Favourite Parker 51s?

[amk]

I have a number of 51's and definitely my favourite is the grey aerometric, with gold-filled cap; it just seems softer and smoother than my other pens. It also has a really lovely nib - incredibly smooth, slightly on the fat side of medium.

Do other people have particular favourite P51s - whether that's colour (I'll accept customised 51's in this - I have a soft spot for the yellow ones), nib, whatever?

[Paul-H]

Hi

I go through quite a lot of 51's as I am running a bit of a cottage industry buying restoring and selling them, just to get me some pen money, but I do have two that I wont be selling.

Both are English Made but being English myself that's should not be a surprise one is a Vacumatic with a typical English wet medium nib and the other is an early Aerometic with a lovely wet Broad nib. Both are also black, mind you I have an English Burgundy vac in the post so we shall see how that performs, it would be nice to have two different colours to make it easy to pick the right nib as the older I get the more confused I get

Those two always stay in my daily carry case.

Paul

[Goldfish]

I have just two - Aerometric Cocoa and Vac burgundy. They both have GF caps. Cocoa is my favorite because of the color and the super smooth F nib. Besides, it was a gift from a relative :-)

[david i]

Oh.... I'm not sure we want to go there.

Bad enough I had to play with offering the world's largest selection of 51's a few years back:

Davey's Vacumania offers 250 Parker 51's. Link

But you should see the monster or three I have lying about now. I really do need to file my report here about the Great Ohio Parker 51 Collection purchased just last month from a collector who was leaving the hobby. Here are a couple from there. These two might be my favorites on hand now. See if ya done can identify 'em

ohio2013hoardC950.jpg

The thread is over at Fountain Pen Board (Link- The Great Ohio Pen Find), and if things are quiet at home today on Thanksgiving, I will paste it freshly here.


regards

David

[jar]

Yup, my mom's 1941 "51" with the Sterling silver cap that has tooth marks made by my brothers and sisters when mom would put it on her finger and let us chew on the soft silver when we were teething. Mom says that I teethed on it too but everyone knows firstborns are perfect and so would never have done anything like that.

[amk]

Wow. Some lovely pens coming out here. Not sure whether my favourite so far is David's set for sheer beauty or Jar's rather chewed but story-laden 51!

[hamag]

My what a beauty!

[pajaro]

I favor the ordinary aerometrics with Lustraloy caps. Midnight blue is my favorite. I think these pens embody the streamlined 51 style best without stylistic touches that make the pen look too busy to me. The busier designs have higher monetary value and are rarer, but I think they deviate from the basic style, making the 51s resemble Vacumatics and Duofolds too much. I do not like busy-busy, and I hate what certain people do to arrange furniture, etc., in my house.

[welch]

I, also, prefer the ordinary aerometric with lustraloy cap. A cleaner design.

Most important is the nib. My favorite is a midnight blue aero with a (US?) medium nib from Ernesto Soler, at Parker51.com, tuned by Greg Minuskin. Smooth and just as wet as I like, but not too wet.

Second is an English teal aerometric, medium+ nib.

Third is a 51 Vac with a "stacked coin" cap, another Ernesto S medium, also tuned by Greg M. Or maybe an English "Bloody Burgundy" with "rolled gold" cap and medium+ nib, tuned by Richard Binder at a show. As he finished, he said, "Ahhh...the English medium!"

I always have two of the three (or four), each with a different shade of blue ink...when I changes topics, in my work notebook, I change pens and colors.

[pajaro]

I think the 51 aero is the only Parker pen I have ever really liked, although I have tried to like some of the other Parkers.

[inkstainedruth]

Mine is my 1949 Plum Demi Aero, Lustraloy cap. It's got a medium (I think) nib and is an especially nice writer. I like the Midnight Blue Aero with the gold-filled cap (it's the first one I got). But if I had to choose one over the other it would definitely be the Plum, even though it's not in the best condition (all sorts of corrosion on the sac sleeve). Simply because (a) I love the color; (b) I love the nib (the blue one has a finer nib on it, so while it's good it's not not as juicy; and (c) I got it for a reasonable price -- never expected to win it, and almost didn't check when I got home (I was out all day and didn't get home until many hours after the auction ended because I just didn't want to know how much I got outbid by... and then wasn't...).
Also, the blue one ended up needing repairs.
Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[pajaro]

If you don't like the corrosion on the sac sleeve, which is probably the chrome plating coming off, you might consider buying another filler cover. I have seen them on Ariel Kullock's site and maybe on parker51.com. The cover either screws off or pulls off, maybe with heat. Then you put a new one on.

[inkstainedruth]

If you don't like the corrosion on the sac sleeve, which is probably the chrome plating coming off, you might consider buying another filler cover. I have seen them on Ariel Kullock's site and maybe on parker51.com. The cover either screws off or pulls off, maybe with heat. Then you put a new one on.

Thanks, but I think I'll keep "Velma" just the way it is. I'm not a c-worder, wanting a pristine pen to go into a box with a glass lid. The pen writes great, which is what I wanted. And a little corrosion of the plating just adds character. And maybe scared off the heavy-duty collectors, since I didn't even hit my intermediate maximum bid in the auction (shocked the heck out me that I even won, given that the previous Plum Demi on Ebay had gone up over $102 by the end -- although, IIRC, that one may have had a GF cap on it).
The photos on the listing for mine had this weird little dark purple glass inkwell that looked like a little house. It wasn't supposed to be part of the auction, but then the seller decided that the pen and inkwell sort of belonged together, and tossed it in the box as a freebie. It's currently sitting on the middle shelf of a big bookcase next to where I sit in the living room, along with random books and magazines and a few unopened fiber videos, and random other odds and ends (including a couple of flash drives, a copper pipe coupling which is just the right size to hold ink vials for filling pens from, and an assortment of knitting stitch markers; also a keyring with a plastic sheep that lights up and "baas" when you squeeze it -- which I bought at a friend of mine's booth at an SCA event either last March or a year ago March -- just because it was too stupid not to have; and an Arnold mini-pen that needs to be cleaned and probably have a new sac installed).
A lot of the books (particularly on that shelf) are old coffee table books from my parents' house, as is the bookcase itself. So Velma (corrosion and all) and the glass inkwell (sans cork or lid) fit right in. Although Velma is actually up in the bedroom, on the little bookshelf next to the bed at the moment, tucked into a empty hot chocolate canister, along with most of the other pens in current rotation.
Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Runnin_Ute]

My only 51 at present is a Special from 1954-1955 which I got as a set with Mechanical pencil. Black with fine nib. I really was a bit surprised I got it for as good a price as I did.

[Runnin_Ute]

My only 51 at present is a Special from 1954-1955 which I got as a set with Mechanical pencil. Black with fine nib. I really was a bit surprised I got it for as good a price as I did.

Turns out it is a 1953 model.