Pen Glossary: D

Glossary: Fountain Pen Bits, Pieces, and Other Stuff

Like any other specialized item, the fountain pen has amassed a lexicon of terms that are unique. And like other jargon languages, fountain pen jargon can be cryptic or confusing. This glossary presents brief definitions for many of the most common pen terms. It is not complete (an impossible goal); but it is a work in progress, and I welcome suggestions for terms to add. (Revised March 4, 2008)

The glossary is organized alphabetically. For numbers, look under the spelled-out form; e.g., for 14K, look under fourteen.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

D
Da Book	Collectors’ nickname for FOUNTAIN PENS THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO REPAIR AND RESTORATION, by Frank Dubiel. Da Book is an essential reference for anyone who repairs or maintains fountain pens; but readers should note that, as with almost all technical reference documents, it is not without error.
darkening	See discoloration.
Day and Night	(also Night and Day) See Moderne.
Deb	(also Debutante) A designation indicating a pen model smaller than the standard size, e.g., the Parker Vacumatic Deb.
Deco	(also deco) See Art Deco.
Decoband	Name for a pen bearing a Deco band. See Deco band.
Deco band	A broad cap band pierced with an attractive design, often with an Art Deco character or a Greek Key motif. The Wyvern pen shown here features a Greek Key Deco band. See also Art Deco, Greek Key.

decorative bands	Chased, engraved, or repoussé bands encircling the barrel or cap, or both. Frequently gold filled, but sometimes made of solid 9K or 14K gold, sterling silver, or plated steel. Shown below are an 1890s “Rival” eyedropper with two gold-filled repoussé barrel bands and a 1942 Sheaffer “TRIUMPH” with a single gold-filled roll-engraved band on its cap. See also repoussé, roll engraving.

Demi	(“Half”) A designation indicating a pen model smaller than the standard size, e.g., the Parker “51” Demi.
demi-oblique	A term indicating an oblique nib that is ground at 8°, half the usual 15° angle. See also nib, oblique.
demonstrator	A pen made of clear material or having slots or holes cut out of it to expose the internal parts to view. Modern “demonstrator” pens are usually intended for sale to the public, while vintage demonstrators were made so that dealers could show the features of standard pens to prospective purchasers. Shown here are a 1930s “Regal” cutaway lever-filling demonstrator and a modern Pelikan M200 clear demonstrator.

depression pen	A pen made during the Great Depression; usually of low quality but frequently brightly colored.
derby	The hemispherical part at the closed end of the cap on pens such as the Eversharp Skyline and Waterman Philéas, as illustrated here.
desk blotter	A rectangular desk pad, 18"×26" or a similar size, designed to hold one or more sheets of blotter paper. Generally decorative, often made with leather panels as shown here. During the dip-pen era, frequently used in conjunction with an inkstand. See also advertising blotter, blotter, inkstand, rocker blotter.

desk pen	A pen designed to be used as part of a desk set, as shown here. The barrel of a desk pen is finished with a taper for balance and appearance. See also desk set, taper.

desk set	A set comprising one or more desk pens together with a desk base (of glass, metal, stone, or wood) with trumpets into which the pens are inserted point first. See also desk pen, trumpet.
Diamond Medal	A “house brand” used for pens sold by Sears, Roebuck & Company. Diamond Medal pens were made for Sears by several different companies, including Parker and the National Pen Products Company. At least some of the Diamond Medal pens produced by Parker, including the Deluxe Challenger-styled one shown here, are imprinted VAC-FIL and fitted with Lockdown Vacumatic fillers.

diaphragm	A rubber part in the filling system of a Parker Vacumatic or Vacumatic-filling “51” pen, shown here in a cutaway illustration. Pushing the filler’s plunger distends the diaphragm (the brown part) to force air out of the pen, and releasing it allows the spring to return the diaphragm to its normal position, drawing ink in.
ding	A dent, crease, or other accidental indentation in a metal cap or barrel. The Parker “51” cap shown here has a serious ding that was made by the clip ball. (The clip has been turned on the cap to expose the ding.)
dip pen	A pen with a nib but without an ink reservoir, the immediate precursor of the fountain pen. Used by dipping the tip into an inkwell every few words. Dip pens can have nibs of steel or gold; based on the original 19th-century usage, the nib is properly called the pen, and the body is the holder. Illustrated below is a 19th-century Aikin Lambert gold dip pen. See also dip-less pen, fountain pen, gold pen, holder, nib (historical note), quill, steel pen, stylographic pen.

dip-less pen	A dip-style pen with a feed that serves as a small ink reservoir, allowing the user to write a paragraph or two without dipping. This type of pen is obviously not truly dipless; rather, you dip it less than an ordinary dip pen. A dip-less pen set comprises the pen and a desk base containing an inverted bottle or other large-capacity reservoir, arranged so that the contents of the reservoir can pool safely within the base, to replenish the pooled ink as it is used. When the pen is inserted into its holder, its nib and feed are immersed in the ink pool so that the pen is always ready to write. Illustrated below is a Morriset dip-less set (Bert M. Morris Company) from the 1940s. See also dip pen.

dip test	To evaluate the writing characteristics of a pen’s nib by dipping the nib into ink before writing a few words; a valid testing method for dip pens but generally not as effective for fountain pens, which cannot control flow properly when dipped and therefore tend to write wetter and more smoothly than when filled properly. See also wet writer.
Disappearing Clip	A Parker design featuring a clip that was flush to the cap when the cap was not on the pen. Capping the pen forced the clip out so that it could grasp a shirt pocket.
discoloration	A change in color, usually for the worse. Hard rubber oxidizes, crazing and turning brown or even olive green; the process is greatly accelerated under the effect of actinic light. (See below, an oxidized Waterman’s Ideal Nº 52.) Celluloid discolors by turning brown when exposed to the sulfurous exhalations of rubber (e.g., from the pen’s sac, illustrated here by the discolored barrel of a Parker vest-pocket Duofold). The effect on celluloid, chemically speaking, is also oxidation; and clear celluloid exhibits a less rapid (and usually less disfiguring) oxidation referred to as ambering. See also ambering, crazing.

