I own few 51's and few 61's.
The more I tried these pens the more I felt the different between them.
No doubt the 51 is made of a better materials.A crack apeared on 3 of my 61's with no aparent reason.The 51 looks like its indistractible.
The 51 is bigger and as a guy that likes bigger pens its a bonus.Never the less the 61 feells very comfortable in the hand and somehow feels bigger then it actualy is.
When you compare the capilary systems complexity next to the aerometric or even the Vac the 51 again is winning.
I like much better the looks of the 61.It feels more sophisticated and modern to me.
The one place where I find the 61 to have a big advantage is in the nib department.
I never found a 51 that made me go WOW,I find these nibs to be doing there job nicly but never truly excell.The 61's nib makes me smile everytime it touches the paper.It is smoother and more jenerous and even more resonsive.

If I had to choose one pen to use for a whole year I would choose the 51 just because it is more reliable but if the 61 would have the 51's reliability I would choose it in a sec.

Hmm,

Well my experience is that the 61 nibs seemed to have a more generous dollop of tipping than the earlier "51" nibs. But if you can get your grubby mitts on a late 1950's or 60's "51" from the English Newhaven factory, then those are a smooth as anything you will find in a 61 IMHO.

Comes down to the amount of tipping I guess

Your experience may differ

Jim

Hmmm. I have yet to find a 61 nib that I like (the fine is more like a medium, and I really want an XF to start with). Nice and smooth, but as usefull to me as a q-tip for writing.

I have more trouble with ink stoppages in the 61 as well, but I think that is a function of the ink (FPN Manuscript) than the pen, although it is missing the end of the feed under the nib.

I prefer the feel of the 61, though -- "51" are marginally too fat for me, as I discovered when I bought a Waterman's CF lately. That on is prefect for size, with a very narrow section.

If I could find a real XF nib (or get one from one of my Hero 329's modified to work) the 61 would be prefect.

Peter

Funny you said that.
I have a 51 special MIB that has an XF nib.Since I got it MIB and uninked I dont have the heart to ink it.I wonder how would the mint 51's nib feel like.

I must agree with Mr. Strutton: I much prefer the English nibs. I have several "51"s now, and like the broader, smoother, wetter English nibs, although I am able to use my finer USA nibs for postcards and notes where space is more limited, and they perform admirably.

I do know what you mean about the "61"s, goodguy. My first "61" had some issues, shall we say, and I'm afraid I was overanxious and posted some negative comments about this model. But I have since come by a few more "61"s, and they do seem better made than my first, and the nibs are quite smooth with just the right ink flow. I don't use them much because of the capillary filling system -- not that it's bad, but I don't enjoy taking the time to clean them before taking them out of my rotation. I suppose I could keep one inked and make sure to include it in my rotation, but I haven't.

I really can't talk with much authority about this, just give my opinion on the basis of the three P61's I've had as compared to the only P51 I've got.

The diameter of the P61 is smaller, and I find it much more comfortable. The P51 is larger and I end up gripping it too hard because my fingers want to be closer together. This makes the P51 quite tiring after a page or two of writing.

The P61 is unacceptably fragile. The way Parker used a self destructing plastic annoys me. The plastic used in the P51 is great. I've tried dating my P51 using info on Parker51.com, and it seems to be from between 1952 & 1958. It is, without question, in much better condition than any of my P61's despite being well used in that time. All my P61's are c/c versions and, as such, cannot be older than 1968.

The nibs, though, on two of my P61's do seem to be superior to the P51. I prefer a wide medium or a narrow broad nib, and my UK build P61's provide this. My third P61 is a UK made Flighter with a US nib (swapped from another pen because the Flighter's nib was damaged beyond repair). The Flighter's nib is a 'medium' nib that is narrow in comparison to the UK made ones. I don't like it anywhere near as much, and actually rate this nib as worse than my 'medium' P51 and my daughter's 'fine' Hero 330. The P51 nib is on a par with the Hero 330.
When comparing the pens side by side, the blobs of iridium on the ends of the UK P61 nibs are much bigger than ones on the UK made P51 or the US made P61 nib.

At the moment, with limited experience of the P51, I do prefer the P61's and am willing to put up with their failings for the superior nib and better overall writing experience. The sensuous 'feel' of the silk finish on the Flighter P61 is almost enough to make up for the less good nib.

Regards

Richard.

If I had to choose only one for a year, without a doubt it would be my first 61, my BEAUTIFUL rage red I named Bubba (because it was formerly known as Butt Ugly Brown). :-) But that would be for only a year. If it were for several years, I would definitely choose a 51 Aero.

With a decent tool, you can flush a 61 more quickly than an Aero, and much faster than a Vac (even using Ron Z's Salad Spinning Centrifugal Liquid Eliminator).

I have to disagree about the 51's roughness though. All of mine are silky smooth writers from both USA and England ranging in age from 1942 until I'd guess 1955 or so. They're every bit as smooth as the 61's and vice versa. Nib material and having the pen in optimal writing condition is the key to smoothness I think. I prefer the 61 because for my hand, it's the perfect size and balance. I just dread the day I'll start experiencing the Dark Side, which, According To The Prophecy, is inevitable.

