Today I lost my only Parker 51.
Today I lost my only Parker 51.
Last edited by Empty_of_Clouds; March 14th, 2020 at 03:25 AM.
Oh no! Sorry to hear of your loss, EoC.
My equivalant would have to be the modern pen that arrived with issues (nib and feed — and clip, as it turns out, but I didn't notice at the time), went back for service that took nearly six months, on its return quickly developed problems with the section (at which point I also noticed the clip), went back again, and returned three months later with a new section and barrel that didn't match the cap. In addition, despite owning it for just over a year by then, I still got charged import duties. That said, it writes beautifully and is a joy to behold.
Anyway, I hope you get your pens back.
Sorry for your loss. It's sad to know that maybe someone with "sticky fingers" took off with your pens. Anyway I guess it wouldn't hurt if you post a sign in the library asking if someone found them.
I don't have any cursed pens. But I did lose a red Pelikan M600. The sad thing is that I saw it fall out of my shirt pocket but was so engrossed with a rather intense telephone conversation that I didn't register the fact until an hour later. By then it was too late.
Kaputnik (March 8th, 2020)
I feel cursed with Pelikan 400nns, but only when they have OBB nibs. The barrel of my first 400nn in OBB came apart. The second turned out to have an underwhelming 140 OBB nib. I should have caught that. Fortunately the price was appropriate. I tried a third time with a 4000nn in OBB but the pen was lost or stolen in the mail.
Sadly I have a weirdly similar story: a Parker 51 and a Sheaffer Lifetime Imperial with a factory stub nib (that today would surely be classified as a cursive italic), in a Pelikan case, stolen from a table in the UCLA library. Is it a generational thing or have some students always felt entitled to freebies at their others' expense? (anyone here read the FEATHER THIEF?)
Now when I go do research in a public facility, I take a Wing Sung 601 P51 knockoff that won't crush me if it gets stolen. I still miss that Sheaffer factory stub, and was roundly chastised by Ron Z. who sold it to me originally, for leaving it unattended.
Sorry for your loss. If you buy a Wing Sung 601 to replace it, it will only set you back $15--but I can guarantee you won't love the nib, not after having the real thing. It won't feel the same, and they don't make them in Midnight Blue either.
Come to think of it, i’ve also lost a Parker 51 in an old 1950s Pelikan case. It was entirely my fault; i left it on an Amtrak train when i got off at Schenectady.
I hate your 51 was stolen and the good ones are hard to find. My suggestion would be to find a vintage Parker 21. They cost less than a wing Sung 601. Later you’re going to get a 51 that you like and be all happy again.
That's kind of what I was thinking. I wonder if some of my pens write back to their friends at the shop or on eBay to say "oh man, you'll never guess who I ended up with".
But I have a pretty good record for not losing pens or pencils. Accidents may happen to the ones I have, but they don't go missing.
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
G.K. Chesterton
Yeah. Buuut... I'm more careless than cursed -- except for that pair of fairly-new Montblanc La Bohemes (FP and BP) in a new case that I'd put in my jeans pocket (front right). Surely I would feel if it fell out, if it would even do such an unexpected thing, Ithought. And yet... in the short distance between my apartment and the Delancey Street subway, it disappeared. I noticed as I was walking down the stairs. I reflexively checked my pocket. Then patted myself down, turned around, and retraced my steps, hawk-eying the sidewalk.
If I'd dropped it in a less-crowded place (anywhere not in Manhattan), I'd have had a chance to find it. Maybe. But... nope. I searched my apartment, anyway. I just accepted the loss by hoping that whoever found it felt lucky and needed a boost. But that really didn't matter. Maybe a bus ran over the pen case.... I mean, the fate of the pens was out of my hands.
I replaced the FP. No longer have it (mostly cos I no longer have most of the pens I used to have, but at least this was with my knowledge and permission, as it were).
But I've lost other pens, too.
What's funny is that I consider myself a careful person. I mean... pen CASES (which shows I'm trying to be careful). And the reflexive patting-down whenever I'm out and about. I've stopped clipping pens to my collar on the outside, so that if the barrel unscrews, it'll fall inside my shirt. (Currently, I wear skirts with a sewn-in pen pocket, where the Pilot 823 is carried. The clipless "Pilot Moon" rides in a case in a shoulder bag or backpack.)
The Nakaya Piccolo Cigar, what I called "Kuroauc" (cos kuro-tamenuri + Kerouac and On the Road) slipped out of its pen sleeve a couple of times -- in Kraków, in Zamość -- and then jumped, sleeve and all, from the lanyard where it was clipped in Wrocław, never to be seen again.
The unpolished shu Piccolo Cigar that I bought about ten years ago disappeared two or three years ago when a woman took my wallet home when she found it in the cashier's line at Tesco where I was unloading my cart onto the conveyor belt. Did she hold it up and ask, "Who lost this?" No, she took it home. Found $500 USD and my ID and bank cards and passport... and had to speak to her priest about what to do. She told me the next day when she returned everything.
Repeat: She had to speak to her priest to ask what the right thing to do was.
ANYWAY. Got the pen back. (I don't want to mention that I gave her $100 for returning my wallet, because I didn't have smaller bills and no złotych, cos SHE TOOK MY WALLET HOME., so I couldn't exchange the US dollars for Polish currency.)
And just the other day, I had the same pen on the couch. Then I walked to the kitchen... area, about 4.5 or 5m, no walls (studio apartment). And I couldn't find the pen. An hour of looking. Of searching ridiculous places because none of the reasonable places had it. I was becoming more and more frustrated. HOW could it disappear?! WHERE DID IT GO?! And then I remembered. And started laughing.
While watching Netflix, the pen was in the skirt's pen pocket. Cos I had my knees up, the pen was upside down, so I took it out of the pen pocket and put it somewhere snug and safe and right-side-up. Anyone want to guess where?
In my right sock. AN HOUR I'd looked. An HOUR!.
So, yeah, a mixed bag of cursed, careless, and ... some other thing. Forgetful.
_____________
To Miasto
catbert (March 8th, 2020)
Is there are market for the Parker 51 pencils? Seems a bit silly to have it hanging around with no pen as a friend.
I personally have come to not care for vintage 51 era Parker pencils. Of the two early 1940 pencils I bought, the mechanism that holds and propels the lead was difficult to make work. A member here helped. Given that Autopoint had a wonderfully successful and reliable mechanism since the 1920's, it is curious Parker didn't use a similar mechanism. The difference is that the Parker pencils both propel and retract the lead, while the Autopoint does not.
Therefore, the vintage interest/market in the Parker pencils is to have a mate for the same model and era pen, I suspect. On a day to day basis, I use a pencil from my Autopoint collection with the fountain pen of choice that day.
I fear that may be the case. It's not a pencil I would choose to use, even though it is in superb condition, as I have others that I favour (particularly a Pilot S20).
P-51 pencils have gotten expensive. I bought some ten years ago, separates, trying to make a set. Foolish. Most "orphan" 51 pencils are broken. If you have a working pencil and show it, it will sell. Check EBay...the sold-prices vary in a silly way.
Perhaps I should. It's in extremely good condition, full working order, midnight blue colour, date code '.9.', and the rings cut into the silver pointed end have gold coloured inserts (like the inserts on a P51 fp connector ring.
Good examples of the FP in midnight blue with a frosty cap are hard to come by, it seems.
You might contact Parker51. They have nice restored pens for sale. http://parker51.com/index.php/for-sale/
Empty_of_Clouds (July 20th, 2020)
Just had a look through their stock, no midnight blue versions.
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