DJ	A pen with two jewels, one on the cap crown and another at the end of the barrel. Either or both jewels may or may not have tassies. See also jewel, SJ, tassie.
doctor’s pen	A pen designed for use by a medical doctor. Early doctor’s pens were eyedropper fillers with space in the barrel for a special mercury oral thermometer of shorter than usual length. (On the pen shown below, the knob at the barrel’s end provides a grip for unscrewing the cap of the thermometer compartment.) Later, pen companies began manufacturing sets comprising a pen, a mechanical pencil, and a case for the thermometer. Some doctor’s pens bear an enameled red cross. See also nurse’s pen, thermometer case.

Dollar Pen	A pen that was manufactured to sell for $1.00, principally during the Great Depression; Esterbrook’s (illustrated below) is the best known Dollar Pen.

dolphin nib	A unique nib design that Sheaffer used on some of its Imperial pens in the 1960s as a lower-cost alternative to the company’s Inlaid Nib™. So called because of its resemblance to the facial profile of a dolphin, the design uses an ordinary nib whose body is buried in the section, leaving the tines exposed. A V-shaped metal trim part applied to the top of the section creates the illusion of the Inlaid Nib. See also hooded nib, Inlaid Nib™, nib, open nib, Triumph nib.
Doric	A pen model introduced by Wahl-Eversharp in 1931. The Doric is a 12-sided faceted pen, a feature it shares with the Omas Paragon (also introduced in 1931). The Doric’s advertising played up the pen’s elegant blending of classical good looks with Art Deco elements. Produced in versions that spanned the company’s range of prices and sizes, the Doric is today one of the most collectible of Wahl-Eversharp’s pens. Shown below are pens in Cathay (upper) and Kashmir (lower), two of the original Doric colors; the remaining original colors are Morocco (burgundy pearl), Burma (gunmetal gray pearl), and Jet. Additional colors were used beginning in about 1935, along with Wahl’s adjustable nib (Personal Point or fixed), and shutoff. See also adjustable nib (definition 1), Gold Seal, Personal Point, and Safety Ink Shut Off.

double feed	See over-under feed.
Double Jewel	See DJ.
doughnut	See lock ring.
DQ	A Parker pen model introduced in 1926; plain black in color and engraved with longitudinal lines, the DQ was based on the Duofold Special, a slender version of the standard Duofold. To imply that the pen was of high quality, Parker chose the name “DQ” by taking the initial letters of the words Duofold Quality.
drawing ink	See India ink.
drippy nose	See blotting.
dry writer	A pen whose nib is adjusted to produce a light flow of ink (but not necessarily a fine line) that dries very rapidly. Because of limited lubrication from the restricted flow of ink, dry writers characteristically write less smoothly than pens adjusted for more flow. Contrast with wet writer.
dual feed	See over-under feed.
Dunn-Pen, the	A pen model introduced in 1921 by the Dunn-Pen Company. Featured an elegantly simple pump filler (U.S. Patent Nº 1,359,880) that also provided a very large ink capacity. The Dunn-Pen is distinctive in appearance because of the “Little Red Pump-Handle” with which the user operates the filler. Many of these pump knobs are made of a plastic that crystallizes, but some, on early pens, are hard rubber. Shown below are four views of the Dunn-Pen Dreadnaught, a large pen whose screw-apart two-piece cap permitted filling without getting ink on the section (fourth view).

Duofold	A pen model introduced in 1921 by Parker, possibly the best-known pen from the 1920s. Patterned on the Nº 26-size Jack-Knife Safety pen, it flouted convention by being made in a very large size and of brightly colored red hard rubber (later celluloid). The pen could be fitted with a taper and used as a desk pen; this duofold use, however, is not the source of the name, which Parker chose simply to suggest that the pen was twice as good as its competition so that the customer was receiving duofold (doubled) value for his pen dollar. The Duofold remained in production until the late 1930s, went through major design revisions in 1938 and again in 1940, and was withdrawn in 1948. It was reintroduced in 1988, with a shape strongly reminiscent of the original 1920s design. Shown here is a 1924 red hard rubber Senior Duofold. Read a profile of the Duofold here. See also Big Red, Chinese Red, Jack-Knife Safety.

duo-point	A nib whose tip is shaped so that it can write when the pen is held inverted, with the nib facing downward toward the paper, as well as when the pen is held normally, with the nib facing upward. The line produced with the pen held inverted is finer than the line when the pen is held normally. The tip design was patented by L. E. Waterman in 1915 and marketed under the name “Duo-tip.” Contrast with ball point. See also Duo-tip, Feathertouch.
Duo-tip	L. E. Waterman’s name for its reversible nib design (U. S. Patent Nº 1,154,498), which was copied by other manufacturers after Waterman’s patent expired. See also duo-point, Feathertouch.
DURIUM	Term imprinted on untipped nibs used by third-tier manufacturers during the 1930s and 1940s, an exotic-sounding marketing name for ordinary stainless steel. Some untipped nibs were even imprinted DURIUM TIPPED, a misleading designation intended to lure purchasers by its resemblance to IRIDIUM TIPPED. See also iridium, steel.