Yes, the R.C. Allens use a proprietary spool to trigger the ribbon reversal. This spool is subtly different from the "universal" spools and the universals will not even fit, though they look like they will. (I just checked this.)

Polari flourished in the difficult years between the trial of Oscar Wilde and the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. It was a kind of code, which enabled one gay man to identify another, allowed them to express themselves publicly without fear of arrest or reprisal and provided a vocabulary for talking about gay sex and sexuality.