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few days ago i got 3 nice pens a Sheaffer Imperial and 2 beautifully colored Parker 45 pens, both of them came with a Fine Nib one of them -the gold plated one- was very clean so i didnt do anything to it and the other one needed some service so i did it and im currently using it, such a nice pen very smooth, fantastic grip and decent ink flow even when im using cheap paper it writes perfectly without any problems. here is some pictures for both of them :http://imageshack.com/a/img534/3292/qyd7.jpghttp://imageshack.com/a/img822/6840/dsi0.jpghttp://imageshack.com/a/img850/2144/5qol.jpg

I have searched high and low for one of these (the housing is not marked with an identifying code letter), and I'm beginning to think they may be unobtanium. Does anyone have an idea where I may be able to find one?

Hi there! I'm from Singapore, really into fountain pens but alas aren't really rich enough to buy the more drool worthy pens; I've just splurged on a vanishing point decimo on rakuten, and hopefully it willactually turn up.... So we're moving house, because the house is getting renovated, and we had to clean out all our junk to store it away for a year. The whole of last month we'd been packing and stuff -though OUR stuff, had been cleared out. My mother's stuff, is... well, still all over the place. So last weekend I had been clearing out some last bits of stationery and found what i thought was my mother's fountain pen. Now I don't really like my mother's fountain pens because I had had the impression that it was thick, heavy stuff that didn't write well for me. It was a stainless steel parker; I figured what the hell, might as well try andclean it up. I remember having vague memories of trying to clean up one of my mother's pens before (I think it was my mother's . It might be my sister's?) but it hadn't written very well. But now that I have found the Fountain Pen Network, I decided I could try and soak it in vinegar solution (about half a mug of water to 1 small cap of white vinegar) and see. This is when I discovered that it was a Parker 45, also known as a Flighter, because it's stainless steel body. It's vintage! The silver trimmed one is made in australia even! So I cleaned it out - in the lab because I have access to acetone and ethanol, I could clean off the rust and dust - the only thing left is the greenish corrosion on the clip which I suspect is chromium oxide. Not sure how to clean that off other than manual scraping. The bladder seemed to be busted though - split. So I was a bit disappointed, because it seemed like it was welded to the nib - it and its vintage ness! Then FPN said that 45s were one of the first models to be completely cartridge/convertors. ! One thing they said was to soak it for 30 mintues with warm water - so I did that. Practised guitar while it soaked. and then the busted convertor poppped right off! So I soaked it for 2 days in vinegar water solution, and then another half day of water, and then put it in a little baggie of silicon crystals to dry out . then when I pulled ito ut to test the ink, I discovered the feed din't quite fit into the barrel anymore. It had shrunk! D: (FPN now says that sometimes heat can shrink it. Damn I must have put it in too-warm water) Then I remembered - much earlier this year, I had found another buncha fountain pens from my brother's collection. He'd lost interest in fountain pens by then, and gave them to me .One of these pens was also my mother's parker (HSe must have had two) and it hadn't worked very well I remember. But i dug it out anyway, and lo and behold it was the SAME PEN. Except with gold trim! And then I realised - the pen I was cleaning now, had a gold coloured nib. The pen I just dug out had a steel coloured nib but the barrel had gold trim. it had been swapped over! Now i have TWO flighters Parker 45! Silver trimmed made in Australia, Gold made in the USA. So now this pens nib is being soaked too, just to make sure it's fully clean, and then I'll reassemble them and test them out later. :D :D http://delfinnium.dreamwidth.org/file/43091.jpg The silver/chrome cap's corrosion. http://delfinnium.dreamwidth.org/file/42817.jpg It came with the gold nib. (And actually the silver accent ring at the base of the pen, not the gold coloured one) http://delfinnium.dreamwidth.org/file/43436.jpg more corrosion. http://delfinnium.dreamwidth.org/file/43594.jpg split bladder of the Gold-nibbed, silver trimmed one. http://delfinnium.dreamwidth.org/file/42567.jpg Now both of them! anyone's got tips on how to remove the green corrosion on the silvery clip? ?

I'm new to the vintage pen thing. I've started with Parker 45s after reading OcalaFlGuy's enthusiastic praise of them), and I've recently acquired a few at excellent (to me) prices. (2 plastic GTs with steel nibs at ~$20 in excellent / mint condition, plus a NOS flighter, also steel-nibbed at ~$30 - I do realize I've missed out on a 14k nib, so I'm still fishing for a reasonably-priced one). But this baffles me - am I missing something that makes this 45 worth 4+ times more than any other? (Olive green 45 GT with a 14k XF nib, fully serviced, now at $105!!). Or did someone just get carried away?

I would like to share my delight of acquiring some older fps : they are parker 45 , particularly shield pattern with green paint , a pattern unknown to me atleast before.A lady sheaffer in black color with golden overlay type pattern , has a 14 k medium nib , excelent writers . I still value these "oldies " and extremely happy to have these wonderful pens !

