Prather

Greetings:

I know John Danza (FPB Advisor with focus on very early Parker pens) was just dying to see some threads on Parker's "51".

Parker "51" is amongst the most collected old pens out there. You likely know that the early (1941-1948) pens with Vacumatic filling system are "known" in 7 colors:

Common colors:
 

• India Black
• Dove Gray
• Cordovan
• Cedar Blue

Uncommon colors:

• Buckskin Beige
• Yellowstone Yellow (Mustard)
• Nassau Green.

Of course, that does not explain this really uncommon pen, a single jewel vac-fill "51" done in the later Aerometric color Navy Gray, a more "elephant" greenish-gray than the more desaturated Dove Gray of the vac era. This one lasted about ten minutes when I'd posted it in the "Parker 51 Insanity" update December 2008. As with all I've seen so far like this, this pen lacks an imprint by the clutch ring. Speculation suggests Parker ran a few pens around the cusp of the filler change to Aerometric in this "new" cp;pr, but with old filler style, making these 1948 pens. One text calls Navy Gray vac-filler pens "prototype" but that is somewhat ambiguous, to say the least.

 

So...

Would anyone care that I've now seen my first vac-fil "51" in another Aerometric color... Burgundy?


regards

David

 

 

 

Interesting topic that has lasted a long time!

In the picture below the really interesting pen to me is in the center - not the Cocoa, Burgundy, or Navy Grey double jewels toward the right.  It is a Red that does not appear to have been a production item.  Pictures (at least mine) don't really do justice to the colors.  The only way to examine them properly is in bright natural light.

It was I believe called Brick Red.  There were perhaps several shades of Red that were look at - and in fact some appeared in the l940's parts catalogs - such as "Light Red".  I believe it was David Nishimura who who pointed me to the correct catalogs.  Michal Fultz was also very helpful in providing additional information about the color.

This is a better picture of the pen by itself:

The pen is shown on the far left in this picture - the Plum on the far right:

It is interesting how many colors Parker produced for the 51 and how many shades of rod stock went into production - especially the Cordovan.

Perhaps the repair stations had access to more variations while performing major repairs.

Not many  materials were were wasted - even in making the inner caps, collectors and ink pump rods. 

These ranged from Dove Grey, Ivory, Naussa Green to Yellowstone and many translucent colors including orange and green.

ralph prather