Dates For The Parker 45

[SockAddict]

First, let me tell you that I've been home sick with the flu for a week and a half now, so I'm starting to get a little bored, and yes, I do have too much free time on my hands. I don't have enough brain power or energy to do anything truly useful, so I've been digging around trying to find ages on my 45s.

 

I've hit the usual sources: Richard's Pens, Parker Penography, Pen Collect, and Ravens March, as well as old threads on this forum.

 

My dark blue Arrow seems to be a fairly early model, as it has the conical cap top. Apparently all the early pens had gold nibs and this didn't, but they're so easy to switch that I'm not going to count that.

 

My turquoise Classic 45 has the next kind of cap top, kind of dimpled. I think this top was the one on most of the run. There are two more before the domed jewel mentioned in an older post here on FPN (about three years ago), but no one else seemed familiar with them. This was from icardoth, who is from Argentina, which makes me wonder if he has some local variations, or if they're just more rare.

 

My third 45 is the Kullock, which makes the body somewhere between new and brand new, but the cap is marked IIIE, making it either '88 or '98. I suspect the latter -- just makes more sense. It also has the dimpled cap. But, if it was an '88, that would leave more room in the timeline for the other versions.

 

It's hard to tell which colors debuted when, but it looks like turquoise was added as an Arrow/CT color in '65. Something called aqua was added with the Happy Colors in '67, and there's also a teal that came around … sometime. I've been calling mine turquoise based on a guess looking at Richard Binder's colors, but it occurred to me that I couldn't say for sure until I have both the turquoise and the teal in hand. Or more, if the aqua is a different color.

 

The printed 45 on the sides of the caps came around in the late 60s, according to J English Smith on another old thread. So, my turquoise pen is probably late sixties, early 70s. Does anybody know if the 45 was printed on the plastic caps, too?

 

Lastly, looking at my pens, I noticed something about the clutch ring that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. My Arrow clutch ring is smooth all around, but my other two rings have three small bumps spaced around the ring, presumably to hold the cap better. Can anyone else confirm this?

 

I really hope I get over this bug soon. Who knows what useless knowledge I'll decide to pursue next ...

[Captivelight]

Clip Screws ...

 

I just had a quick look through the various Flighters that I have particularly the ones that have their original shop stamped guarantees and the result is that I have a Flighter dated as being sold in 1970 which has a conical top, the next firmly dated pen is a 1974 Flighter which has a dimpled top. So it would seem that for the Flighters at least the date would be "late 60's early 70's"

I'm guessing that this would have been around the time they also switched from the black plastic tip on the Flighters to the silver chrome one but there would probably have been a certain amount of over run as they finished stocks of the conical screws as well as the time over run where stock made before the change over would be on sale at the same time as the newer dimpled ones.

I should also point out that I have 2 undated French Flighter Deluxe (Gold Trims) which I will guess at being mid to late 70's and which both have a completely different clip screw - in this case a slightly recessed flat design.

 

I also know of at least one more variant which has a raised conical top - and of course there was the later cabochon variety

[SockAddict]

Interesting. The raised conical top is one of the two that icardoth mentioned, but his other was a flat black disk. He didn't say it was recessed.

 

I am slightly (but only slightly) dubious of using a purchase date for a manufacture date. I'm sure it's pretty accurate most of the time, but I have a Sonnet that was purchased new in '04, but it's production date is '98. Six years is quite a jump. I imagine that's fairly unusual, though.

 

So, it sounds like my blue Arrow/CT is probably mid-sixties, but the turquoise is closer to early 70s. Hmm. Same vintage as me.

[Captivelight]

Most collectors are well aware that around 1970 Parker changed the Tassies on the Parker 75 to allow the use of adhesive disks to personalize the pen by adding an initial, or advertise on it with a logo, or simply to denote the color of the ink used in that pen for those who used multiple colors of ink.

I'm guessing that they did exactly the same to the Parker 45 at around the same time so facilitate the use of the same sticker disks.

 

Parker actually marketed a "Personal Touch" set of stickers so you could add your initial to your pen without engraving it.

 

Comparing the Parker 45 dimpled, the flat recessed dish and a Parker 75 dished tassie all 3 will allow the fitting of a "Personal Touch" sticker where as the early conical cap will not.

http://pencollect.co.uk/personal/09.jpg

Edited February 1, 2015 by Spikey Mike

[Runnin_Ute]

Most collectors are well aware that around 1970 Parker changed the Tassies on the Parker 75 to allow the use of adhesive disks to personalize the pen by adding an initial, or advertise on it with a logo, or simply to denote the color of the ink used in that pen for those who used multiple colors of ink.

 

I'm guessing that they did exactly the same to the Parker 45 at around the same time so facilitate the use of the same sticker disks.

 

Parker actually marketed a "Personal Touch" set of stickers so you could add your initial to your pen without engraving it.

 

Comparing the Parker 45 dimpled, the flat recessed dish and a Parker 75 dished tassie all 3 will allow the fitting of a "Personal Touch" sticker where as the early conical cap will not.

http://pencollect.co.uk/personal/09.jpg

My Flighter is the above Conical and my Made in Spain burgundy pen is the Dimpled. The Flighter does NOT have the cheap looking (IMO) finial on the bottom of the barrel that looks like an afterthought. The seller represented the Flighter it from the late 1960's.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Runnin_Ute

[SockAddict]

Spikey Mike, thank you for the picture, and for the info about the stickers in the 75s. I had heard of them, but didn't really know what they were, and it hadn't occurred to me to consider them in comparison to the 45s. Now that you point it out, though, it seems logical to look at what was happening with all the pens at the same time. Apparently, trying to do research like this while sick isn't the best time for clear thinking! I wonder if the flat disks acardoth referred to are actually those stickers? If not, that's six versions now.

