Striped Duofolds

The Duofold was retired in 1932 (while it was removed from the Parker catalog, American production continued until 1937) and reintroduced in 1939 as the Geometric Duofold (aka the “Toothbrush” because of the black patten).  The Geometric was quickly replaced in 1940 by the Striped Duofold, which was eventually discontinued in 1948.  The Striped Duofolds were manufactured using a material that Parker called Laidtone in four colours – blue (blue, silver and black), maroon (pink, silver and black), green (green, brown and black) and black – and eight models (Button filler – Dufold and Lady Duofold, Vacumatic filler – Junior, Sub-Debutante, Major, Debutante, Senior and Ingenue).  Black was not available in all models, e.g., Vacumatic – Major, Debutante, Senior and Ingenue.

I was talking to another pen collector a week or so ago about my set of three striped  Senior Duofolds.  I have a set of three Seniors (Blue, Maroon and Green).  The Seniors can be identified by the Blue Diamond on their clips.

Striped Senior Duofolds owned by MAW

When I mentioned that I owned a complete set of three Striped Duofolds, the other collector told me that there was a fourth colour (the black one) and thus, my set was not a complete one.  I had never heard this before, so the completist ( a collector who attempts to collect an example of every item in a particular field) in me began to hyperventilate.  The anxiety subsided (eventually) and I started researching the matter, beginning with the Parker Duofold book by Shepherd and Zazove.  While the book mentioned black as one of the colours, it did not specify whether it was used in all of the models.  A few searches on Google were not helpful so I turned to the smart people on the Fountain Pen Network, where I posted my picture and asked for help.  David Isaacson of Vacumania.com came to the rescue and provided me with the information concerning the models that used black.  Phew, my Senior set is complete!

Of course, there had to be a bit of a twist as David mentioned that a blue diamond black Duofold does exist – a rather scarce high line desk pen was made in black.  Now, where can that one be?  If you have any information concerning this pen, please send me a note.

De Atramentis Dark Blue Ink

A fellow LPC member was kind enough to pick up a bottle of De Atramentis Dark Blue ink from Laywine’s in Toronto.  The ink is also known by the not very PC name of “Business Ink for Successful Men”.  I certainly agree that it would make a nice business ink but I expect it could be used just as well, if not better, by the fairer sex.

A very nice ink with a blue-black look to it, no hint of purple as you may find in a number of blue inks.  Fwiw, I have seen some comments that it is similar to Dupont Blue-Black.

Sept. 13 update – When I posted this on the Fountain Pen Network and mentioned how difficult I found the De Atramentis website to navigate, in terms of finding the inks suitable for fountain pens and the colours that interest me, I was directed to this tremendously useful color card that lists the inks by colour and both their German and English names.  Beware though, it is not in numerical order as their newer colours appear to have been added at the end, e.g. #47 Taubenblau/Colombin.

Good Times at the 2008 Michigan Pen Show

This post has been authored (for the most part) by Dr. Stan, a longtime member of the London Pen Club, with comments from the blog editor.

The trip to the Michigan Pen Show on September 6, 2008 was fun as always!  Our chauffeur John P. was kind enough to give us a guided tour through the Port Huron Business loop that was particularly interesting (Riding along in Mike’s comfy Honda Pilot – no mention of that I see.).

At the show, we browsed around and picked up a few pens. Around midday, we went to lunch and visited the Paradise Pens store at the nearby Somerset Mall.  We then stopped back at the show once more before returning to London.  It was there that I experienced the highlight of my pen collecting years.

I brought my favourite writer to the show, an old (vintage) Waterman that Mike (the generous editor of this blog) had given to me (Actually, I asked you to hold on to it for safekeeping.  That memory of yours is not quite what it once was!).  I don’t want to belittle his generosity (although you are), but I think the fact that her beautiful blue body was crowned with a rather shabby black cap had something to do with it I.  Nevertheless, her long slender gold nib, shiny and proud, was flexible and smooth and no matter how I leaned on it to achieve the desired effect, always sprung back to its original form.  Occasionally, I sought to find a better cap for her but she always seemed to look better in that old black cap.

