Rainbow, 1973 -1975



 

Pattern

Concentric oval rings in different shades of gold. Click here for detail view.  See advertisement here.

Material

18K goldfilled over brass. Marked "18K GF Cap and Barrel."

Availability (model #)

Fountain pen (#568-100) and ball pen (#568-300)
Felt-tip (in 1975, #568-200) and pencil (#568-500)

Price

$

Notes

A very attractive pattern, the 18K gold-filled cap and barrel have a dull, golden luster. There were at least two variants of the rainbow pattern — one with four different shades, such as the one shown above, and the other with only three. This is a delicate finish and constant handling will degrade its appearance and value.

End tassies were indented.

Design credits go to Don Doman who first started the rainbow pattern with the Parker 51 family..

So how was this pattern made? First start with a sheet of brass and lay down different colors of 18K gold in a pattern of concentric circles. Then heat was applied to soften the sheet and forced into a cylindrical form for the cap and barrel. Thus the concentric circles were stretched into the concentric ovals that you see.

Unfortunately, the manufacturing process proved quite difficult and the quality assurance caused a large percentage to be rejected as unfit for sale. When Parker evaluated this model from a business viewpoint, it decided that the manufacturing cost was too high to produce and plans to make and sell this pattern were dropped. As a result, very few from the initial run survived to be sold making this model extremely rare.

Due to the US market preferences at the time, with the popularity of inexpensive ball pens, it is believed that the few pieces of this model that were sold were relegated to international markets. This was later confirmed by Parker documents which show that this was a "foreign only" FP model #5-568-100 and BP model #5-568-300 and was actually called the Regency.

Subsequently, in 1975, Parker released for the foreign markets, the soft tip Regency model #5-568-200 and described it as "1/11 18K Rainbow gold filled cap and barrel, gold electroplated trim." The matching pencil was model #5-568-500.

 

Update of May 22, 2002

Here is proof that this model that we now call Rainbow was originally called the Regency -- a discovered set with its full packaging!

 

Update of July 29, 2002

Compliments of Penlovers.com and Stylophiles Online Magazine here are some additional pictures.  Please respect their copyrights.

 

 

Update of December 31, 2002

Here are some pictures of an unfinished barrel.

What is interesting to note is the closed end, which is why I say this is an unfinished example.  This barrel appears as though it came out of the last stage of the deep draw machinery that is used to form the barrel.  To finish this as a 75 FP barrel, Parker needs only to punch a hole at the end and affix the 75 barrel tassie.