 

(BTW, I don't find the look of those cabochons very attractive, but am curious what I'd think in person. What is the quality of those pens?)

 

The more I find out, the more I want to see. I guess this is how the collecting bug bites! (or is that the flu again …?)

[Captivelight]

The original 60's 45 Flighter would have some sort of tail cap on the end of the barrel, commonly black on the early ones but also silver, gold, blue, maroon, red as well as "wood" and Aqua on the 45 Lady. The tail cap lasted until the end of the 70's when it was finally phased out.

 

If your 45 Flighter has a conical clip screw but has a later barrel with no end cap I would guess that the pen has had either the cap or the barrel swapped at some stage, so you could have a 60's pen with a 70's/80's barrel or a 70/80's pen with a 60's cap - it's almost impossible to tell as so many things are so interchangeable on the 45. Sometimes the ink converter can help date the pen assuming that that hasn't been swapped as well ... an older 60's pen should have the old style wide bodied converter, a newer pen would have come with one of the narrow slimmer ones and an even more modern one might have the later piston converters.

 

It's hard to date the pre-1980's 45's other then by decade ... With the plastic pens, especially the basic colors which were manufactured over almost the entire life of the 45, it's virtually impossible other then 60's = conical clip screw and wide converter, 70's = dimpled clip screw or any other non conical one! and 80's onwards = date coding on the cap. The metal bodied pens vary a little as some were made only for a short time, but again the standard models can more or less be divided into their decade and no more.

http://pencollect.co.uk/personal/10.jpg

[Captivelight]

I wonder if the flat disks acardoth referred to are actually those stickers? If not, that's six versions now.

 

(BTW, I don't find the look of those cabochons very attractive, but am curious what I'd think in person. What is the quality of those pens?)

 

The more I find out, the more I want to see. I guess this is how the collecting bug bites! (or is that the flu again …?)

 

They might be color disks to indicate the ink color in the pen ... I vaguely remember buying a 45 in the 70's and being offered some stickers so I could look down at my pocket and see at a glance which pen had which color ink in it. Without taking one off to see what is underneath we will never know!

 

Cabochon ones ... hate them with a passion. They just feel "cheaper" somehow and I don't like the look of the streamlined arrow and the cabochon. The gold plating on the nib of the one that I have is peeling off.

 

Addictive isn't it (grins)

[SockAddict]

 

They might be color disks to indicate the ink color in the pen ... I vaguely remember buying a 45 in the 70's and being offered some stickers so I could look down at my pocket and see at a glance which pen had which color ink in it. Without taking one off to see what is underneath we will never know!

 

Cabochon ones ... hate them with a passion. They just feel "cheaper" somehow and I don't like the look of the streamlined arrow and the cabochon. The gold plating on the nib of the one that I have is peeling off.

 

Addictive isn't it (grins)

 

I bet they were 'ink color' disks, as the photo he supplied had a blue disk, not black. Seems like a good guess, anyway.

 

It certainly is addictive! My wallet is shivering and looking for somewhere to hide ...

[SerpentAtEden]

I recently bought four Parker 45's in Denmark in a second-hand shop, but only three caps. There is no way of knowing which cap belonged to which pen originally.
-One black body is stamped with the Logo of the Olsen Factory in Denmark, that produced Parker pens until it closed in the "mid 60's" (I'll soon know when exactly, I hope). This one had a 14k gold-nib. This pen-body, like the other plastic ones) has an inverted conical indent at the end, but on this one there is another, cylindrical, "hole" in the center of it (does not pierce the barrel-end though).
-One black body stamped with the Logo of the German Cassella company, steel nib.
-One blue body without markings, 14k nib. The indent at the end of the barrels on both the blue and the "Cassella"-pens has some surplus-material residue from the moulding process (quite pronounced on the blue one).
-One Flighter, steel nib.

-One brushed steel cap "made in England" (most likely from Flighter), dimpled clipscrew.
-One brushed steel cap "made in France", dimpled clipscrew.
-One smooth steel cap "made in England", conical clipscrew.

I went through Parkerpens.net and Parker45pens.com, so I dated them as well as was possible. Some questions, however, remain:
1. Were these pens produced in Denmark or imported and stamped before sale? Note: Judging from the precise placement and clearness of the imprint, I assume it to be a production mark.
2. Could the "Danish" pen be one of the early ones before the introduction of newer moulding-techniques in 1962, since it lacks the residual material?
3. Is there any way to tell, whether a barrel and or section might have been produced in France? Note: Because of the lack of markings that indicate otherwise I suspect the blue pen, but it might also conceivably be the Flighter (if those were produced in France) or the "Cassella"-pen (no idea whether they got their pens from Britain or France, or were they even produced in Germany itself?).
4. Do the gold nibs give any indication on the time of production?
5. Does the smooth steel cap give any indication on the date of production?

I'm grateful for any information I can get. Thank you all in advance.

[mitto]

One thing that the OP mentioned but probably overlooked by all the other posters is the clutch ring on the Plastic (Arrow) 45s. Yes the plastic 45 have a smoth clutch ring with no bumps. But it also has a different clutch in the cap. Unlike the 4 finger open clucth on the steel/metal caps of P45s, the plastic cap has sort of closed rounded shape clutch and, hence, you never find a plastic body 45 with a deformed hood/section.

Edited July 14, 2018 by mitto