Parker 61

2023: some of my fountain pen highlights.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 15 Comments

I usually start this exercise by looking at how many pens I acquired over the year and how much I spent on the hobby. 2023 saw me acquire 39 fountain pens, of which four were gifts for others, so 35 for me. The total spent was £1,676.19: not too terrible.

A strong theme throughout the year was vintage Parkers, mostly bought on eBay plus a small number at the London Pen Shows.

Always late to the party, this was really the first year in which I started looking for and buying vintage pens on eBay. Of the pens acquired in 2023, 15 were vintage Parkers and the remaining 24 a mix of other brands. I would search a make and model, say “Parker 17 fountain pen,” for example. This might find several hundred listings, which I would whittle down by filtering the results to UK only and then sorting them in order of auctions ending soonest.

Occasionally, a special item would come up, such as a Burgundy red Parker 17 Super Duofold with the early “beak” nib, which I would set my heart on winning. In the days leading up to the auction, I repeatedly checked how the bids were going and always stopped to look at the close-up photographs, particularly of the nib, front and back. Happily I was successful and that pen is now mine.

After buying a number of Parker 17s, with their 14 carat gold hooded nibs and hooped squeeze-bar fillers, I moved on to the Parker 61. Again with so many for sale I decided to be choosy and ignored any with the inlaid arrow missing from the section. By the end of the year, I had acquired four Parker 61s. Two were the early, capillary fillers, with one of these being the “Heirloom” (with two-tone rolled gold cap also called the rainbow cap). Two were cartridge or converter fillers; one was a Flighter; one was Made in USA and the others all Made in England; so, a good cross-section.

I was thrilled when a Parker 51 with an oblique nib came up and again when I found a Parker 45 with an oblique medium nib. Both are great for me to use in lefty-overwriter mode.

Some of my 2023 vintage Parker finds.

Eventually, my wife expressed concern that my buying of Parkers on eBay was getting “out of control,” and that temptations would be never-ending, since hundreds more pens come on the market every day. True. We agreed that a recent, lovely teal Parker 61 would be my last. 

It was about this time that I happened to spot a black Parker 45, with a 14 carat gold Medium nib, in great condition. I zoomed in on the close-up nib photos and made screenshots of them. It was only £24.99 “buy now or best offer”. I held out bravely for a few days but then received a thoughtful notification from eBay that the seller had dropped the price to £19.99! This was too much to bear. I knew from the photos that the pen would write like a dream. A vintage Parker, with a pristine gold nib at less than the price of a new Parker Jotter or Lamy Safari. I could not not buy it. Then a solution came to me: I would buy the pen, but as a gift for someone else!

The pen duly arrived. As it was to be a gift, I had to check it first, flush it and test it out. The nib was as wonderful as I had imagined and needed only a light flossing with a brass shim and a rinse. I separated the nib and feed to clean and photograph them. The sac puffed out air bubbles into the water and all looked well. I dried the pen and filled it with Waterman Serenity Blue. It was a joy to write with. Ink flow was ideal, once I had ejected about three or four drops of ink.

I decided to “test” the pen over a few days. Big mistake. This pen was exceptionally enjoyable and I bonded with it. With Serenity Blue, it wrote like my Pelikan M800. There was no way I could part with it. Instead, I gave the intended recipient a lovely new fountain pen of equivalent price.

Of the remaining brands represented in my 2023 acquisitions, these included a flurry of Jinhaos, first the X159 and later the 9019 and 82 models. After trying these, the most enduringly successful seem to be the blue demonstrator version 9019 with an EF nib and filled with Diamine Tavy blue black and the 82 in Caribbean Sea Blue with gold trim, F nib and the same ink. Both start immediately after long intervals and write smoothly with good flow.

I greatly enjoyed the London Pen Shows in March and October. These are always joyous days, running into numerous friends from the online fountain pen community and talking to the sellers. Some of my favourite buys of 2023 were:

  • Montegrappa “Monte Grappa”, in black with 14 carat gold M nib: possibly John Hall’s last one as Write Here of Shrewsbury was to end links with this brand;
  • A Cleo Skribent Classic, cartridge-converter filler version in Burgundy red with 14k Broad nib (also purchased from John Hall);
  • An Aurora Duo-Cart, sold by Kirit Dal from his ex-samples tray at a generous discount; he kindly sent me a branded Aurora converter for it afterwards and a box of cartridges.
  • A Benu Euphoria Bourbon, with a broad nib, from Stonecott Fine Writing Supplies Ltd: the perfect vehicle for Diamine’s Caramel Sparkle ink.

My last and quite possibly most special fountain pen arrival of the year was a gift from my aforementioned wife, bought whilst on her trip to Hong Kong in November. It is the Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a 14 carat gold Waverly (upturned) nib. I use it every day and it is a wonderful pen, with an element of Unobtainium about it, since they are not readily available in the UK. The WA nib is great for me as a lefty who uses both over and under-writer styles.

I have enjoyed attending our monthly pen club meets, (The London Fountaineers) whenever I can. Also, there have been daily interactions with a host of fellow enthusiasts online, via WordPress and Instagram and in correspondence from the UK and beyond.

As I do every year (and usually fail), I will endeavour once again to buy less pens, ink and notebooks and to make more use of what I already have. Thank you for reading and I wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Some of The London Fountaineers at our Christmas meet. I am the one with the bunny ears.

The London Autumn Pen Show, 2023: my haul.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 7 Comments

Here in London, our autumn Pen Show has just taken place on Sunday 8 October, at the Novotel, Hammersmith.

