Parker ID help

[BowlingBallBaby]

Hello Friends,

I'm still learning about vintage pens and could use your help. I was recently gifted this pen.

Clearly marked Parker 21 on the cap. Also clearly marked Parker 51 on the filler.

Do I have a 21 with a 51 filler, or a 51 with a 21 cap?

Color - pretty sure it's Teal, and my camera has shifted this to the blue. It's quite a bit more green in real life.

Also...aprrox vintage? 60's?

Thanks everyone...

https://i.imgur.com/rZ8IoQll.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HQsQsR8l.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/mu6saPul.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8v5Uylpl.jpg

[Farmboy]

Wrong cap. Pen is a 51.

[BowlingBallBaby]

Yay for me!

[BowlingBallBaby]

Any help on the era? Am I correct in guessing that it's 1960's-ish? I can't make sense of the nib code. I'd like to find a correct cap for it.

[jar]

IIRC and it hasn't been over polished there will be a date code on the barrel, two numbers and some dots. The numbers will give you a year and the dots a quarter. The filed away a dot for each quarter, three dots is first quarter, two dots second quarter, one dot third quarter and no dots fourth quarter. .

[jos]

Any 1950s or 1960s Parker 51 cap will be correct. A gold filled cap would look great on that pen.

The 21 cap is wrong for your pen but that cap is a bit peculiar: it is the cap that was on the earliest Parker "21 Super" when it was introduced in 1957. The cap is easy recognizable by the stylized clip with imprinted feathers on top and an imprinted arrow on bottom of the clip. These caps are not rare but a bit uncommon because they were used for maybe two years (1957-59) on the Parker 21 Super. The later caps had the well known arrow clip that would survive until the 1970s.

[BowlingBallBaby]

No date codes anywhere. I've inspected every millimeter of the barrel, screwed on and off. I don't think it's unusual for later aerometrics to have no date code, but wah... :cry:

[jos]

No date code suggests that the pen is circa 1953 or later. The Parker 51 timeline at Parker51.com will be of help to roughly estimate a production date of your pen:
http://parker51.com/index.php/education/51-chronology/

[BowlingBallBaby]

Thanks! Very helpful!

[pajaro]

Too bad the cap is wrong, because some of the dating details on Parker51.com's timeline refer to the cap, but those details might help you to find the nearest correct cap for your pen. The timeline at Parker51.com has been very helpful to me in dating used 51s I bought.

[Farmboy]

The Syndicate really needs to update that timeline.

Does the nib have dimples?

[BowlingBallBaby]

FarmBoy. I'm not sure I know what the dimples are. Enlighten me?

[lsmith42]

FarmBoy. I'm not sure I know what the dimples are. Enlighten me?

Please don’t encourage him...


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[Jerome Tarshis]

The Syndicate really needs to update that timeline.

Does the nib have dimples?

If it comes to that, the Syndicate might wish to discuss a corrected edition of the Parker 51 book.

As for the nib, I understand that various words that have possible anatomic reference are used to describe nibs, but IME "dimples" is not one of them. I have held Parker 51 nibs, among others, in my hands without seeing anything I'd think of as dimples. It's true that I've seen soft-plastic hoods of less expensive pens that develop what are arguably dimples.

I am curious about dimples in nibs that haven't been injured.

[lsmith42]

Parker did indeed state that the “... nib has two small dimples on the lower part of its tubular body...”

Can’t make this stuff up...


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[Farmboy]

Smith is reading his mail and got to page 7.

[Jerome Tarshis]

I am fazing fixedly at the drawings in early pages of the Parker 51 book, and I'm not seeing what I think of as dimples in the nibs. However, the pen was developed in the late 1930s, which was quite a long time ago. I would therefore add to Farmboy's question the further question of whether the nib has laughter lines around its eyes. That nib is no longer young.

[Farmboy]

During its teen years the nib had dimples.

[proteus]

Much talk, no images

[Farmboy]

Much talk, no images

Images are in the Pennant. I’ll see if I can get the PCA to post it as the feature article, otherwise it come with membership!

[lsmith42]

Much talk, no images

Images are in the Pennant. I’ll see if I can get the PCA to post it as the feature article, otherwise it come with membership!

Membership has its privileges?


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[pajaro]

Is it worth it?

[lsmith42]

Yup... and has been improving over the last year...


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[BowlingBallBaby]

Pen is inked right now, though I do have some letters to write. As soon as it is dry, I'll get some pix of the nib to satisfy the dimple police here.

[jar]

Much talk, no images

Images are in the Pennant. I’ll see if I can get the PCA to post it as the feature article, otherwise it come with membership!

I'm a member but requested that they don't send me the Pennant. PCA is well worth supporting but I never read the magazine so asked them to send it to schools or such instead of to me. It's been several years since I got a copy now.

[proteus]

BowlingBallBaby

I and many others will be interested to see any images that you are able to post.
( We are never see them anywhere else )

A Great Many Thanks

[BowlingBallBaby]

I have no idea what a "dimple" would look like on this nib, but I have disassembled the pen for the benefit of the hive. Here ya go.

https://i.imgur.com/KlpZWSum.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/MHUzxxWm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PYtTf53m.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/205vnswm.jpg

[proteus]

Many Thanks for your efforts and images.

Perhaps I am wrong, your nib to me looks like a standard 51 nib

[BowlingBallBaby]

That's what I would have expected, but will all this talk of "dimples" and such, I figured I would post some pics. Thanks!

[proteus]

Again Many Thanks, BowlingBallBaby

In the past I have own a P51 with a nib that had a perfect sphere on the end of it.

You could write at any angle ( even upside down ) the result was the same - extra broad.

I have long since sold it.

Still have a P45 with the same type of nib, perfect sphere, this one writes broad.

As for a few dimples on a P51 nib, they are hardly that interesting...........

[Jon Szanto]

I have no idea what a "dimple" would look like on this nib, but I have disassembled the pen for the benefit of the hive. Here ya go.

The images are a little hard to tell, as the 'dimples' are very small bumps one on either side right where the curve of the nib transitions to the straight line to the back of the nib. Yours does not appear to have these little bumps. Nibs made before late 1953 and after 1957-58 do not have them, only the period in between those dates. This was a design addition to correct the placement of the hood to allow proper flow.

The boy from the farm, a friend of mine, loves to be a bit secretive. This information I gleaned from a short article in a recent issue of The Pennant (magazine of the Pen Collectors of America) which he may very well have had a hand in.

HTH

[proteus]

JS

A great many thanks for taking the time to explain and illuminate.

It was very kind of you.