Mike insisted on showing the flexible nib on my Waterman to a nib expert.  The expert assured us that the nib could not write properly because its tines were severely misaligned.  He was about to adjust it when I wrestled it (with the greatest of difficulty) from his hands.  After that comment (and near-miss), I just had to demonstrate her talent, which I did by providing a writing sample, to the stunned silence of the expert.

We (Mike and I) drifted over to a gentleman pen dealer with a large Tupperware-type box full of pen parts.  As I still had my precious Waterman in my hand, I casually asked, “Got a cap to match this?”.

“Gee, I could swear I had something like that in my box this morning, but almost everything is gone now.” came the dealer’s reply.

Like a shark smelling a drop of blood in a million drops of water, I began to navigate through the box systematically.  Interrupted once again and just about to turn away, I caught a glimpse of that familiar blue!
“My God, I think I’ve got it!” I yelled incredulously.  Mike looked at me as though I was delusional (The way you were yelling, I thought your sildenafil citrate had kicked in!).  Then he looked again.

“That’s it!” he agreed, then “He’ll take it,” he said to the dealer.
“Ten bucks,” said the dealer, “Eight,” I said, “Ten” he said, “Nine, I said, “Ten,” he said, “Ten”, I said (You made a strategic error in bargaining when you told the dealer that the pen was given to you gratis – mistakenly, see earlier safekeeping reference.).

All the way home to London I admired my beautiful, newly adorned (and now complete) vintage Waterman, and made sure that Mike and John did too (even though John was supposed to be driving.  Good thing you were finished by the time we reached the border crossing or that would have been an adventure.).

Blue Canadian Waterman fountain pen - image from www.vintagewatermanpens.co.uk

At last, my ugly duckling had been transformed into a beautiful swan.  Anybody got a black Waterman body to match a beautiful black Waterman cap (Funny how it was a shabby and old black cap a few paragraphs ago.)?

Editor’s (Mike’s) final note:  Most people are familiar with the concept of karma.  Well, I truly believe that Dr. Stan’s good fortune of finding a matching cap for my pen is a direct result of good karma.  As a result, I strongly encouraged him to toss the leftover black cap into the box of pen parts so that someone else might benefit from his good fortune.  But no, he wants to “double-up” and add a black Waterman to my collection!

Blue Upon The Plains of Abraham ink

Label from bottle of Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham - a Bulletproof ink by Noodler's

Introduction

I recently came across a discussion on the Fountain Pen Network concerning a new, custom Noodler’s Ink made for our friends Murtaza et al at Sleuth & Statesman, i.e., Blue Upon The Plains of Abraham (BUPA).  As you can see from the above picture of the label, the artwork is very detailed and draws on (no pun intended) the historical significance of this location, namely, the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (BOPA).  In fact, those of you who are more historically and/or artistically inclined may notice that the label is an artistic reproduction of A View of the Taking of Quebec, seen below:

A view of the taking of Quebec, 13th September 1759. (Library of the Canadian Department of National Defence).

A couple of nits about the label itself.  Obviously the Canadian flag is not historically correct.  I also must admit that I am confused by the meaning of the phrase “American Canadian Ink for Canada”.  I guess I could speculate a bit about that and maybe even rant; however, I have decided to let “sleeping dogs lie” in this instance rather than risk sparking a nationalist uproar.

History

Before I get to the ink itself, I think it would be interesting to review the history of the BOPA.  After all, it was only the most significant battle in Canadian history!  The actual Plains of Abraham (POA) was a large, flat piece of farmland on high cliffs to the west of Quebec City (and derive their name from a previous owner, Martin Abraham).  The BOPA was a battle fought between the French and English in 1759.  In less than an hour, the British troops led by Major-General Thomas Wolfe defeated the French forces commanded by Lieutenant-General le Marquis de Montcalm.  The French army retreated to Montreal and within a year had surrendered New France (Quebec). A few years later, France transferred its North American possessions to England.  Needless to say, had the French been successful in the BOPA, this blog might very well be written in French!

