I also posted this in the repair thread. I got this from ebay, but am suspicious of its authenticity. Can you experts advice me about it? Thanks.

Hi,

Can you specifiy which elements of authenticity raise doubts?

regards

david

What I am wondering is whether all the parts are original, or there are some swaps. Here are some suspicious points
1. The tassie is gold-colored, but nowhere else shows any gold.
2. The cap is steel, and the clip is also the long-type --- maybe made in 1947-48.
3. Other than the ower's name inscription, there is nothing on the barrel -- no "parker" and no production date.

Jun

OK.

So more issues of correct parts rather than real vs fake.

The barrel and bliind cap assemblies looks at quick glance to be correct. All DJ 51's have gold filled or solid gold tassies, even with white caps.

The 51 imprint tends to be bit faint on many pens and can be found just by the clutch ring. Use high power loupe and tilt pen in light to catch leftover imprint.

Generally, would expect blue diamond cap and not smooth lustraloy finish on DJ pens. But, the feather clip at least was intro'd in 48 before end of the vac run, so feather clips do crop up on 1948 vac-fill pens, just usually would not expect that cap pattern, so indeed on a pen in which cap swaps are simple to do and are prevalent, this mite be a non-original match. Still, most of the value is below the cap and lined sterling and GF blue diamond caps can be found pretty easily.

david

Another clue is that the cap is smaller than the normal one I had. Actually it is of the same size as the demi version. So it is clearly a mis-matched cap (I think), am I possibly wrong?

I don't believe that the later style cap with a DJ 51 was ever "standard" production, since normal production of DJ's supposedly ended in 47. Nevertheless, given the vagaries of pen manufacturing. it is possible that something could have come out of some factory somewhere looking like that. About 7 years ago, I picked up an Argentinian production demo aero 51 with a gold cap and silver (nickel?) early vac style clip. Wierd fer sure, but pretty nonetheless. David's absolutely right that a more traditional cap can be readily found.

DJ pens indeed might've ended before 48. I long assumed that but have not seen info. Not sure event he Shepherd book cites a date and source material to back it. The Demis indeed were intro'd in 1947. But again, finding a cap for these is not too difficult.

Be careful of Argentine demos. Most of them were "produced" indeed in Argentina, just not ever in any Parker plant. Rather, custom jobbers save for the guts. Lots of cap swaps and parts swaps there, so difficult to make broad based assessments from what is found on or in such a pen.

best

david