he Minim was offered officially in 1958 in the US and 1960 in the UK, with bodies in the colours of black, grey, red and blue and also in two high end versions of 14k gold plate with longitudinal engraved lines, and, in the US only, a 14k solid gold in a plain smooth finish or barley was offered. The earliest 1957 plastic versions were initially referred to as the Shorty Jotter and had stainless steel caps, but these were soon replaced on account of Dan Parkers notion that the ladies preferred gold. And the name was also changed to the more feminin "Minim."

Walter Bieger remembers how Dan Parker came to him and said "Wally, what I'd really like to see, is a short pen for women, where the outside of the pen is no longer than the Jotter cartridge it contains!"
Walter Bieger replied "Okay", and went to work, designing the mechanism and the pen casing to go with it.

Two fabulous gold filled Minim, ca 1960.

o be able to fit a regular Jotter cartridge inside the pen, a new button-actuated mechanism was developed by Bieger where the button was situated partly on the side, rather than on the top of the pen. To eject the nib the button was pushed, and to retract it one touched the button on the side and a small feather pulled the nib back into the pen.
"Getting the springs to be effective in the minimal area allowed was the real challenge, but we worked it out in the model shop", Walter Biegel remembers.

ally Bieger followed Rhoades and Doman's example and left Parker in 1959 to start his own industrial design studio. He was awarded some 30 patents after leaving Parker and about 400 of his designs came into production.

Special thanks to Francis Meinhardt and Graham Hogg.

Parker in the four solid colours of black, red, blue and grey, ca 1960.

Parker Minim in boxes.

Two prototype Parker Minim.
Top one with enamel in a fish scale pattern.
Under: a close-up of the top shell and unique mechanism.

A 1958 ad for the Parker Minim.

Shop order.

A selection of Parker Shop orders.