Che Guevara's Parker 51

[Arstook]

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster here.

 

I've been reading other posts here and found out that Che Guevara wrote with a Parker 51. I was just thinking of him a couple of days ago, given the 50th anniversary of his death. Any idea here what kind of Parker 51 he wrote with? Where he got it? I was thinking, given that Parker had factories in Argentina in the 1950s, whether he might have purchased it there before becoming a revolutionary. Or could he have gotten it in Cuba before the Missile Crisis? Maybe he purchased it when he came to New York for the UN in 1964? These pen detective threads are always so interesting!

[inkstainedruth]

No clue about where or how he got it, but it's fascinating information (in some respects it makes me think of the shiny red 1923 Rolls Royce proudly displayed in the Lenin Museum in Moscow...).

Thanks for posting.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Beechwood]

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster here.

 

I've been reading other posts here and found out that Che Guevara wrote with a Parker 51. I was just thinking of him a couple of days ago, given the 50th anniversary of his death. Any idea here what kind of Parker 51 he wrote with? Where he got it? I was thinking, given that Parker had factories in Argentina in the 1950s, whether he might have purchased it there before becoming a revolutionary. Or could he have gotten it in Cuba before the Missile Crisis? Maybe he purchased it when he came to New York for the UN in 1964? These pen detective threads are always so interesting!

 

 

At least one pen is thought to be an English Parker 51 Signet and was a gift from a Martin Fox, an English traveller and businessman, who made a present of his own pen after it had been admired by Che.

 

There are pics however of him writing with all sorts of things including a Jotter and most often a pencil.

Edited October 11, 2017 by Beechwood

[pajaro]

Gee, Che did something right after all. Wrote with a 51.

[carlos.q]

I believe I have lost my google mojo. According to my search Martin Fox appears to have been the owner of the Tropicana at the time of the Cuban revolution.

[Beechwood]

I believe I have lost my google mojo. According to my search Martin Fox appears to have been the owner of the Tropicana at the time of the Cuban revolution.

 

 

Interesting, I didnt know that part. I heard that he had some business interests in Havana and that he was connected to crime but nothing more.

[Arstook]

This is some fantastic stuff! Anyone by chance have any photos of Che using his pen(s)?

 

The Martin Fox connection is intriguing. If this is the same Martin Fox that the google search brings up that carlos.q mentioned, he was the owner of the Tropicana nightclub and probably connected to organized crime. (Wasn't the Tropicana featured in Godfather 2?) As for why and how Che Guevara ended up with the pen of a such a character, I can only speculate...

 

According to a Miami Herald retrospective of Martin Fox, Fox was buddies with another leader of the Cuban Revolution, Camilo Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos supposedly gave an autographed picture of himself to Fox so that the nightclub owner could use it to prevent being harassed by Castro's militia. If this is true, it's not too far a stretch to suppose that Fox also knew Guevara. In the early days of the Cuban Revolution, it wasn't certain that Castro would align with the Communist Eastbloc. I suppose at that time, some wealthy Cubans thought they could work out an accommodation with the rebels. That was why they might have tried to befriend influential revolutionary leaders. So Fox's gift of a Parker 51 to Che after he admired it, may have been his attempt to curry favor with the new Cuban government (?) Maybe he just really liked the guy (?)

 

This doesn't answer why Che kept it though. Maybe he didn't really think through the irony of holding onto an item of the class of people he was trying to get rid of. Or maybe he thought it was no different than when the rebels appropriated American military surplus, like Thompson submachine guns, to serve the revolution.

We also know that Che liked to hold onto gifts. Over the course of his life, Castro gifted him with two Rolex watches. (Castro was really into giving Rolexes as gifts for some reason. Why he did is for another forum!)

[Beechwood]

I think the final paragraph is very well thought out, there is an expression in England 'Champagne socialists', being a socialist or man of the people doesnt stop you from having and wanting nice things such as the Rolls Royce, the Rolex or the top of the line gold Parker.

 

It is believed that the pen was bought at a Miami charity auction and is now with a European collector.

[JimP]

the guys that trained the Bolivians up to hunt that thug down were from the 8th SFG in Panama. Che's Pen survived and wound up in display in Panama. The pen survived the de-establishment of the 8th Group, and last I heard the pen was still in existence when 3rd Bn of 7th Group stood up in panama. I'll have to ask the old timers if they remember what type of pen was on display.

