What Parkers Have Joined Your Collection Lately?

[JasonR]

@I am not a number - 60th??!?  Wow.  What is it that you love about the P51?  I'm a Conway Stewart/Onoto collector and that's a totally different style altogether.  

[inkstainedruth]

Honestly, I'll jump in and answer before @I am not a number.  It's because everything that went into the design and construction of 51s is to make them what they are -- superb writing instruments -- and they were the top of the line model for something like 20 years.... 

Now the guy who runs the mailing list for my local pen club doesn't like the hooded nibs on 51s -- but even that design element for a reason: to have the pens NOT burp into the cap when in being carried on a flight (back in the days before they had planes with the air pressure systems in cabins).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Mind you, I don't have NEARLY as many 51s and @I am not a number, but love all of mine (with the possible exception of the 51 Signet I got recently at an estate sale, because the cap is now stuck on the pen and I don't know how to get it off without help (it HAD been working perfectly well before that, once I got the previous ink flushed out of it ) -- when I tried to pull the pen off the cap, all that happened is that the metal sleeve with the press bar got pulled off the sac.... 

[I am not a number]

It's just the whole design aesthetic and the amazing functionality. My Dad had one when I was a kid, and I was obsessed with it, and that obsession has been one of the very few constants in my life.

 

As far as I'm concerned, it's the Platonic ideal of a fountain pen. And this is possibly supported by Parker's attempts*, mostly unsustainable or unsuccessful, to 'resurrect' it.

 

* Special Edition 2001 (I have three); Parker 100 (I have five); and whatever the heck the 'new' Parker 51 is (I have one on the way to evaluate, but I'm not expecting much).

 

And there will be folk on this forum who have more examples than I do!

[I am not a number]

10 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

[...] (back in the days before they had planes with the air pressure systems in cabins).

When I joined my first squadron, we flew a bunch of veteran aircrew of the Berlin Airlift over for a commemorative lunch at the Reichstag. I remember meeting them in the bar, the night before the flight, and them asking how well they should 'wrap up' for the flight. We then had to explain that our spiffy modern C-130 Hercules (introduced into service in 1956, and with the RAF from 1966) was pressurised, and in certain areas of the freight bay, there would be pockets of actual warmth (if they looked very carefully)!

 

Obviously, while this was great, the occasional rapid depressurisation at ~26,000* feet would leave me descending the aircraft steps post-flight looking as if I'd been shot at close range by a paintball gunner armed with blue ink pellets. I cleaned my kit as best I could, but Flying Clothing Section** on base had a particular way of sighing every time I walked in for 'a favour'.

 

* One of the reasons I switched to the low-level role as soon as I could. Well, that and the fact that taking a small aluminium village through the 'weedosphere' was most excellent fun.

** I kept that place supplied with beer for three tours.

[Carguy]

Like others here, I fell into the 51 rabbit hole hard about 20 years ago. What’s funny is my first 51 was a Special with a scratchy steel nib and I hated it. I bought it cheap and wondered what fans saw in this pen?!? Fast forward a few years later and I tried one with a well tuned M nib (like yours) and I was absolutely hooked. Now I probably have 80-100 in every color and a box full of fine/xfine nibs that I’ve replaced with M or B more suited to my style and I love every single one of them.

[Tashi_Tsering]

Parker Black and Gold, 1920s. Celluloid body, flexible #2 nib, button filling system. A very nice pen in excellent condition. Not a Duofold, but very, very good.

[I am not a number]

That's gorgeous, and a lovely clear barrel imprint!

[Amberjack]

Just received this '47 Townsend Annex Vacumatic 51 in Cordovan Brown.

Long clip sans the Blue Diamond.  Used quite a bit, just from the thread wear on the filler!

Needs a restoration but is in pretty good shape for his age.

 

 

 

[lamarax]

13 hours ago, Tashi_Tsering said:

Parker Black and Gold, 1920s. Celluloid body, flexible #2 nib, button filling system. A very nice pen in excellent condition. Not a Duofold, but very, very good.

 

Nice! I can smell the mold from right here! 😜

[Tashi_Tsering]

1 hour ago, lamarax said:

 

Nice! I can smell the mold from right here! 😜

You're wrong: it's the smell of antiques, not mold  

[I am not a number]

A dove grey aerometric stub joins the family, courtesy of an old mate from my RAF days.

 

Not a bad exchange for a curry and his beer for the night!

 

[Carguy]

Nice nib!

[FarmBoy]

48 minutes ago, I am not a number said:

 

Not a bad exchange for a curry and his beer for the night!

 

Probably an ok trade for a red or green but not a yellow.

[Amberjack]

1 minute ago, FarmBoy said:

Probably an ok trade for a red or green but not a yellow.

Oh you did not just throw shade on green curry...

 

And that nib...looks heavy.

[I am not a number]

15 hours ago, FarmBoy said:

Probably an ok trade for a red or green but not a yellow.

 

I'm in the UK, where, according to local custom (and applicable paragraphs of maritime law), British Indian Restaurant curry is only served in approved grades of fluorescent orange.

 

15 hours ago, Carguy said:

Nice nib!

 

Why, thank you, Sir.

 

15 hours ago, Amberjack said:

Oh you did not just throw shade on green curry...

 

And that nib...looks heavy.

 

Whilst I am aware of the existence of green curry, I live in Wiltshire, where such things are still viewed with a combination of suspicion and fear. Very much like electricity, which is smuggled in from Bristol, in buckets and under the cover of night.

[Penguincollector]

  That’s a beautiful nib, @I am not a number. The dove grey is my favorite colour of 51. 

[Carguy]

Does this stuff from an estate sale count? Check out the calculator….

[Amberjack]

30 minutes ago, Carguy said:

Does this stuff from an estate sale count? Check out the calculator….

Oh now that is sweet!

[Tashi_Tsering]

Not a pen, but a Parker  А friend recently sent me a Parker Flaminaire lighter from the early 1950s for my birthday.

Parker tried selling gas lighters developed by the French company Flaminaire in the early 1950s, but wasn't particularly successful, and abandoned lighters altogether when the highly successful Jotter pen was launched.

 

[jchch1950]

Diversification was something Parker was not very successful at. Lighters and temporary work services were huge income earners for the successor companies, but not enough for Parker to keep them.