Parker 51 - Some Trepidation

[Mangrove Jack]

Despite being a fountain pen user most of my life I have never bought a Parker 51 due to its reputation of being a difficult pen to repair and maintain. This is presumably because removal of the feed and nib are difficult.

I have also heard that this model is one of the most reliable of pens and some people have used them for many years without having to ever strip one to clean it up.

 

I would like to buy one as a daily use pen and your thoughts, information and advice is sought and appreciated before I decide to go ahead and buy. Sending a pen for repairs where I live means sending it overseas, so that is not an option.

[Lennart Wennberg]

I would suggest that you buy a fully restored Parker 51 aerometric from www.parker51.com or any other seller with a good reputation, selling fully restored 51s.

You will get what you pay for.

Lennart

Edited February 4, 2016 by Lennart Wennberg

[pajaro]

Despite being a fountain pen user most of my life I have never bought a Parker 51 due to its reputation of being a difficult pen to repair and maintain. This is presumably because removal of the feed and nib are difficult.

I have also heard that this model is one of the most reliable of pens and some people have used them for many years without having to ever strip one to clean it up.

 

I would like to buy one as a daily use pen and your thoughts, information and advice is sought and appreciated before I decide to go ahead and buy. Sending a pen for repairs where I live means sending it overseas, so that is not an option.

 

Give me a break. The chances that you will need to repair an aerometric 51 are quite small, and, if you are one of those people who just has to have the extra ink capacity of a Vacumatic 51, the repairs are not that complicated. I have restored one of those, and I am not good with my hands.

 

I have still at least a couple of dozen 51s, mostly aerometric models. One I have used for 45 years, and it works perfectly. Some of the rest I have had apart to put on colorful Ariel Kullock hood and barrel combos. This is not hard, unless you are just afraid to work on pens. If you buy one in good order, you will most likely never have to repair it, so, snap out of it and quit worrying.

[FrankB]

Choose a reliable seller and find a pen in as good a condition as you can. I agree with the thought that aerometric fillers are the most reliable. I have a couple dozen 51's, all of which have been super reliable. In 40+ years, only one required a repair. I shipped it off to the Fountain Pen Hospital and got it back in a week. The repair was not difficult.

 

The reputation that 51's have is well deserved in my experience. They are wonderful pens - excellent writers, reliable and durable. I haven't run over any with a tank or anything, but I have put them through their paces with nary a flaw.

 

There is one very great issue with Parker 51's, though. Take heed. Once you buy one, you will no doubt be on the lookout for a second.

[Mercian]

I wanted to buy an aerometric "51" in a particular colour (to match a pen that my mother owned when I was a young child).
I bought one from an auction site, and it all worked perfectly - except that its nib was completely worn out and didn't write properly any more.
I am in the UK, so sent my pen to ‘Battersea Pen Home’ and they replaced the nib with an un-used one, and restored my pen to the exact specification that I wanted.

Doing that increased the total price that I paid for the pen dramatically - but I now have the exact pen that I wanted, and - given that my pen was originally made in 1954 - I expect that it will work absolutely reliably until long past the end of my lifetime

If, like me, you are afraid to try repairing the pen yourself, I suggest that you follow Lennart Wennberg's advice above, and buy a fully-restored "51" from a reputable restorer.
If you ask for suggestions for reputable restorers, I am sure that you will get many recommendations from other FPN members

 

Edited to add this:
CAREFUL! FrankB is right - if you get one aerometric "51", they are so reliable and comfortable in the hand that you will soon find yourself wanting another - and you can find them with different nib widths, in different colours, with different caps...

Edited February 3, 2016 by Mercian

[ac12]

Get a restored aerometric from a GOOD dealer/seller, who will check out and adjust the pen for you.

The aerometric will give you the best sac life vs. the rubber diaphram in the Vac models. Although anything could fail.