I also give the English nibs a slight advantage on the 61's, not that the USA nibs are bad, but a couple of the English nibs are truly jaw droppingly nice... the 51's are pretty much equally smooth. This is absolutely one of those YMMV threads. You get a good one, you love 'em.. get a bad one and... well, you know how generalizations can be.

I wonder how many 51's or 61's out there are *really* in their best writing condition??

Dave

edit: an interesting side note, interesting to me at least, is that Rage Red just happens to be a shade of red I cannot see correctly... i have a mild color blindness affecting my perception of a very few number of shades. I would swear under oath that the pen is a dull mud brown, but everyone else who has looked at it says it is absolutely red.

My guess would be less than 50%. As I acquired more "51"s and 61s I found that some wrote better than others and it took a lot of comparison with a good loupe to see why. Certainly I could see that the older, well used pens had definite flat wear to the nib tip, that unless you could hold it exactly like the original writer, wrote badly. But as my skills grew, I found that with a bit of judicious polishing, and I say polishing rather than grinding, with micromesh, I have been able to smooth and shape the nibs of all my "51"s and 61s so that they write better. What this does is return the fine nibs to fine and the xf nibs to xf as the tipping wear seems to broaden the writing line in my experience. Caution: I am not a nibmeister, expert pen repairer or gifted amateur Just an enthusiastic writer who likes the feel of a nice fountain pen against paper.



Oh Yeah, the old red-green-brown problem, see them all as different shades of the same colour, whatever that is. I can differentiate Primary Red/Green, but once we get into the shades I have big trouble What the hell is taupe and should I care? Can't tell the difference between a baby pink and a pale green, but I don't find it causes me any big challenges Just a question, I believe there is a hereditary link to colour blindness, my father had the rarer blue-yellow variety and my nephew is also red-green-brown same as me. Anybody in your family line also colour blind?

Jim

Rage Red (like many red pigments in plastic) fades in sunlight rather badly. The barrel of my 61 is distinctly more muted and brownish that the hood, and not very pretty at all. The hood is better, but not the red I suspect it was originally.

You might be able to polish them back to somewhat more like the original color, but you would have to remove significant plastic to do so, and I would not recommend this on a good pen. Experiment on a bad barrel, maybe.

Color blindness, at least the red-green sort, is determined by genes on the X chromosome, so it appears more in males than in females (one set of genes as opposed to two). I'm not sure of the biological basis (must have to do with color receptors in the retina, of course, but could also, I suppose, be in the data processing area of the brain, too!). It is inherited, and the severity is greatly variable. I had a friend who could only tell whether a traffic light was green or red by which one was lit, they looked the same to him -- no red/green color at all, only yellow/blue!

More men that women are colorblind to some extent, but not ALL males have colorblindness issues, as many would have it. I've seen some "women aren't colorblind" decoration that makes it quite obvious that women can be, too!

Peter

Sorry about the delay, Jim. I had to do a little research into the family tree. I'm the baby of the family by a considerable number of years and have no children myself, so I had to contact what few living relatives I have to inquire. Of course, in past generations, many cases of colorblindness went undetermined for various reason. But, It is interesting to learn that my grandfather on my dad's side was almost completely colorblind seeing life in shades of green (but didn't make much money.. too bad.. what a tremendous impact on cosmetic surgery a correlation of having green vision and wealth would have had.. "hey, to heck with big fat lips.. we want green vision!" Anywho, it seemed to skip a generation completely, but my generation has 4 hits with the Red problem, myself and three cousins. THis statement really cracked me up ... "see them all as different shades of the same colour, whatever that is. " Not that the condition is funny... but this kind of statement "whatever the hell that is" has been a staple of my communication repertoire since wayyyyyy back. :-) I definitely get it. Taupe?? It's a legend like Bigfoot, or the Yeti.. I've never seen it, so I can't believe it exists! :-) I'm sure Nessie is a beautiful Taupe color.

My problem was discovered when I was a child in a somewhat interesting manner... my dad smoked Pall Mall cigarettes.. which later, I discovered, are in a somewhat weird shade of red pack.. when they were testing me about colors, I would always answer "brown" for the cig pack. Of course after a couple of weeks of thinking I was a slow learning dufus (which is entirely possible sans color), the parents took me for a color exam. I have a very sneaking suspicion that the Red Rage color is virtually identical to Pall Mall red. Can't prove it.. but... I bet it is.

psfred, this particular pen doesn't seem to be faded, but if it is, the fading is very complete and evenly distributed throughout the surface of both barrel and hood. The thing writes so nicely that it could be a pink flamingo and I wouldn't care. :-)

Dave

how would one id the preffered nib ?
thanks

You will have to take a look at it, they are not marked for size.

Later nibs are wider than earlier nibs, even in the same "size", as far as I can tell. I've only gotten my hands on one 61 that I would classify as fine, and I suspect it's really an extra fine. Both nibs I got that were supposed to be fines are more like mediums to me, and the one that is supposed to be a medium looks fatter than any other nib I have.

Peter

One major difference between these pens is that anyone can unscrew a Parker 61 and get at the collector to give it a proper cleaning. All those heavily saturated inks I am a bit wary about putting into my favourite - well I have no hesitation about putting them into my single 61 (which also has a smoother nib than any of my 5 51´s).