In My Collection

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	This April 1947 Parker “51” advertise­ment, with a testimonial by America’s favorite painter, Norman Rockwell, is one of a series that featured prominent users of the “51” together with beautiful hand paintings by Boris Artzybasheff.

The Fabulous “51”: When it introduced the “51” in 1941, the George S. Parker Company knew it had a winner. The pen was stylish but not flashy, durable but not clunky, and reliable but not overengineered. Over the next 31 years, the pen proved itself immensely popular. Tales are told of people who, unable to afford a whole pen, would purchase only a cap to clip in a pocket, giving the appearance of a complete pen. Parker discontinued the “51” in 1972, but “unofficial” production continued into the 1980s in Argentina, using machinery that Parker had abandoned. Parker is believed to have sold between 20 and 50 million “51”s; the exact number is not known because the company apparently stopped counting after the first 12 million. (Revised December 20, 2008)

Compared to many fountain pens, both its contemporaries and more recent models, the “51”, with its monochrome plastics and its tiny nib that lies hooded within a shell, might be considered a Plain Jane. But the “51” was not designed to be an eyecatching display piece. It was designed to be an everyday, hardworking, trouble-free, reliable writer.

Good engineering discipline dictates that form should follow function, and Parker’s engineers and stylists apparently followed that dictum. They applied the best available technology in the most effective way possible to perform the very difficult task of writing under virtually any conceivable conditions, and the fact that so many Vacumatic-filling “51”s are still in use over 60 years since the last one was produced is a testament to their success. 3D cutaway illustrations of the design of the “51” are given in Anatomy of a Fountain Pen IV: The Parker “51” (Aero-metric Version).

This illustration shows a 1948 black “51” with a Lustraloy Stacked Coin Band cap. This and a matte Lustraloy cap with a single narrow raised band were the only cap variations that had chrome-plated Blue Diamond clips.

(If there is a magnifying-glass symbol () next to an image, click the magnifying glass to view a zoomed version for more detail. Many of the pens without magnifying glasses can be seen in my personal collection.)

Conceived to write with Parker’s innovative super-fast-drying ink, which was also dubbed “51”, the pen was styled to accommodate its necessary innards while at the same time having a pleasing appearance. It accomplishes that marriage with exquisite success. Unlike its competitors, or even the Vacumatics that preceded it, it isn’t marbled, mottled, striated, or pearlescent. And unlike its competitors, it was never offered in an imposing “oversize” version. The ”51” is smoothly streamlined and sized not to impress onlookers but rather for its ability to serve a broad spectrum of writers who could, would, and did use it, day in and day out, without having the luxury of changing pens three or four times a day on a whim. For the first six years of its existence, it came in one size only; not until 1947 did Parker make a model of a different size — and then only a shorter version, called the Demi:

Here is a Vacumatic-filling “51” Demi, with a standard “51” for comparison. The Demi is shorter, but its diameter is the same as that of the standard pen, giving it a noticeably stubby appearance.

The metal cap exemplifies the pen’s advanced engineering. Embodying Parker’s proven and very attractive design for mounting a sturdy (and replaceable) clip, it slips smoothly and reliably over the shell to seat on the clutch ring and then stays put in a way that was inconceivable to the makers of earlier hard-rubber slip caps. Unlike the celluloid caps of the pen’s 1940s competitors, it is split-proof, even when too forcibly posted, and it doesn’t gouge the surface of the shell. The cap is also attractive as well as practical; Parker offered it in several polished, brushed, and matte (“Lustraloy”) versions of stainless steel, as well as a bewildering array of precious-metal designs. Silver alone appeared in four different versions: polished sterling, lined sterling, hammered sterling, and coin silver. (Sterling is .925 fine, coin silver is .900 fine.) On Vacumatic-filling “51” pens with gold or gold-filled caps, the recessed area of the clutch ring is gold washed, giving an elegant two-tone appearance that complements the cap. Most gold-capped Aero-metric pens have plain stainless-steel clutch rings.

This illustration shows a 1944 Cordovan Brown “51” with a 16K gold-filled cap with a “Feather,” or “Chevron” band.

Where did the name “51” come from? Parker completed the development of its new pen in 1939, the 51st year of the company’s existence. Rather than give the pen a name that might prove less than felicitous when translated into other languages, Parker began a decades-long tradition by choosing a number. Numbers do not require translation.

