After dropping in at Deccan Pen Stores here at Hyderabad yet again (this time with little money in my wallet) I reckoned I'll relive school memories with a Hero Parker 51 imitation pen, with the trademark hooded nib and aerometric filling. Ergo, 50 Rupees (that's about 1.25 US$) later, the cordial Haleem Siddiqui handed me a lovely 'old'style' Hero 329, with a fine nib.

After ironing out initial hiccups (the nib felt a bit scratchy), the pen ended up in my pocket. Later at home, I mixed a bit of Camlin Navy blue with some Bril green and stumbled upon a darkish turquise (sort of a teal green shade to go with the colour of the pen. Its a bit dry and takes a few seconds to start up, but writes fine lines effortlessly. Not the smoothest pen I've had though. Maybe I'll ask Mr Siddiqui to increase the flow a wee bit to get the kind of wetness I'm comfortable with. Till then, I'm just lucky as the rounded end model is supposedly out of production these days. The pen is from the early 90's incidentally.

Anyway, thought I'll post some snaps of the pen. Some unavoidable barrel distortion owing to the wide angle shot, sorry!

About the size of a Parker 51, a little on the slimmer side actually.


And that's with the cap off, showing the 'star trek' arrowhead above the nib


A closer look at the nib (almost like a Western XF?)