Topic of the Week: The Parker 51
One of an occasional series that spotlights one part of the Pentrace archive for readers who haven't explored the whole site yet.
A first-year Parker 51 in Cordovan Brown, from 1941, its blind cap off to show the aluminium Speedline filler. On first-year pens the one-line imprint is stamped by the jewel at that end. The gold-filled cap, with its Blue Diamond clip, dates from between October 1940 and December 1944. (Photo: Donal Higgins, private collection)
Parker finished the 51 in 1939, the company’s 51st year, and launched it in the United States in 1941: a hooded nib, a slim tapered body in Lucite, and a cap that slid on rather than screwed. It became the most successful fountain pen ever made. Parker stopped counting at 12 million, and estimates of the total run from 20 to 50 million, made in the United States, Canada, England and Argentina until the early 1970s. Along the way it changed fillers twice, from the Vacumatic’s plunger to the squeeze-bar Aerometric of 1948 and then to cartridges, and it was the pen that signed more than one surrender at the end of the Second World War. This week the archive’s writing on the 51 is gathered in one place, from its colours and its history to the Pen Doctor’s fixes.
Date your own
How to Date a Parker 51 explains how: read the date code under the clutch ring, check the filler, clip and colour against it, and date the cap on its own, since it is the part most often swapped. It ends with the Parker 51 Dater: pick what you can see on your pen and it works out when and where the body was made, dates the cap separately, and says which parts fit. On the first-year pen above, the two agree: a 1941 body, and a Blue Diamond cap made between late 1940 and 1944. Every result has a link of its own, so you can share it on the Message Board.
Three 51s and three fillers. Left, a Vacumatic-filling 51 dated October to December 1946 (code T6), its blind cap off to show the plastic plunger. Centre, an English Aerometric 51 of the 1960s, its barrel off to show the squeeze-bar sleeve. Right, a 51 Special Edition from 2002, which takes cartridges or a converter. (Photo: Donal Higgins, private collection)
Start here
If you only read a few of these, start with the following:
- How to Date a Parker 51
- Donal Higgins on reading a 51’s imprint and date code, dating it by its parts when the code is gone, and where the main references disagree. It ends with the Parker 51 Dater.
- Colors: The Parker 51
- Michael Richter’s 2001 chart of every colour, the Vacumatic-filling pens and the Aerometrics, checked against the pens in Len Provisor’s collection.
- Parker “51” by David and Mark Shepherd
- Len Provisor reviews the standard history of the pen, written from Parker’s own archives at Newhaven.
- Review: Surrender! by Richard Binder
- The pens at twelve surrender ceremonies of 1943 to 1945, among them the Dove Gray 51 that General Jodl signed with at Rheims.
- Pen Doctor: Parker “51”: Who’s On First?
- Richard Binder on telling the “Marks” apart, and on taking the front end of a 51 apart and putting it back together.
- An Airplane That Inspired the Parker “51” Flighter
- Len Provisor on the silver Beechcraft that Parker bought in 1946, and the all-steel pen it is believed to have inspired.
Every article on the Parker 51
Everything in the archive on this topic, grouped by section:
History
- Colors: The Parker 51
- An Airplane That Inspired the Parker “51” Flighter
- Writing Instruments Manufactured in Israel: Part II – Other Brands
Reference Pages
Pen Identification
Review
Report
Biography
Pen Doctor
- Pen Doctor: Parker “51”: Who’s On First?, Front-End Disassembly and Reassembly of the Parker “51”
- Pen Doctor: Side by Side: The Parker “51” and the Hero 100
- Pen Doctor: Help for a Sheaffer Touchdown, Why Does My “51” Leak?, I Want a Flex Nib, and I Want It Now!
- Pen Doctor: My Dip Nibs Won’t Hold Ink, Pelikan Nib Skips — Easy to Fix? and Tightening a “51” Clip
- Pen Doctor: Rattling Lever in Sheaffer Pen, Converter Interchangeability?, Pelikan Nib Skips — Easy to Fix? and Tightening a “51” Clip
- Pen Doctor: Fixing Parker “51” Cap Clutches (Not!), More on Leaking Targa Nibs and Finding Replacement Nibs for Inexpensive Pens
- Pen Doctor: Adjusting flow in a Parker “51”, Leaking Targa Nibs, Finding Replacement Pen Sacs and Yet More on Waterman CF Converters!
Further reading
- parker51.com, with its 51 Chronology and 51 Versions.
- The Parker “51”, Richard Binder’s profile.
- The Parker 51, Tony Fischier’s guide at the Parker Collector.
- David Shepherd and Mark Shepherd, Parker “51”, the standard history.
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