Parker 51 Nib Identification?

[Snargle]

I recently had the great luck to find a near-mint Parker 51 in the wild at a local flea market for 50 cents! It's an aerometric filler, no date codes that I could locate, and after a good flushing, is writing like a dream. I'm curious about the nib, though. How can I identify the type and material of a P51 nib, short of disassembling the pen (which I'm definitely not interested in doing!)? It's fairly rigid and seems to write somewhere between a fine and a medium, but I'm no expert, so I thought I'd ask here. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Here's a photo of the pen:

[Ron Z]

A gold nib which was 14K, will be gold in color. An osmiridium nib will be silver in color. In general a 51 with a white/silver jewel would have a gold nib, the 51 specials with a black jewel had the osmiridium nib. Richard Binder has a nib size chart on his web site. Nib size depends on the width of the line it writes. I grade the vintage pens based on the line width laid down, not the size of the hunk of iridium on the end. Pen manufacturers graded pens in a range. Parker used a gauge to do this. They'd slide the nib down a V shaped groove with the sizes marked along side. When it stopped, they had the size for that nib.

 

If you'd like to see how Sheaffer did it, toddle over to the repair forum. Pinned at the top is a post with Sheaffer's 1970 nib standards.

[OldGriz]

If it is a Parker 51 the nib should be gold.... it it is a Parker 51 Special the nib should be octanium...

You can tell by looking at the filler unit... Specials have a hoop filler and will say Special on the filler unit.

The exception to the filler rule will be on Parker 51 Demis most of these pens have hoop fillers and do not say Special on them

 

Pictures of the filler of the pen in better light would help a lot

[OcalaFlGuy]

Also keep in mind that a factory stock Octanium nib (in a Special) could have been switched with a gold nib by the pen owner at some time in the past. (OR Vice Versa)

 

It looks gold to me in your pic but that could be the pic.

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL

[Snargle]

Here's a close-up of the filler:

 

There is no mention of "Special" on the filler. Just "Parker 51" and the filling instructions. Also definitely not a Demi.

[Snargle]

I just took another look through a 10X loupe and in bright light. I'm pretty sure it's gold. I was fooled by the silvery "Iridium" and didn't look closely enough at the rest of the nib.

[PenFisher]

That's a wonderful find and a great pen! I'd run back to the flea market and see if there were any more Congratulations...welcome to Club "51" !

Edited February 21, 2013 by PenFisher

[Snargle]

That's a wonderful find and a great pen! I'd run back to the flea market and see if there were any more Congratulations...welcome to Club "51" !

Oh, trust me...I thoroughly scoured that vendor's stand to see if there were any other treasures hidden away midst the assorted household junk. I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I handed the lady two quarters and wished her a nice day!

[Inkysloth]

That's a seriously cool find!

 

I'm adding to this thread rather than starting a new one as I think it's pretty close in topic...

 

I now have two Parker 51s, both bid on from Ebay with my fingers crossed as neither were specified as 51s (just "Vintage Parker Fountain Pen") but I was willing to take the risk, for a slightly lower price.

 

I think one is a medium oblique nib, and one is a medium - or is it a fine? At first I thought it was fine, but it lays down a line similarly thick to the oblique's line, but (obviously) with no width variation. My PC can't cope with the PDF of the nib size chart on Richard Binder's site

 

There's a photo of the two nibs here:

[Snargle]

My 50-cent 51 has become my go-to pen whenever I need a reliable, ready-to-write pen. I never did really pin down the nib size on mine other than to decide that it's on the fine side of medium (or the medium side of fine!). Anyway, it's a great pen and I'm thrilled to have found it. I was never a fan of the P51s and thought they were sort of ugly and boring. Then I picked one up and started writing...

[wastelanded]

I was never a fan of the P51s and thought they were sort of ugly and boring. Then I picked one up and started writing...

 

Second that. My B-nibbed 51 looks its age, but writes like heaven after a new breather tube and maybe three swirls over the micromesh. Was never interested until I wrote with it. Now I find excuses to write with it, which isn't really so difficult

[inkstainedruth]

Wow. What a sumgai. I had to get mine on Ebay. And it wasn't for anything like 50¢. Although I do feel I got lucky -- I got it for below my maximum, and most of the other ones I saw that weekend -- and nearly *all* of the ones I've seen since -- ended up going for a LOT more than I paid. Even ones that I don't think were as nice as mine.

I *think* mine has an F nib. I've been trying to bid (unsuccessfully) on ones that either are (or might be) M nibbed ones. If I don't get sniped I just out and out get outbid (a 1944 51 Vac with a sterling silver cap went for something 2-1/2 to 3 *times* my maximum bid -- and I was *already* getting cold feet (i.e., the dreaded "bidder's remorse"....). Or I get some totally clueless seller who hasn't got any idea of what I mean (in the current batch of queries to sellers, I've gone to actually saying "fine, medium, etc." so they won't try to actually disassemble the pen, or tell me "all 51s had the same size nib" -- yes, that really did happen , but I didn't save the post.... I also had someone tell me a pen had a "fine medium" nib; I wasn't entirely sure what they meant until I read Snargle's comment about "fine side of medium or medium side of fine" just now.

In the meantime, I'm considering doing a side by side line width comparison between the 51 and my 45, which I *know* is an M. I'm thinking that they should be decent to compare with each other, since both have 14K nibs. I will just have to remember to lube up the 45 with Quink Black next again , which is what currently is in the 51.

Don't suppose anyone can make a replica of that nib gauge that Ron Z mentioned....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Inkysloth]

I hadn't thought of comparing my 45 nib with the 51 nib... My 45 is a definite medium, but it's a very heavy medium

, and the nib tip looks much larger than the 51 I was wondering about.

 

Even the 51 with medium oblique nib doesn't write as thick a libe as my 45!