At its introduction, the “51” was placed at the top of Parker’s line, ousting the eight-year-old Vacumatic from that honored position, and it bore price tags beginning at $12.50. Like all other Parker pens priced at $8.75 and higher, the “51” was warranted for the purchaser’s lifetime and bore Parker’s Blue Diamond, the visible indication of that warranty. The first version used the Speedline version of Parker’s reliable Vacumatic filling system, with a jeweled blind cap (the double-jewel version of the “51”). Within the year, however, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. government designated certain materials, including aluminum and brass, as critical war matériel; Parker redesigned the filler and the blind cap to save those metals for the war effort. Although Parker continued to produce double-jewel pens, those pens were the premier models in the “51” line, and they were made in far smaller numbers than the single-jewel version. Thus, the most common Vacumatic-filling “51”s today do not have the jeweled blind cap. (Certain colors, however, such as Nassau Green, are more common in the double-jewel version.) The following illustration shows the difference in blind-cap profile.

This illustration shows a 1946 Blue Cedar “51” with a lined sterling cap and an undated Navy Gray single-jewel model with a matte Lustraloy cap. The Blue Cedar pen bears the expected Blue Diamond clip, while the Navy Gray pen has a 1939/1940 pre-production clip with no Blue Diamond.

When Parker’s engineers retired the Vacumatic filler, they did so only in favor of a more reliable one. Beginning in 1948 with the Demi (soon renamed the Slender), the “51” sported Parker’s new “Foto-Fill” system (U. S. Patent Nº 2,612,867), which was also easier to use and flourished on several Parker models besides the “51” (including related family members such as the “21” as well as British Duofolds of the 1950s). The original “51” sported a Blue Diamond clip that identified it as the rightful successor to the great Vacumatic. With the changeover to the Foto-Fill system (soon renamed “Aero-metric”), the clip changed, too, to an arrow reminiscent of the one used on Vacumatics before the Blue Diamond made its appearance in 1939. (Read a reference article on the clips of the “51” here.)

Here is an Aero-metric “51” Slender, with a standard “51” for comparison. In order to improve the Slender’s asethetics, Parker’s designers made the new version a little longer than the Vacumatic-filling Demi and a little thinner than the standard pen.

Kenneth G. Parker, son of company founder George S. Parker and longtime CEO, was fascinated by aircraft and flying. The 1946 purchase of a new corporate plane, a shiny aluminum Beechcraft D-18S, inspired Kenneth to ask his designers for an airplane-like pen design. The result, a pen with its workings tweaked for better performance at high altitudes, was the famous stainless-steel Flighter, introduced in October 1949:

The “51” is made of DuPont Lucite, an acrylic plastic that is remarkably tough and was in 1941 the very latest leap in materials technology as well as being the only plastic then available that could withstand the corrosive effects of ”51” ink (which was itself a market requirement). Its plastic isn’t marbled, striated, or otherwise variegated because in 1941 nobody knew how to do those things with acrylics. Although the ”51” had no interestingly patterned plastics, the model was made in a great many colors. The colors on this page are divided into two groups, those of the Vacumatic-filling “51”, from 1941 to 1948, and those of the Aero-metric-filling “51”, from 1948 to the end of the model run in 1972. Some colors, such as Nassau Green and Dove Gray, tend to discolor, and the several parts of any given pen can have markedly different shades. The pen shown here, in the highly desirable Nassau Green, shows a rare perfect color match between its shell, barrel, and blind cap (from the collection of Terry Brack):

The Rage Red and Vista Blue colors were used primarily on the Parker 61, but the Mark III Aero-metric “51” was test marketed in these colors, and the modern 51 SE has been offered in Vista Blue. Rumors persist of a different purple and another blue/green color. There were also the stainless-steel Flighter; a gold-filled model called the Signet; and a solid gold version, the Presidential. Parker also made demonstrators, some entirely clear and others with only a transparent shell:

The upper pen here is a 1941 (First Year) demonstrator. Note the red collector. The lower pen, with a clear barrel, is from 1948.

The “51” may not be every collector’s cup of tea, but it is anything but ugly. “Ugly” does not sell more than 20 million pens over a span of more than 40 years, and “ugly” does not inspire a manufacturer to reprise a design that should, by the standards of most other industries, be dead and gone. The ”51” is in fact one of the most elegantly beautiful fountain pens ever made, and quite probably the most revolutionary since Lewis Waterman’s discovery of the channeled feed. Certainly there has been no more truly remarkable pen since its inception.

Pens made before Parker stopped date-coding its pens have a date code on the barrel. For instructions on reading this code, refer to Birthday Pens: A Timeline.

