Parker 51 Grail?

[JotterAddict62]

 

Are you going to have room for them with all those Jotters?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

mitto has broken ground Ruth, just two miles from the homestead.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOxeR4rGv552YtS6gJMcQwAi34xi8p2cy0p4p2p

[mitto]

mitto has broken ground Ruth, just two miles from the homestead.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOxeR4rGv552YtS6gJMcQwAi34xi8p2cy0p4p2p

 

The link is not working...

[georges zaslavsky]

Perhaps a custom titanium vac fill p51 made by Ralph Prather

[Glenn-SC]

Perhaps a custom titanium vac fill p51 made by Ralph Prather

 

Wonderful choice!

[corgicoupe]

I wish you wouldn't go on about your two bucks bargain Ruth, I thought I had done quite well with a 51 desk pen, nearly mint for £10 but now I feel rather inadequate .

 

Ruth's $2 even beats my $5 51 Aerometric.

[pajaro]

Ruth's $2 even beats my $5 51 Aerometric.

 

And she not a collector. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

[inkstainedruth]

 

And she not a collector. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

 

Nope. I'm an "accumuluser". Collectors are people who put their pens in nice display boxes and treat their pens as object d'art. The only pens I *don't* use are the ones I haven't gotten around to getting fixed yet.

What I really am, though, is a notorious cheapskate.... My most expensive 51 was the Navy Gray Aero, and I was only bidding on it because of the OB nib on it. (Navy Gray is really a pretty ugly color, when push comes to shove...). And of course the price includes the buyer's premium. I can't see myself doing the Pokemon "Gotta get'em all" route. I don't want all the colors, for instance -- any more than I want all the colors of Vacs. I have most of the 51s I want at this point; I'd like to get a couple of the other 51 Vac colors, and it would fun to have one of the British Bloody Burgundy pens, but I'm not gonna blow the budget to get one -- it's probably gonna cost about 25K US to get the roof on the house fixed (including making the flat roof "bathtub" go bye-bye) and that's a *way* higher priority than a Dove Grey 51 Vac or a Mustard one. And while it would be nice to someday have a full size Plummer, the Demi size one is nothing to sneeze at -- it's still Plum, and it's stlll mine, and I didn't pay the horrible price I was expecting to have to pay (although Farmersmum still has me beat -- getting a full sized Plummer the same weekend for just over half of what I paid for the Demi (and what really kills me the most is that I saw that listing and ignored it because it was described as being a black pen.... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[pajaro]

 

Nope. I'm an "accumuluser". Collectors are people who put their pens in nice display boxes and treat their pens as object d'art. The only pens I *don't* use are the ones I haven't gotten around to getting fixed yet.

What I really am, though, is a notorious cheapskate.... My most expensive 51 was the Navy Gray Aero, and I was only bidding on it because of the OB nib on it. (Navy Gray is really a pretty ugly color, when push comes to shove...). And of course the price includes the buyer's premium. I can't see myself doing the Pokemon "Gotta get'em all" route. I don't want all the colors, for instance -- any more than I want all the colors of Vacs. I have most of the 51s I want at this point; I'd like to get a couple of the other 51 Vac colors, and it would fun to have one of the British Bloody Burgundy pens, but I'm not gonna blow the budget to get one -- it's probably gonna cost about 25K US to get the roof on the house fixed (including making the flat roof "bathtub" go bye-bye) and that's a *way* higher priority than a Dove Grey 51 Vac or a Mustard one. And while it would be nice to someday have a full size Plummer, the Demi size one is nothing to sneeze at -- it's still Plum, and it's stlll mine, and I didn't pay the horrible price I was expecting to have to pay (although Farmersmum still has me beat -- getting a full sized Plummer the same weekend for just over half of what I paid for the Demi (and what really kills me the most is that I saw that listing and ignored it because it was described as being a black pen.... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Not entirely dissimilar from my experience. I first began to buy 51s. People used to tell me I needed a Montblanc, so in 1983 I bought a 146 from Fahrneys and a 144 Bordeaux medium from my local art supplies store. Then almost entirely 51s until I joined this forum. Almost all the pens I have bought other than Parker 51, Montblanc, Sheaffer and Lamy have issues of usability and are inferior. Applies especially to Esterbrook, of which I bought many and I consider them typical cheap pens of their time. Their saving virtue is that they don't leak as so many others of their time do. Even today, if you want a good pen that will work until you are good and tired of it, buy a 51 aerometric. I continue to use the one I bought new in 1970. Still the best and I use it daily. You can indulge in semantics and say you are an "accumuluser". I feel it's more straightforward to say I am a collector, because I have been acquiring pens for years and more than one or two pens is a collection, no matter how you slice it. I used to think of myself as an accumulator, because some think of "collector" as a bad thing and make it into some kind of curse word, but it's really a respectable thing. Collectors accumulate and sometimes better items in their collection for condition. They do tend to hold on to every single item, but many buy and sell with fluctuating interest and on finding items in better condition than the ones already in their collection. Since I have done some of this, I accept that I am a collector, just in a small way. Perhaps age has made me take stock and accept what I did not before. I use pen trays so I can enjoy looking at them sometimes. My stepson gave me one of those glass pane top boxes, so I am among those people now as well:

 

 

 

Those are Kullock conversions I made and aa 51 with a Bexley barrel. I like those, they have color. I remember thinking the plum would have more color than the other 51s I had. Midnight blue, forest green, burgundy, all looking like shades of black, so dark. Then, after a years-long effort I got a plum set. Another shade of black. And then I found Kullock barrels and hoods in wild colors. It has been an adventure and I accept that I collect these pens. Oh, don't trot out the Torrelli and Prather pens, I was only after color, not objets d'art.

[inkstainedruth]

And the Kulloch pens *aren't* objets d'art?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Glenn-SC]

 

Oh, don't trot out the Torrelli and Prather pens, I was only after color, not objets d'art.

 

I think you belittle Mr. Torrelli and Mr. Prather, as their pens not just "art", but are "color" and "users" as well as any other "51"s out there.

[corgicoupe]

 

And she not a collector. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

The semantics are difficult here. I think of collectors as those who don't use most of their pens, and acquirers as those who use most of their pens at some time or another but may have more than they really need. I am one of the latter.