Is this Navy Grey or Dove Grey?

[nahhan]

I bought vintage parker 51 few days ago(it's my first vintage fountain pen), the seller told me it is 'navy grey' but it didn't seems like navy grey... I think it's more similar with dove grey.🤔

I want to make sure about it's color...

Can anybody give me some advice? What do you think about my pen's color?

 

more about my pen(only I know) : 1/10 16k gold filled, vacumatic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(photos under the desk light)

 

(photos under the natural sunlight)

[silverlifter]

Pretty sure the vacs are dove grey and the aeros navy.

[Carguy]

That’s one of the last Dove Gray vacs. The body says 1st quarter of 1948, which is pretty late for a Vac, assuming my eyes done deceive me and that is in fact an 8.

[Mercian]

49 minutes ago, Carguy said:

That’s one of the last Dove Gray vacs. The body says 1st quarter of 1948, which is pretty late for a Vac, assuming my eyes done deceive me and that is in fact an 8.

I agree that it’s a ‘Dove Gray’ pen, and thus one of the last ones that was produced, but I can only see one dot - so doesn’t that make it a pen from the third quarter of 1948?

 

The dating code was created by grinding a lug off the stamp in each quarter, resulting in the codes below:

1st quarter - 3 dots

2nd quarter - 2 dots

3rd quarter - 1 dot

4th quarter - no dot

The pen seems to be in great cosmetic condition, so congratulations to nahhan on the find 🙂

[nahhan]

59 minutes ago, Mercian said:

I agree that it’s a ‘Dove Gray’ pen, and thus one of the last ones that was produced, but I can only see one dot - so doesn’t that make it a pen from the third quarter of 1948?

 

The dating code was created by grinding a lug off the stamp in each quarter, resulting in the codes below:

1st quarter - 3 dots

2nd quarter - 2 dots

3rd quarter - 1 dot

4th quarter - no dot

The pen seems to be in great cosmetic condition, so congratulations to nahhan on the find 🙂

I agree it is 3rd quarter too.

 

Thanks for your kindness reply !!🙂

[david-p]

I have a similar coloured aerobic Parker 51 that was described to me as dove grey.

 

Maybe someone could post a picture of navy grey 51.

 

David

[silverlifter]

47 minutes ago, david-p said:

I have a similar coloured aerobic Parker 51 that was described to me as dove grey.

 

Is it a UK 51?

[david-p]

44 minutes ago, silverlifter said:

Is it a UK 51?

Yes. It says MADE IN ENGLAND on the barrel.

 

David

[FarmBoy]

Dove

[Carguy]

My mistake on the 1st vs. 3rd quarter

[silverlifter]

5 hours ago, david-p said:

Maybe someone could post a picture of navy grey 51.

 

[Mercian]

It’s not as good as silverlifter’s photo, but I have uploaded a picture of my ‘Navy Grey’ “51” here:

 

 

As it’s got a Burgundy “51” next to it, if you alter the brightness/gamma of the picture until the Burgundy looks right, you should get a good idea of the colour of ‘Navy Grey’.

 

It’s a difficult colour to capture in photographs (unless one is outdoors on a bright sunny day), but I’ll try to get another one using a forced flash, to see if that helps. Photographs taken indoors can make it look like a darkish green, but in person it’s more of a darkish grey with a tinge of green

 

Anyway, I’m off now to try to photograph my “51” again….

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Mercian
Edited to include photo inline, as opposed to as a link.

[Mercian]

My flash photography is getting nowhere, so I had a look through the Parker 51 Photo Thread.

 

The best picture that I’ve found of a Navy Grey “51” so far is a bit big to include in this post, but can be found at this link.

 

Another good photo from that thread is the photo of Wahl’s collection of aerometric pens. It can be found here.

 

 

 

 

[Mercian]

One more, very useful, photo that I found in that thread is from mitto.

It shows how the colour of ‘Navy Grey’ can vary across different pens.

 

It’s in this post, on page 10 of the thread.

[mariom]

My grays.

 

1946 (6.) Vac Dove on the right, undated Aero in Navy with matching pencil on the left. The navy grey has a tinge of green to my eye, but not enough to perhaps be one of the various shades of green the Aero came in. The Dove Grey is a true neutral gray to my eye.

 

 

[corkscrew]

I have a navy grey vacumatic pen 😀

[FlighterGuy]

On 9/12/2021 at 12:34 PM, david-p said:

Yes. It says MADE IN ENGLAND on the barrel.

 

David

Dove Grey was one of the standard UK colors and Navy Grey was not, but some do exist making those very rare.

[inkstainedruth]

Oh, that's really interesting, FlighterGuy.  My one UK production 51 is a Navy Gray Aero, and I didn't realize that it was a rare color for the Newhaven facility (I don't actually like the color all that much, and prefer the lighter and less green-leaning Dove Gray, and only bid on the pen because of the OB nib on the pen).  I had always thought that Dove Gray was the 51 Vac color and Navy Grey was the Aerometric color (the same sort of way that 51 Vacs were Cedar Blue, while for Aeros it was Midnight Blue and Teal).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Fermata]

This is a rare experimental Parker 51. end cap, section and part of the barrel is in Navy Grey, the rest of the barrel is in Dove grey, it is very difficult to see the join, worth thousands of dollars.

 

It is actually the effect of sunlight on Dove Grey. It is now fixed apart from the end cap

[corkscrew]

Here is a grey (possibly Navy Grey?) vacumatic 

 

 

here it is next to a Dove Grey for comparison