Pens made after Parker stopped using date codes (early to mid-1950s) cannot be dated to a particular year, but you can at least narrow the possible range of years. Except for a very small number of cartridge/converter pens produced in about 1960, all of these undated pens are Aero-metric fillers, and Parker’s service manual describes three distinct models:

• The most common Aero-metric “51” is the Mark I. Externally, this pen is identical to the Vacumatic-filling version except that the barrel no longer ends in a blind cap and that the Split Arrow clip is gone, replaced by the plainer Arrow clip:

  The filler in a Mark I pen has a plastic end cap:

  A subtlety to watch for, however, is the filler of the “51” Slender. Early Slender (Demi) pens have fillers like that of the standard model; but later Slenders, beginning probably in 1949, use the less costly “hoop” filler design introduced in 1948 on the “21”:

  

  At some point, probably in the late 1950s, Parker introduced a slight variation on the Mark I design. In this apparently undocumented “Mark Ia” version, the Aero-metric vent hole is moved from the end of the barrel to the side of the barrel, about ²/3 of the way from the clutch ring to the end.

• In the mid-1960s, Parker began producing the Mark II “51”. This version, redesigned to update its look, bears a noticeable resemblance to the 61. Its cap has a 61-style clutch, with fingers bearing on the shell instead of on the clutch ring, but the standard “51” clip is still present. The end of the barrel is squared off to a shallow conical shape that mimics the cone of the cap jewel:

  

  Internally there are significant differences, as Parker redesigned the internal parts to simplify the sac guard and replace the costly machined collector and feed with molded plastic parts. The most noticeable internal change is in the sac guard, now a single piece of metal with its end formed closed instead of being capped by plastic:

• The Mark III “51” appeared in about 1969. This pen looks similar to the Mark II. The cap shows the most visible external change. The clip, a new 61-style long Arrow clip, is no longer part of the cap’s decorative trim ring; it is a separate part. The trim ring and jewel are combined into a decorative clip screw that holds the clip in place as on the Parker 75. The clutch ring, which is not functional, is now reduced to a narrow trim ring.

  The Mark III’s sac guard looks like that on the Mark II, but the trim ring identifies the later pen. You can also see on closer examination that the threads on the Mark III’s connector are rather coarser than those on earlier pens and that they have an Acme profile (flat on the crown and at the root).

Note that not all of the differences may be identifiable on any given pen; Parker phased some of the changes in rather than making a sudden 100% switch. The clip design of the Mark III is one example of this; there exist Mark III pens with the older design having a separate celluloid jewel.

In 1950, Parker introduced a reduced-cost version of the “51”. This “51” Special looks outwardly very much like a standard “51”, but it has a stainless-steel nib (called Octanium, from the total number of eight metals used in its manufacture) and the hoop filler found in the “21” and the “51” Slender (illustrated above). The filler in the “51” Special, however, is larger than that in a Slender. Other cost-saving measures were a limited choice of colors (indicated in the table below), a bright-polished stainless-steel cap, and a black cap jewel.

The ”51” is today one of the most popular collectible fountain pens, and its popularity led Parker in 2002 to produce a new pen, called the 51 Special Edition (SE), which looks outwardly like a double-jewel Vacumatic-filling “51” with an Empire State cap but is internally different, with a cartridge/converter filling system and an ink delivery system identical to that of the Parker 45.

The best testament to the greatness of the original “51” design comes from China, where the Shanghai Hero Pen Company produces several models whose internal construction is virtually identical to that of an Aero-metric “51”. The pen shown below is a Hero 616, a “51” copy.

A Note on Punctuation

Parker’s trademark for the original “51” includes quotation marks, as you see them throughout this page. As registered, the trademark for the modern 51 SE does not include the quotation marks, although Parker did include them in the pen’s barrel imprint.

“51” Vacumatic Filler Colors (1941-1948)
Color	Name
	India Black
	Dove Gray
	Cordovan Brown
	Buckskin Beige (Tan)
	Mustard (Yellowstone)
	Nassau Green (Sage Green)
	Navy Gray (not in the U.S.A.)
	Blue Cedar
“51” Aero-metric Filler Colors (1948-1972)
Color	Name
	Black[1]
	Burgundy I[1]
	Burgundy II (not in the U.S.A.)
	Cocoa
	Forest Green
	Navy Gray[1]
	Teal Blue[1]
	Midnight Blue
	Plum
	Rage Red (Mk III only)
	Vista Blue (Mk III and 51 SE only)
“51” Metals (Aero-metric)
Finish	Name
	Brushed Stainless Steel (Flighter)
	Gold Filled (Signet), Gold (Presidential)

Notes:

1. The “51” Special was offered initially with the four noted colors. Later, Forest Green was added to the range.

I am very grateful to Michael Richter, who compiled the color information, painted the plastic color samples by hand, and has graciously given permission for me to use his work here. (3D highlighting was added with a computer.)

The information in this article is as accurate as possible, but you should not take it as absolutely authoritative.