The Ink

Now, to the real reasons for you reading this blog entry – what is the story on the ink.

Cost and Availability

As I noted previously Noodler’s mixed up a limited number of bottles of this bulletproof ink for Sleuth & Statesman (S&S) in Toronto.  Unless you live in or around Toronto or plan to visit in the near future, you will have to email or call and have them ship the number of bottles that you require.  The cost of each bottle is around Cdn $25, including taxes, and shipping is extra (which will depend on the number of bottles and method selected).  Expensive, yes, but understandable in the circumstances – how else could S&S offer their customers a unique ink while recovering their costs and a small profit, if any, on such a small “batch” of ink (I thought that I read somewhere it was 50 bottles or so).

Performance of the ink

From what I have read, the ink has a strong magenta undertone that takes on varying and differing degrees of prominence.  It apparently can be so temperamental as to reflect those different undertones while using the same pen at different times!  Someone even referred to it as the Canadian “Baystate Blue” – not necessarily a particularly positive comment (to some people) but inaccurate, at least to the extent that the BUPA ink is labelled as being pH neutral – the Baystate line of inks are not.  On the other hand, it can very a very nice blue when the dyes stay mixed!

At our pen club meeting on Saturday morning, I test dipped the bottle with a Q-tip – the line that it laid down showed a variety of colours with a heavy magenta undertone; however, I did not see that special blue that I was expecting.  Perhaps it was because the ink was not as shaken up as it might have been (and that I can remain objective in my test dips and writing samples).

The first thing that I did on Sunday (after shaking the bottle a number of times) was create an ink swatch on Maruman grid paper with a Q-tip with ink from the bottle and then from the inside of the cap.  The results were much better than the first swab on Saturday, however, there is even a noticeable difference in these swipes.  When the ink is blue, it is a very, very nice blue; otherwise, I am not sure what to call it.

I then filled an old warhorse that I have, a Sheaffer Fashion fountain pen with a broad nib.  You can see the handwriting samples on first the Maruman and then the Whitelines paper.  In each case, the pen started skipping and then stopped after writing with it for a few minutes. When I chose to stop writing, capped the pen, and then tried to write with it again (less than five minutes later), the pen would not start – I had to pump the aerometric filler in order to restart the flow.  In my past experience with this Sheaffer pen, it has been a wet writer with a generous flow (I used it with Baystate Blue on a number of occasions without difficulty).  This ink felt very dry when writing on both paper samples, in fact, you could really hear the nib on the paper.  I could even tell that it was going to skip and stop, it was just a question of when.  The other thing I noticed on the Whitelines paper, was that the writing seemed to have a slight aura of magenta.

After leaving my desk and thinking about this for a bit, I thought it might be useful to try out this ink on some different paper (Rhodia reverse book this time) and using two glass dipping pens that I have.  What a disaster, as you can see below.  I tried both glass dipping pens with the same incredibly poor result – the ink either splatted off the pen or nothing, I could not write anything decipherable with it.  And there was clearly ink on the glass nib but it seemed to have dried almost instantly so that it was not able to flow from the glass nib to the paper.

Conclusion

This ink is incredibly temperamental – either the colour is not right or the colour is right but the pen is skipping and stopping.  I am going to have to decide if (and that’s a very big IF) it makes sense to invest some time trying the BUPA in different pens and on different paper to see whether there is a magical combination that works.

I applaud S&S for making the effort to provide their customers with a unique ink but it appears to me that something went wrong here.  I would love to see the test results for this ink and if they are positive, I would love to find out what I (and others) are doing wrong.  It should not be that hard, I mean, we are talking about fountain pen ink after all, not the formula for the fountain of youth.  I cannot believe that Noodler’s would put their name on ink that I can’t figure out how to get work in a fountain pen.