Part I showed how Eclipse just may have sold pens to the National Pen Products Company of Chicago. The pens look awfully alike, with the same sectioins and feeds, and the same levers. Let’s take a closer look.
The above image shows the red and green DuBarry along with
the Diamond Medal. To make it interesting the fourth pen is an Eclipse Park Row.
The fifth is a similar Eclipse with a narrower barrel. The added Park Row threads
neatly onto the DuBarry and Gold Medal. Note the feed, lever with wreath with
no lever box, and the general shape and size of the pens is the same.
I enjoy theorizing. Often wrong, here goes. What if DuBarry was the name of a pen model sent to National for review. Model names are often in quotations. They may have placed a model name on the clip so it cannot be resold. There was nothing special or product in the public realm with the name DuBarry to advertise in the late 1920s so that could not be why the name.
Some early Gold Medal pens had the ornate GM logo on clips. What if those pens were quietly, almost covertly, supplied by Eclipse. If I was an up and coming pen maker and distributor like National would it be best to keep my sources close to the vest. Would I want my customers to know my pens were purchased from a competitor?
My guess, and this is only a wild-assed guess, is that the
early Eclipses for National are of high-quality with really decent nibs. Eclipse would
have enjoyed National as a customer and supplied a first-rate product. Unfortunately for Eclipse, National decided to go with other suppliers. My second wild-0assed guess is that the Eclipse/Gold Medal
pens are a tad harder to find as not many were made.
Now I know I’ll get several email telling me I got it all wrong. If so, bring it on.
There just might be a part three and four.
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