the exciting new pen as follows:

DISTINCTIVE LOOKING PEN
BUILT IN A DISTINCTIVE WAY
AND FOR A DISTINCTIVE PURPOSE

Parker specifically mentions the 2-color scheme five times and the manifolding nib eight times. There is no mention of airplanes (Parker may have had a “Duofold” airplane, but he didn’t even name the pen, Tebbel did), long-johns, desk sets (the Duofold desk set premiered in 1926), double ink capacity, folds in the filling system or the notion that this could be used as an eyedropper.

Frank Dubiel, whom most collectors knew as a very knowledgeable and helpful pen expert, was insistent that this last feature was the defining aspect of the pen’s name. Besides the reasons given above, there are others to suggest Tebbel (and it must be remembered that he--not Parker’s advertising department nor Parker himself--named the pen) was in no way thinking of filling systems when he coined “Duofold”.

Parker had marketed its “safety sealed” pens since the mid teens with this “dual-use filling system” feature. The “safety sealed” ads first referred to Parker’s inner cap design, which was supposed to prevent leaking. But during World War I, Parker made much ado in its advertising of the fact that their button and bar self-filler was more practical than either Conklin’s crescent or Waterman’s coin (or the upstart Sheaffer’s lever) since, if the sac ruptured in any of these, the ink would bleed from the barrel slots. The fact that, in an emergency, one could take the filler out of a self-filling pen and use it as an eyedropper was marketed primarily to “the boys overseas”, who might actually (living for months in a trench) have a use for such a feature. But for practical purposes, this was a minor feature meant only to give Parkers a slight edge in the self-filling wars, and, again, it is a feature advertised many years before Tebbel conceived the Duofold. Those Duofold ads that do contain this vestige of a previous marketing gimmick are ads that feature pens other than the Duofold line. Does it really make sense that Tebbel would choose to name his new, specialty use pen for an eight-year-old feature that had done nothing to stem Parker’s slide in the self-filling pen sales to fourth of the “big four”?

In the earliest Duofold printed advertisements, the pen was described as “a distinguished looking pen, red-brown in color, and has a manifold point which writes perfectly on any paper”. The distinguishing points of this pen in early advertising are, again, its nib (“write home [while traveling] on your knee”, “heavy gold nib . . . guaranteed for 25 years”) and its distinctive color scheme (“Lacquer red color says—‘don’t forget your pen!’ ”, “Rivals the beauty of the Scarlet Tanager”). It is important to note that when Parker finally applied for trademarks on this pen on January 14, and May 23, 1922, the trademarks were for the name and the red and black color scheme. Anything other than a distinctive two-color appearance and manifolding nib on a true “Duofold” came later--all black hard rubber Duofolds weren’t introduced until 1923.

While it is true that Parker made many other claims for this tremendously successful line of pens during succeeding years, I think that the evidence cited above explains its inventor’s intent. Like many creative individuals in large corporations, Tebbel’s genius in the generation of a pen that literally turned Parker’s financial future around was not emphasized. Once the pen became “an event”, i.e., a tremendous marketing success, the specialty nature of the original Duofold was quickly downplayed. For those interested in the details of pen history, however, Tebbel remains an interesting character and his concepts for the pen and its name are by no means a complete mystery.

Tim Barker is an architect practicing in St. Louis, Missouri.