I had been eagerly looking forward to this event as always. The last two shows had set me on a path of seeking out vintage Parker fountain pens. I had bought several more on eBay, in the arid months between shows. I did not have much specifically in mind to look for this time, other than to find a cap jewel for my Parker 51, which I had bought on eBay without one.

The show was well attended. There were more vendor tables than in March although the venue provided ample space without feeling crowded. I cannot list everyone but for many great photos and videos from the day, head over to John Foye on Instagram, @stjohnspens.

Claire and Derek sporting pink hair at Stonecott Fine Writing.

It was wonderful to see and chat to numerous friends from the pen community throughout the day. My fellow blogger Gary dapprman had his own table, aiming to release some pens from his collection back into the wild. It was good to see Jon of pensharing recruiting plenty of new members for his unique service for the community. I enjoyed chatting to many vendors, including John Hall, John Foye and Kirit Dal, and the lady from Pen Friends whose name I did not catch.

Kirit Dal’s Aurora table is always enticing.

My first purchase of the day was at Mark Catley’s Vintage Fountain Pens table, where I found the cap jewel that I wanted. My Parker 51 is now complete.

For vintage Parkers, there were hundreds for sale in the room. At Graham Jasper’s Pen Estates tables, I handled a wonderful, mint condition Parker 51 in a sumptuous Forest Green, but this was one that got away.

I was keen to take a look at some Parker 61 pens, particularly an early model with the ingenious capillary filling system, which I wrote about in my recent post. After looking at a few tables, I found a tray of Parker 61s, and unlike on eBay, had the luxury of inspecting them and dip-testing them in Quink blue black. I decided on a gorgeous classic, black model with a rolled gold cap and deliciously smooth nib.

My newest, but oldest Parker 61.
The Teflon-coated, capillary filler, or “cell.”

I caught up with my friend So-Jin, who mentioned that I had been rather negative about sheening and glitter inks in my blog post, on the 21 Pen Questions that did the rounds a few months ago. Having written that such inks were not my thing, it was strange that within minutes after our conversation, I found myself at Stonecott Fine Writing Supplies’ table, drawn to a very glittery Benu Euphoria Bourbon in gold and brown with tantalising patches of crimson. As I turned the pen in my hands, I envisaged filling this pen with Diamine’s Caramel Sparkle, available at the same table. I chatted with @claire.scribbleswithpens who was assisting Derek for a while. I did not purchase the pen immediately, but the temptation proved too much for me and I returned to buy it, along with a bottle of Caramel Sparkle soon after. Benu are based in Yerevan, Armenia, from whence my distant ancestors came.

Benu Euphoria Bourbon.

My final pen purchase of the day, was a Jinhao 82 in a pretty pastel jade green. I already have one in Caribbean Sea Blue with a fine nib and am very impressed with it. This pale green version has a medium nib and makes a great, inexpensive, EDC pocket pen.

Jinhao 82 in a particularly lovely, Jade green.

Finally, having largely resisted the many notebooks available, I weakened at the sight of an Endless Recorder A5 journal with Tomoe River at Louise’s table. Newer versions now come with Regalia paper. TR paper may sadly become extinct.

Endless Recorder, A5 journal.

Back home I felt that I had, broadly speaking, heeded my wife’s instructions not to go mad and not to stay too long. I enjoyed inking the Benu (which deserves its own post later) and the Jinhao 82, which I paired with Pelikan Edelstein Olivine. The new cap jewel and brass bush, found their place in the Parker 51.

But the biggest thrill of all was the Parker 61. The seller had removed her sticker from around the pocket clip and I had not noticed until later in natural daylight, that my pen was an edition called the Parker 61 Heirloom, featuring a rainbow pattern in two tone rolled gold on the cap. Given that my pen was made in England, I believe this pattern dates it between 1964 and 1967, from what I read on parkerpens.net. My pen remembers The Beatles.

The rainbow cap of the Parker 61 Heirloom.
Markings on the cap and barrel.

I rinsed the nib and polished the gold cap. Without attempting any cleaning of the capillary filler, I thought I would first try to fill it and see if it worked. I decanted a little Waterman Serenity Blue into the plastic ink receptacle in a TWSBI ink well. I then placed the capillary filler in the ink, and took a photo of the ink level at the start of filling and another one about three minutes later. The ink level had gone down significantly. I found this enormously exciting.

Preparing to try out the capillary filler for the first time!
Physics in action.

However, the pen did not write initially. I gave it a few gentle shakes downwards, but this did not appear to have much effect. Fearing that there may be a blockage from decades-old dried ink in the feed, I dipped the pen and began to write with the ink that the nib had retained. Once again, I revelled in its smoothness, but with a worry that this might last for only a paragraph before the nib ran dry.

But to my growing relief and exhilaration, the pen continued to write for a full page, then a second, a third and fourth page of my A5 Stalogy notebook, by which time I was certain that the ink I was seeing on the page was ink that the capillary filler had drawn up.

The nib writes a smooth medium-broad.

I am hugely pleased with the Parker 61 Heirloom and everything about it. It looks and feels great and writes like a dream. The filling system is unique. It was heralded as “the pen that fills itself” and, as I read, took 12 years to develop! Also, as a party trick, this pen can write upside down, on a wall or ceiling, because the flow of ink to the nib is a product of capillary action and not gravity. And the price of all this enjoyment? A modest £45.00. I recommend anyone who might be hesitating, to take a look at vintage Parkers.

My haul.