Parker 51 FP
Is the Parker 51 the world's best pen ?
More than 20 million sold
According to Alexander Crum Ewing, author of “The Fountain Pen - A Collector’s Companion”, the iconic Parker 51 with its hooded nib is the world’s best pen. Ewing cites the P51 was the world’s first “fully reliable pen that wrote first time, did not leak,and whose ink dried quickly”. Perhaps Ewing is right: More than 20 m of the iconic cigar shaped pen were sold from 1941 to 1972.
The vintage P51 Mk2 below has a gold filled pinstriped cap, and a gold nib with a Navy Grey barrel. Although the barrel is short, the hooded nib allows users to grip the pen in a comfortable position. The barrel has a clutch ring to allow the cap to be snapped into place quickly. There is a small breathing hole in the barrel, beside the arrow clip. I am not quite sure if the hole was put in to equalise air pressure when the cap was snapped into place.
I think but cannot be 100% sure it was made circa 1960. The P51 pen was a gift to my father who completed specialist teacher training in woodworking in 1963. The folding boxwood ruler by Rabone is also his, and dates to around the same time.
The P51 uses an Aerometric vacuum system. Instructions were etched on the steel tube enclosing a sac : "To fill press ribbed bar firmly 4 times holding pen point downm Wipe point with soft tissue". I had the P51 serviced by KS Gill at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, KL a few years ago. The pen shop charged RM100 inclusive of changing a new sac and for nib adjustment. Thanks to Providence, there are no scratches on the barrel or dings in the gold filled cap- my father favoured ballpoint pens in his time
Reissued In 2021
ParkerPen reissued the P51 in 2021 in two versions, a basic model with a steel nib and a deluxe model with a gold nib. The updated P51 pen has a screw in cap, and uses either cartridges or a converter. https://www.parkerpen.com/parker-51-pens.html
The website www.Parkerpens.net has a page describing the chronology of the various P51 models from 1940 to 1969. I noticed a sticker price of USD 12 on a Mk2 version of the P51, introduced around 1960. This would now be equivalent to around USD 113 in 2022, about 20% of the starting salary of a new graduate in Malaysia. .
So the P51 was already an expensive pen when my father got it in 1963.
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