 

You also want to tell the seller the nib size that you want. But be aware that larger nibs, M and wider, are less common and thus difficult to find and expensive when you do find them, at least for us in the US. I think the European made 51s generally had wider nibs than the American made 51s. So if you want a wider nib, a UK dealer/seller might be the best bet.

 

Tell the seller the ink you intend to use with it, as some inks may require adjusting the nib for proper flow.

 

Please remove thoughts of trying to fuss with the nib/feed of a 51. To do so requires removing the hood, and there lies the difficulty of working with the 51s nib. If the 51 has been setup correctly by the dealer/seller, you should not have any problem with it at all. I have my mother's 51, and the hood has not be removed in 50+ years, and I do not intend to remove the hood in my lifetime. The pen writes just fine.

 

You do NOT need to strip down a pen to clean it. In fact you should NOT strip down a pen, to clean it. For many pens, stripping down the pen to the component parts exposes the pen to damage during the disassembly or reassembly. The problem is, if you break a part, you likely cannot get a replacement. You would have to get another pen to scavenge the part from, and you could break that part also.

Edited February 3, 2016 by ac12

[amk]

There's only one thing that is a pain, which is that the massive collector makes the P51 a bad pen to maintain if you want to keep changing inks. The aerometric particularly is an easy pen to maintain - I've got P51s in the wild that started perfectly first time, a few that needed coaxing or a bit of nib smoothing, but no more than that.

 

Built like tanks.

[crescentfiller]

"I am in the UK, so sent my pen to ‘Battersea Pen Home’ and they replaced the nib with an un-used one, and restored my pen to the exact specification that I wanted."

 

 

 

You can't beat the team at BPH! They are the best and they stand behind their work.

 

I'm glad you like your '51 and I am sure the OP will be very happy with one too.

 

best,

daniel a.

 

 

 

I

[Mangrove Jack]

Thank you all you wonderful people. Greatly appreciated.

All I needed was that reassurance from you. Super.

As advised I will look for a reliable seller who will confirm that the pen is sound, hopefully an unused one if I can afford it, or a restored one in good working order.

 

Since the pen will be used at both office and home - writing cheques, signing documents, etc) I have to use a very permanent ink such as Noodlers Bad Belted Kingfisher (Bulletproof blue) in the pen. Is this ink okay for the pen ?

[Florida Blue]

Since the pen will be used at both office and home - writing cheques, signing documents, etc) I have to use a very permanent ink such as Noodlers Bad Belted Kingfisher (Bulletproof blue) in the pen. Is this ink okay for the pen ?

 

Personally, I would not. Many sellers will void any warranty that the pen might have if you use Noodler's inks. Also, those highly saturated inks have been known to melt the rubber diaphragms in Parker Vacumatic filling pens. Try using an iron gall ink or a permanent ink made by a pen maker.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Florida Blue

[Glenn Atkins]

and restored my pen to the exact specification that I wanted.

 

 

Not to get too far off topic, but I'm curious what your specification(s) was/were?

 

Thanks.

 

Glenn Atkins

[FrankB]

I have used Noodler's bullet proof inks in aerometric fill 51's for years. Those inks stain the rubber

in the filler, but have not caused any serious problems. I flush the pens regularly. As Florida Blue

said, I would hesitate to use such inks in a vac filler, but the aerometrics are fine.

[Ernst Bitterman]

The original spec ink in the 51 was something of a ridiculous pH-- something like 12, profoundly alkaline. There have been some worries about Noodler's inks, mainly in relation to modern-production diaphragms in the Vacumatic versions, but I'd add an academic prop to FrankB's experience as far as Aero models went.

[Mercian]

 

Not to get too far off topic, but I'm curious what your specification(s) was/were?

 

Thanks.

 

Glenn Atkins

 

Hi Glenn

 

Appearance-wise, I wanted the pen to match the colour & model of a "51" that my mother owned in my childhood, and by watching the auction site for a while, I managed to get one that matched what I remember my mother's pen to be.

