Parkers origins

[Waterman]

K this may sound like a really stupid question for a pen collector like me but is Parker an american company or a british company regarding where it first started and not present day ownership?

 

Thanks

Brad

[darrenimo]

I believe Parker was an American company, but I'm not too sure.

[Shangas]

Parker started in the 1890s as an American pen manufactury, the child of George Stafford Parker...I'd like to believe that it's still an American company.

[ANM]

deleted: double post

Edited May 31, 2008 by ANM

[ANM]

I believe Parker was established in 1888 and was based in Janesville Wi. In 1993, Parker was acquired by Gillette. In 2000 by Newel Rubbermaid and in 2001 Parker was taken over by Sanford which also owns Waterman.

 

Waterman was also originally an American company with branches around the world. Eventually the company was consolidated in France but now is owned by Sanford.

[skybird]

And Sanford is an American company, but the better pens are French and English..........

[RLTodd]

Sanford is a division of Newall Rubbermaid an American Company headquartered in the State of Georgia.

[Waterman]

Thanks a lot guys for the chronological order.

 

Brad

[designbydecade]

Brad may get it, but I am still confused. I am so glad that someone asked this question.

 

I have been all over the web trying to figure out the date of a Parker with a "JAPAN" marking. I could not find anything about Japan.

 

It is not a pen but a long retractable pointer. Any ideas?

[SquelchB]

Just a correction - the G.S.Parker's middle name was Safford, not Stafford.

[skybird]

Just a correction - the G.S.Parker's middle name was Safford, not Stafford.

Safford - Stafford

Sanford - Stanford

 

hmm

Ok

[RLTodd]

Just a correction - the G.S.Parker's middle name was Safford, not Stafford.

Safford - Stafford

Sanford - Stanford

 

hmm

Ok

 

Sometimes things like that just happen, unless you want to get Jungian

[SquelchB]

Sometimes things like that just happen, unless you want to get Jungian

I'm a fan of Freud :roflmho:

[skybird]

Sometimes things like that just happen, unless you want to get Jungian

I'm a fan of Freud :roflmho:

I'm afreud I followed Melanie Klein................

 

[Jerome Tarshis]

I would like to add a further piece of information to the summary given by ANM. A little interpolation. As is widely known, Parker was founded in Janesville, Wisconsin, an American city. Rather early in its history, certainly in the first decade of the twentieth century, George Parker began serious efforts to make the company international, first by selling his pens in foreign countries, then by setting up manufacturing facilities outside the United States. I don't have a list of those countries in my head, but something similar could be said of other pen manufacturers.

 

During the 1940s, unless I am mistaken, Parker took over the factory of a British pen manufacturer, Valentine; the factory was in Newhaven. It manufactured some of the same pens that the Janesville factory did, such as the 51; but it also manufactured some pens never made in the USA, such as the Aerometric Duofolds, the 17, and the 65. (A very incomplete list.) On the other hand, Parker in the USA manufactured some models, such as the 21, that weren't made in England. English Parker was a subsidiary, but it developed and manufactured some of its own products.

 

With the rise of ball-point pens, many American (and other) fountain-pen manufacturers fell upon hard times. Some of them disappeared. As a pen manufacturer Parker was in trouble. Its other business, a temporary office-staff company called Manpower, Inc., was doing quite well, making it questionable whether the people in Janesville were wise to continue putting resources into the pen business.

 

To save something from the wreckage, a group of executives of the English subsidiary at Newhaven raised some capital and bought out the company around 1986. They fired a rather large number of employees in Janesville immediately, although operations weren't entirely shut down and Janesville limped along for years afterward.

 

I know this with some bitterness because in 1985 I began writing a magazine article about the Parker 51, with the assistance of a Mr. Benjamin of the PR department in Janesville, who sent me photocopies of old advertisements and other documents. He was quite helpful. When I had the article published, in 1986, I telephoned him and learned that he and many other people were no longer with the firm, for the above-mentioned reason.

 

So, yes, the firm was "British" in ownership though not entirely British in the location of its facilities.

 

Then, as ANM reports, Gillette bought it out, making the ownership American even though the company was still headquartered in Newhaven and was British in that sense. Then Sanford. Then Newell Rubbermaid. All of this was and is in aid of saving something from the wreckage of the Golden Age of Fountain Pens.

 

Waterman was an American company in origin. It had a French subsidiary, Waterman-JiF, the JiF being IIRC the initials of the company's French business partner. The American company collapsed. Just collapse, no orderly sale to French investors as with Parker's transfer to England. Waterman-Jif was an economically viable operation, though far smaller than Waterman had been in its glory days. That firm continued, and it is French in the sense of having its offices in France. But it is, like Parker, now ultimately owned by Newell Rubbermaid, an American company.

[skybird]

During the 1940s, unless I am mistaken, Parker took over the factory of a British pen manufacturer, Valentine; the factory was in Newhaven. It manufactured some of the same pens that the Janesville factory did, such as the 51; but it also manufactured some pens never made in the USA, such as the Aerometric Duofolds, the 17, and the 65. (A very incomplete list.) On the other hand, Parker in the USA manufactured some models, such as the 21, that weren't made in England. English Parker was a subsidiary, but it developed and manufactured some of its own products.

The Newhaven pens are wonderful, colourful and generally nice - Valentines, Victories and Duofolds.

I have a reasonable collection at home and these are about half of those that I don't have in their boxes.

[diplomat]

I would like to add a further piece of information to the summary given by ANM

 

Thanks for sharing the first hand story Jerome. It is a very good reading.

 

If someone is interested I have collected a few links with Parker history tales:

http://www.sovereign-publications.com/parkerpen.htm

http://www.pentrace.net/2002/article071502_191.html

http://www.goldspot.com/parker_history.cfm

http://www.asgbigifts.co.uk/parker_history.asp

 

And for the english Duofold there is this classic article on penspotters:

 

http://www.rickconner.net/penspotters/parker.ukduofold.html

 

 

 

The Newhaven pens are wonderful, colourful and generally nice - Valentines, Victories and Duofolds.

I have a reasonable collection at home and these are about half of those that I don't have in their boxes.

 

 

Wow! let me say "reasonable" is just downplaying! congratulation.

 

Regards,

 

Andrea

[Splicer]

Then, as ANM reports, Gillette bought it out, making the ownership American even though the company was still headquartered in Newhaven and was British in that sense. Then Sanford. Then Newell Rubbermaid. All of this was and is in aid of saving something from the wreckage of the Golden Age of Fountain Pens.

 

Thank you for all that Jerome!

 

One very minor clarification. Sanford took over Parker in 2000. Newell bought Sanford in 1991 and became Newell/Rubbermaid in 1999. So Parker was a Newell-Rubbermaid property as soon as the Sanford sale in 2000 went through.

[barny]

Thank's for the information Jerome

[Sapphire]

I had one of the English Duofolds as my school pen in the early 60s

 

I still have the remains of it. The cap is cracked at the threads and where the clip is screwed on and the sac is perished. But as a dip pen it still writes smoothly.