[Beechwood]

I will be seeing the owner of the Martin Fox pen on Sunday, see if he will part with it. I took History at Cambridge and one of the areas of study was post war Cuban history, so its a pen I would like.

 

He has a few other unusual items in his collection, a P51 given by Ike, a Wyvern set given at Christmas by Queen Mary and an Onoto owned by Churchill, Conway Stewart set given to ministers at a G7 Summit plus a few more.

 

Not sure whether these connected pens are worth significantly more than their everyday counterparts.

[Sasha Royale]

Gee, Che did something right after all. Wrote with a 51.

October 9, 1967

TWO things !

[Arstook]

I will be seeing the owner of the Martin Fox pen on Sunday, see if he will part with it. I took History at Cambridge and one of the areas of study was post war Cuban history, so its a pen I would like.

 

He has a few other unusual items in his collection, a P51 given by Ike, a Wyvern set given at Christmas by Queen Mary and an Onoto owned by Churchill, Conway Stewart set given to ministers at a G7 Summit plus a few more.

 

Not sure whether these connected pens are worth significantly more than their everyday counterparts.

 

Wow! If you can get away with at least a photo or two of the Martin Fox pen, please share! I wonder what condition it will be in and if it comes with any authenticating documents.

 

It sounds like Che had at least 2 Parker 51s from what people are posting. I suppose it's not too surprising given that they were much coveted and top of the line pens for the time period. According to a lot of casual google and ebay searching, it seems like the hooded nib format was the vogue all over the world in the 50s and 60s. Due to the Parker's expense and inaccessibility for some international markets, there were apparently a lot of foreign fountain pen models inspired by the 51. There was Italy's Aurora 88, West Germany's Lamy 2000, and Japan's Pilot E95s. Even the Eastbloc got into the action, producing pens highly derivative of the P51. There was China's Hero 100 and the Soviet Union's Soyuz fountain pen. I remember even seeing a North Korean hooded nib fountain pen dating back to the early 60s or 70s. (It's quite possible the North Korean ones were produced in the USSR or the Peoples Republic and rebranded under a North Korean state corporation brand).

 

I imagine Communist manufacturers had much less concern about producing models that looked visually similar or identical to the P51. It wasn't as if Parker could succesfully sue them!

Edited October 13, 2017 by Arstook

[Beechwood]

 

Wow! If you can get away with at least a photo or two of the Martin Fox pen, please share! I wonder what condition it will be in and if it comes with any authenticating documents.

 

It sounds like Che had at least 2 Parker 51s from what people are posting. I suppose it's not too surprising given that they were much coveted and top of the line pens for the time period. According to a lot of casual google and ebay searching, it seems like the hooded nib format was the vogue all over the world in the 50s and 60s. Due to the Parker's expense and inaccessibility for some international markets, there were apparently a lot of foreign fountain pen models inspired by the 51. There was Italy's Aurora 88, West Germany's Lamy 2000, and Japan's Pilot E95s. Even the Eastbloc got into the action, producing pens highly derivative of the P51. There was China's Hero 100 and the Soviet Union's Soyuz fountain pen. I remember even seeing a North Korean hooded nib fountain pen dating back to the early 60s or 70s. (It's quite possible the North Korean ones were produced in the USSR or the Peoples Republic and rebranded under a North Korean state corporation brand).

 

I imagine Communist manufacturers had much less concern about producing models that looked visually similar or identical to the P51. It wasn't as if Parker could succesfully sue them!

 

 

I understand that the condition is just as bought, unrestored but looking great. Parker 51s were made to last.

 

You are correct, the Parker 51 produced many clones and some are still in production, a game changer of a pen with, according to Parker, over a million produced every year and still sought after by collectors and users 40+ years after production ceased.

[inkstainedruth]

 

 

I understand that the condition is just as bought, unrestored but looking great. Parker 51s were made to last.

 

You are correct, the Parker 51 produced many clones and some are still in production, a game changer of a pen with, according to Parker, over a million produced every year and still sought after by collectors and users 40+ years after production ceased.

 

True. They were also made to be superb writing instruments. They're sought after for a reason. I LOVE mine (well, most of them, anyway); they'll have to pry my Plum Demi from my cold dead fingers and just a little while ago I used the Midnight Blue Aero I got at the Triangle Pen Show in June.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Carrau]

This topic interested me enough to snoop around a bit. All the photographs I could see on the internet show Che writing with what appears to be ballpoint pens or pencils, as noted by Beechwood above. I realize this doesn't mean he didn't write with a FP, but it does suggest he did write at least some of the time with a ballpoint pen. His diary (which was written in the time up to his death) is also available in its digitized format on the internet for public viewing, and I wonder if someone skilled enough could look at some of it to see if it appeared to have been written with FP or ballpoint. If his FP was appropriated as a trophy by his captors (as it has been reported that his watch was), I would think it may have been used up to the time of his capture. If the diary appears to have been written in ballpoint or pencil up to the time of his capture, that would make me wonder about the authenticity of any trophy pen attributed to Che.