It was/is a mid-1950s aerometric "51" (not a ‘Special’) in the ‘Navy Grey’ colour (which to my eye leans a bit towards green, whereas the ‘Dove Grey’ colour seems to me to more-nearly approximate the paint colour used on Her Majesty's Ships), with a Lustralloy cap.

 

I was annoyed to find that its nib was totally worn-out (it had been advertised as a ‘medium’, I bought it because the pen matched every other detail that I wanted and was relatively cheap), but I used the necessity of replacing that as an ‘opportunity’ for me to get the pen restored to the exact specification that I desired.

Repair/restoration-wise, that was that I wanted the pen to be fitted with a previously-unused ‘fine’ nib; to have it tuned to write fairly ‘wet’, and; to have its sac replaced with a previously un-used pli-glass sac (so that I can see how much ink I have left).

For full clarity, mine is an English ‘fine’, I seem to remember that English Parker nibs are supposed to be slightly wider than American Parker nibs.

 

Battersea Pen Home restored the pen to be exactly as I wished, so that now I effectively have a smooth- and wet-writing mid-50s aerometric in Navy Grey with a ‘fine’ nib, in rather ‘minty’ condition.

The only sign of wear on the pen is that the ‘frosting’ on the Lustralloy cap has worn down a lot, as has the date code on the barrel; decades of handling have smoothed off most of the frosting and the date imprint to the point of illegibility - I only found it last month, when I was playing with a 30x magnification loupe.

No doubt some of you "51" lovers out there are now wondering why the ecky thump I wanted only a common-or-garden English ‘Fine’, when I could have asked BPH for something more ‘interesting’, such as an ‘Oblique Broad’.

In my defence, your Honour, not only is there no accounting for tastes, but also there's nowt so queer as folk

Perhaps I might one day invest in one of those, but for now an English ‘Fine’ suits me, well, just fine

 

Cheers,

M.

[Sasha Royale]

I am using my father's Parker 51, bought in 1952. He used it for 35 years. Then, he had the sac replaced because he was told that the silicon sac was more durable. As far as I know, it is the only service in 65 years. Practice good maintenance, and your Parker 51 will last two lifetimes. Don't take it apart.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Sasha Royale

[corgicoupe]

I am using my father's Parker 51, bought in 1952. He used it for 35 years. Then, he had the sac replaced because he was told that the silicon sac was more durable. As far as I know, it is the only service in 65 years. Practice good maintenance, and your Parker 51 will last two lifetimes. Don't take it apart.

I have my Dad's Parker 51 vacumatic, dated 1946. I don't think it's ever been serviced. Ever since I can remember, it was always filled with green ink. It's black with a gf cap and blue diamond, which I recently touched up with some Testors enamel.

[pajaro]

What is a "good dealer/seller?" How is the novice to know?

 

I bought a Vacumatic 51 from a person on ebay who had made a stub of the 51 by cutting off the tipping. Foolishness. I replaced the nib with an NOS fine and the sac still fills now, years later. I think you can buy one from anyone and just clean it up. Soak out the old ink. You don't need a reliable seller, especially if you don't know a reliable seller, or if you don't want to pay the premium price they will want. Just buy an aerometric version, and the chances are it will work perfectly if the nib has tipping and you soak the old ink out of the pen.

[Mangrove Jack]

Thank you gentlemen. Very good info and advice indeed.

[mitto]

Thank you gentlemen. Very good info and advice indeed.

As far as I know there are no restorers and/or reliable sellers in the Sub-Continent ( South Asia). Since the OP lives in Sri Lanka, he will have to buy the pen from wherever he finds it. From the wild I mean.

 

Wish you best of luck Mangrove Jack.

[ac12]

About the ink sac. I would not bother replacing it, unless you really want to. The reason is, that whatever ink you put into the pen will STAIN the ink sac anyway. IOW, the ink sac will NOT stay clear, but gradually darken from ink staining.