Hey, So a while back I acquired two used Parker 45 pens, one with a 14k extra fine nib and the other with a steel Fine. Unfortunately, the 14k nib seems to have been either worn out, or badly ground...it writes as thick as a Japanese M, and has such a tiny sweet spot that it's immensely difficult to use. A tiny bit off and the pen bites into the paper. I made sure the tines are aligned, and spread them a tiny bit to make it wetter which seems to have helped a bit, but it's still not very fun to use. In addition, my other P45 kept getting ink all over the inside of the cap, as well as the section. I couldn't figure it out and packed away the pen for a while, and only took it out today. I had stored it cap off, but I now realize the whole section is warped, so the nib doesn't even point up anymore, it slants slightly. At this point I'm considering just sticking the steel nib onto the section of the other pen (with a problematic nib), but it seems to be a bit of a waste... Are there any easy ways to fix the 14k nib and/or the warped section? I'll try to post photos later. Thanks! edit: Here are some photos! http://i43.tinypic.com/295cs5u.jpg http://i42.tinypic.com/rup8og.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/1y1t87.jpg http://i43.tinypic.com/2guz91u.jpg

So, around 3 months ago I bought a Parker 45 in a nostalgic fit of self indulgence on the grounds that it was the pen that saw me through my school days, or to be more accurate that THEY were the pens that saw me through as it turned out that my fellow class mates were pretty much convinced that property ownership was not an important issue leading to a fair number of pens disappearing never to be seen again. So, having bought myself one pen I found myself buying another, and another ... and pretty soon I seem to have found a new direction to my wanderings on the internet whilst I'm sat here pretending to work, with Ebay as well as several other vintage pen sites firmly bookmarked and inspected on a daily if not hourly basis. At the moment I seem to be leaning towards the metal Parker 45's, especially the Harlequins which I could never afford as a kid, and the Parker 25's which I actually prefer to use over the 45's as a daily working pen. At the moment the main part of my collections looks a bit like this: http://www.fotothing.com/photos/444/444f804f5880464f9bb9a5c18a44504e_f65.jpg As well as several duplicates and a few other models which I'm not sure I want to actually collect. The point of all this is ... At what point does a simple innocent hobby become an obsession? Is it normal to troll through the newly listed items at Ebay quite so often never mind trying to examine bad photos at 300% size in Photoshop looking for clues to identify badly labelled items? Should work really come first or is that Parker T1 that is ending soon the real priority? Any thoughts and ideas appreciated ...

I've found this pen for sale on a local site with the price dropping over a few weeks. It is brand new still in the modern sort of bubble pack packaging, apparently won in a competition and unwanted. I recall my father having an all steel Parker pen when I was a kid back in the 70s that, from images found on the net, I believe was probably a Flighter 45 so I will probably bid for this pen. Just wondering how old it might be.

So I won this Parker 45 here ... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Rare-Parker-45-Flighter-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-Fountain-Pen-80s-/290988354420?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=7Y7wDtDdd09zbjn2WwznDS4PHEc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc It was one of those spur of the moment bids ... which I almost immediately thought ... hmmm I don't know enough about this pen, and nobody else has bid on it. Well, no problem, thought I, someone else will Snipe it. So I went off to bed and thought no more of it. In the morning I found I'd won it. Now, I would like a 45 Flighter, and with shipping it was only $26. But now I'd like to know ... what was the problem with it? Why did nobody else bid on it? Or did I just pay over the odds (I can live with that). Thanks RGH

Hi I've just bought a parker 45 with a grip section that has 4 equially placed depression, they are placed at 12,3,6 and 9 oclock. they are smooth and contain no ridges unlike other shaped grips i've seen. In fact this is the first Parker 45 I've seen without a totaly round grip section. Does any one out there have any info on this? Pen is a parker 45 flighter, gold nib with silver coloured (chrome) trim and tassie at the end of the barrel. Regards

Earlier in the month I decided it was time for me to Try A Vintage Pen and I ordered a nice greenish NOS Parker 45 from a well-known online store. It writes well, but after two attempts to fill it with ink I have realized that the sac in the little squeezy converter is broken. I hold the seller blameless in this: the pen was described as having been manufactured in the early 60s, and as I was also manufactured in the early 60s I have a good respect for the effects of time. However, I am in a quandry about what to do next. Do modern Parker converters fit the 45? Should I try to have my converter fixed? Should I buy a stock of Parker cartridges and resign myself to refilling them with inks of my choice? Dear Parker fans, please advise me!

I collect Parker 45s and am trying to get one of each. Richard Binder's excellent guide is very helpful in this regard as it lists all the barrel colours. However, to my eye, it is very difficult to distinguish "rage red" from "vermilion" without having them side by side. My problem is that I cannot actually place them side by side, because I only have one colour: http://users.tpg.com.au/bule/temp/red_pens.jpg (in reverse chronological order: Custom, CT, Arrow/CT, Parker Eversharp, Eversharp Big E). Does anyone know which colour I have here? I suspect it is rage red but I far from certain! Any guidance would be appreciated!

Hello denizens of Parker-world! I recently developed an acute form of Parker fever and went on a bidding spree on the E-nabler-bay. Rather than blow all my money on a single new (Pilot) pen, I decided to try my hand at buying vintage and fixing up pens myself. No pics yet but here are the 5 pens slowly winging their way to my door: Parker 45 Flighter, Parker 51 x 2, Parker 21 Super x 2, and Parker 21 Non-Super. I'll have to be careful with the 21's since I already cracked the section of my Parker 45, which I only received this month! I plan to carry the 45 and 51's around as part of my fountain pen EDC. The 21's will stay on my desk to minimize cracking. I'll be sure to post pictures when I get them! (I credit Penkino1 and his Parker 51 videos for starting my Parker fever)