[Arstook]

This topic interested me enough to snoop around a bit. All the photographs I could see on the internet show Che writing with what appears to be ballpoint pens or pencils, as noted by Beechwood above. I realize this doesn't mean he didn't write with a FP, but it does suggest he did write at least some of the time with a ballpoint pen. His diary (which was written in the time up to his death) is also available in its digitized format on the internet for public viewing, and I wonder if someone skilled enough could look at some of it to see if it appeared to have been written with FP or ballpoint. If his FP was appropriated as a trophy by his captors (as it has been reported that his watch was), I would think it may have been used up to the time of his capture. If the diary appears to have been written in ballpoint or pencil up to the time of his capture, that would make me wonder about the authenticity of any trophy pen attributed to Che.

 

I've just done some searching for the original Che diaries on google! I wasn't able to find any photos of the diaries he kept during the Cuban Revolution or during his time in the Congo. I believe the items are currently kept in a government archives in Cuba. The government is notoriously protective of its historical documents, so I'm not certain whether photos of the original manuscripts are publicly accessible.

 

What is available is the diary Che kept in his ill-fated Bolivian campaign, a document which fell into the hands of the Bolivian government and was made available online about 7-8 years ago. Here is the link to photos of the original diary from a Che memorial website:

 

http://chebolivia.org/chebolivia/index.php/el-diario-del-che-ed-facsimilar

 

From a preliminary look, it does look as if it was written with a fountain pen. Can anyone confirm? Impossible to prove however if it was the Parker 51(s) we've been talking about. He was a blue ink man apparently. The only other thing we can glean is that Che had a taste for [East] German stationery ;-).

 

On a final note, there's also currently a reporter notebook that Che reportedly scribbled in on ebay. it's dated to 1959. I'm not sure of it's authenticity, but here is a link for it:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1959-Original-booklet-manuscript-DIARY-Ernesto-Che-Guevara-ASIA-AFRICA-SIGNED-/253028476853?hash=item3ae9ac27b5:g:ewAAAOSwPWRZXD01

 

It's priced at the princely sum of $58,000.

[Mr.Rene]

 

I've just done some searching for the original Che diaries on google! I wasn't able to find any photos of the diaries he kept during the Cuban Revolution or during his time in the Congo. I believe the items are currently kept in a government archives in Cuba. The government is notoriously protective of its historical documents, so I'm not certain whether photos of the original manuscripts are publicly accessible.

 

What is available is the diary Che kept in his ill-fated Bolivian campaign, a document which fell into the hands of the Bolivian government and was made available online about 7-8 years ago. Here is the link to photos of the original diary from a Che memorial website:

 

http://chebolivia.org/chebolivia/index.php/el-diario-del-che-ed-facsimilar

 

From a preliminary look, it does look as if it was written with a fountain pen. Can anyone confirm? Impossible to prove however if it was the Parker 51(s) we've been talking about. He was a blue ink man apparently. The only other thing we can glean is that Che had a taste for [East] German stationery ;-).

 

On a final note, there's also currently a reporter notebook that Che reportedly scribbled in on ebay. it's dated to 1959. I'm not sure of it's authenticity, but here is a link for it:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1959-Original-booklet-manuscript-DIARY-Ernesto-Che-Guevara-ASIA-AFRICA-SIGNED-/253028476853?hash=item3ae9ac27b5:g:ewAAAOSwPWRZXD01

 

It's priced at the princely sum of $58,000.

mmm..it looks like ball pen written for me..

[Arstook]

Looks like our friend Beechwood came through, you guys. Up for sale in the FPN Classifieds is (possibly) Che Guevara's Parker 51.

 

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/classifieds/item/47893-parker-51-signet-che-guevara-connection/'%20title='Parker%2051%20Signet,%20Che%20Guevara%20Connection

Edited November 29, 2017 by Arstook

[Glenn-SC]

What provenance is there to document that that specific particular exact Parker "51" belonged to Guevara?

[hari317]

Edited...

Edited November 29, 2017 by hari317