he Stumpy was a pushbutton, clutch sketch pencil made for Parker by the German manufacturer Wörthers in Baden-Baden. It’s hard to pinpoint when it was first sold, but it was probably launched in 1977-78 in Germany, since examples are found in the Parker archives with this date. While most pencils were manufactured to pair up with different fountain pen models, the Stumpy was made as a model of its own. While more a lead holder than a pencil the Stumpy was filed as a trade mark by Parker in December 1978 and registered in September of 1980. The first items to sell in the US were shipped by Parker in 1980, and distributed by Garrick in Dallas, Texas, a company purchased by Parker around 1971.

The Stumpy was a matte black, short but wide pencil, shaped as a hexagon with a steel actuated clip which pushed the thick lead out from the pen front. It was priced at $5, which was rather high for a pencil at the time, but maybe not for a professional instrument used by designers and artists. The pencil was designed by Parker's Development Center in Baden-Baden, Germany, which had been around since the early 1960's.

t was advertised as “The precision made import from West Germany. Exclusive design for Parker-Garrick. The compact pencil for drawing, designing and doodling. Stumpy’s 7B lead lends character to any sketch or design. Bold lines or fine - the choice is yours. Just depress the clip to release or replace the lead. Three additional refills included.” The pencil was made from plastic with a spring tensioned metal clip and mechanism, and a metal nosepiece. The lead diameter was 3.15 mm. The Shorty/Stumpy won the German Ippolito-Fleitz, iF, product design award in 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1982.

In 1980 Parker in Germany had produced a large (143 mm) wood limited edition pen with a huge stylised clip. and in 1981 they launched the Multy, a promotional pen that utilised the narrow refills of the Four Color ball pen that Parker Germany made in the late 1960's. But neither the Multy, nor the wood pens were to make it to the US, since Parker was in severe economic trouble. In 1976 Parker had bought 80% of a small employment agency that had been around since 1948, called Manpower. Manpower had at the time shown an operating profit of $3 million and was considered a financially sound investment. Within eight years Parker’s main profits came from Manpower. For the fiscal year of 1980 Manpower sales hit $664 million, while the Writing Instrument Operations were down to $60 million. Something radical had to be done to save the writing instrument division.

n August of 1981 Parker in the US officially launched the Parker Arrow, the pen that was intended to save the declining company. The introduction was described by Parker as the most massive marketing effort since the launching of the Parker “45” back in 1960. But already in 1982 operating profits were down to $28. Kenneth Parker had died in 1979 and now George Parker stepped down as president. Parker in Germany was shut down, as was the manufacturing in Toronto 1982. For the first time since 1888 the Parker Pen Company was losing money. In 1986 Parkers subsidiary in Newhaven, UK, took over the mother company.

So how about the Stumpy? Well, in 1987 Parker's trade mark expired, but Wörther had well before then continued to produce the pencil under the name Shorty. It’s hard to tell the Stumpy and Shorty apart, but the Parker Stumpy version has a longer “nose” which harmonises with the metal nosepiece, while the Shorty has a more stepped nosepiece. Later Wörther models are sometimes marked “Shorty” on the clip. In 1995 Gerhard Wörther filed a patent application for a ball point writer to compliment the Shorty pencil, it was approved in 1997 but the patent expired in 2019. Today (2019) Wörther is still making the Shorty pencil in eight colours.