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Pt. 1 - Two Jotters From The World Famous Hotel Bathroom Studio


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#1 Mike Kirk

Mike Kirk

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Posted 13 July 2016 - 02:32 AM

Here's another installment from the World Famous Hotel Bathroom Studio!

 

Two interesting finds from the same place and booth today (Antique Mall). I’ll address them separately.

 

First, a hard-to-find Parker Jotter. I have actually seen many more 1st year ribbed Jotters than I’ve seen of this one. Here are the critical features:

  1. Made In USA imprint.
  2. “A” imprinted next to that.
  3. Brass threads.
  4. Concave button with Parker’s halo logo imprinted.

Now….it is collector convention (as I’ve never seen any supporting documentation) that Parker did not begin date coding their modern pens in the USA until 1979 (earlier in the 70’s in the U.K.). This is corroborated on Tony Fischier's Parker Penography website. That limits date coded pens with brass threads to only 4 years (1979-82). So the critical features are the 2nd and 3rd features above.

 

The date codes follow a typical 10 character pattern for years in a decade: Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y-P-E-N. This corresponds to the year in the decade starting with zero: Q=0, U=1, A=2 etc.

 

In the first 7 years of the decade of the 80’s, Parker used E-C-L-I to signify the quarter (of the year) the pen was made. E=1st quarter, C=2nd quarter, etc. I found one other pen that had NO quarter marking at all. My applied theory here is that no marking may be consistent with a 4th quarter date, which Parker used to use (grinding off quarter dots in the imprint die until there were none). Oddly, in 1987, Parker switched to using III,II,I and none for quarter codes. No explanation has surfaced why they did this.

Therefore, I conclude this is one of the last brass threaded Jotters made in the USA. As a side note, I welcome any supporting documentation or other proof confirming Parker’s modern date coding conventions.

1982%20Jotter_zpsqhbbeaxd.jpg



Mike Kirk

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Penfindum Restorum

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