Are you tired of Parkers yet? I hope not because I have a few more to go. This one, at a hair’s-breadth less than 12 cm, appears to be a Duofold Junior Streamline Long. It was made sometime between 1929 and 1934, so not far short of 90 years old. It’s in splendid condition, the jet black Permanite as shiny as when it was new. The gold-filled trim remains good, with just a little loss here and there.

It’s a stocky pen but when posted is a comfortable length. Like other Duofolds of this period it has the hanging pressure bar. It’s very efficient and takes a considerable amount of ink. The button-filling system exerts quite a bit of pressure on the sac. This enabled us (or at least those of us who had button fillers) to fire ink an appreciable distance across the classroom, to the disapproval of the teacher and of our mothers who had to try to get the ink out of our clothes.

Enough about my wild childhood. The Junior version of the Duofold, whether this slightly larger pen or the Standard, was evidently very popular. What was the target market? Was it gifted to school students? Bearing a clip and being a little larger, it would not have been a vest pocket pen. Perhaps it was seen as a more affordable alternative to the full-size Duofold. In any case it appears to have sold very well as there are still many about today.

The one fault with this example is that the nib is a more modern replacement, the number 10 indicating that it came from an English Duofold Junior of the fifties or sixties. Several of the older Parkers I have written about recently have replacement nibs, which is surprising considering how robust Parker nibs usually are. I suppose it’s a consequence of the pens’ long survival.