I visited an 88 year old pen shop in Chennai, INDIA which was also the authorised repair centre for all the major brands including Parker and the owner was kind enough to show me an original Parker service manual dated 15Dec1954. I just got to browse through the manual for about 15mins... At the end of the manual were some service amendments, one of which was amendment no 6996E in which it was stated that after research at the Parker labs, they had found that the alignment of the nib breather hole with the wider channel on the collector was not necessary as indicated earlier, only the nib and feed need to be aligned to each other.

Any thoughts on this?... Also saw some interesting P61 promotional material: an A4 size Black and white photograph showing an injured US army soldeir lying on his back and writing with his P61 which was point up and barrel down showing the anti gravity feature of the P61...

I have copies of the Parker repair manuals, and have noted the same comments. However, Richard and I have found that the pens seem to write better with the large slot on top, lined up with the nib and feed.

You should be taking the nib and feed out of the collector when you're restoring a 51. It's a simple thing to line things up when you restore the pen, and if it might make the pen write better, why not do it?

That's been my very limited experience as well. I've had half a dozen or so apart, and in all cases where the feed and slots were not lined up, they wrote dry and skippy before, and wet and smooth after. In several cases, the collector was quite clean before, as well. I of course ran them through the sonicator anyway, but very little came out. This excludes the ones that had petrified ink in them -- doesn't matter what the slot alignment is, they write horribly until all that crusty stuff is out.

i always put the large slot above the nib slit when I put them back together.

Peter

Sir: this is a little off topic but what is a "sonicator"? thanks chuck

Ultrasonic cleaner.....

I usually write my journal in bed with my thighs making a writing slope. If there's a cat on the end of the bed the slope is steep, and the nib is often above the barrel on the pen. The only reliable pen in this situation is my P61 Capilliary. All other pens dry up after a while and need to have the collector refilled by putting the pen nib down for a while. The P61, on the other hand, seems to work very nicely. I never thought of it as 'anti-gravity'.

Regards

Richard.

Even I was surprised to read this terminology used by Parker.

Best,
Hari