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This Christmas brought a Parker 25: its packaging was opened, once, in January of 1977, so that the date could be added to the guarantee card, and then resealed with a bit of sellotape. Since then it hasn't been opened and remained unused until I found it on eBay, a couple of months ago. It's a Mark 1—flat cap-top, breather hole in the nib, recessed plastic lining in the section—but a later Mark 1, I think, as it has a brass thread in the body, rather than steel. It has a fine nib, from what I can tell by writing with it (although I've now swapped it for the definitely fine nib which came with the Mark 0, which has better ink flow). Anyway, since I've not seen this packaging anywhere else online, I thought people here might like to see it.

When I was young, there were few fountain pens in the shops and even fewer I could afford. I had a few gaily colored plastic cylinders from the Sheaffer NoNonsense range but they felt too light and insubstantial. And I had a couple Parker 25 pens. I was not taken with the form of the nib or the barrel but at least the 25 felt more solid and balanced in my hand. Unfortunately, just like the NoNonsense, the 25 was too dry, with frequent flow problems. Quite often there was little difference between writing with a 25 or a ballpoint pen. Many years and many pens passed until a 25 reappeared among my pens. It was by accident: the 25 was in a lot of 20-odd pens that I bought online. It immediately disappeared in a drawer and resurfaced only recently when I decided to experiment with nib grinding. So, I cleaned and inked it. The first letters I wrote with it brought back all those memories of agony and disappointment. The ink flow was too stingy and the pen was too unresponsive. I went ahead with the grinding, which went well, but turning its nib into a decent CI did little to improve the writing experience. Never one to abandon an underdog, I took out the nib and feed, and tried everything I could to improve flow but for the first time I had to accept defeat. No improvement was noticeable. Even worse, the other pen I used in the grinding experiment, a Parker Vector, wrote so much better both before and after - and the Vector is a pen that seems far less appealing than the 25. The only conclusion I can reach is that the 25 simply hates me but Id like to know why. Was it something I did?

So my pen dealer out of the blue messages me yesterday to tell me that she's got a NOS Parker 25 for me. We go back and forth with pictures and pricing and she also discloses the existence of a Parker 45 Convertible GT with a 14K gold nib that is also for sale. Resistance is futile and so I cave in! Today I picked up these two beauties: an old NOS Parker 25 Stainless Steel with black trim with original box, original Spanish sticker price hanging from the clip, and a clear tag identifying this pen as a 25 with a fine nib. Turns out the pen was made in England between 1975 and 1979 as there is no code in the cap. It is a flat top with no dimple. Lovely pen! And then, I get the Parker 45 which came with a black barrel, a 14K fine nib and an original metal squeeze converter. All these for just $53!! I already have a bunch of 45 pens, but none made in the US (only England and Mexico), and none with a gold nib or gold trim. I promptly switched the barrel to a Flighter one I had from a pen that came with a faulty section, since I already have an Arrow and a Convertible pen with a black barrel. What do you all think?

Hi all, I found an interesting Parker 25 set at Greenwich Market today, it's the black trim version, and appears unused - still has the converter in, totally clean, no scratches or scuffs on any of the plastic. Has anyone seen this set before? Parker 25 in exciting tin by Robin Inkysloth, on Flickr Edited to add: Letter code IQ suggests it was made in 1990, initially I wondered if it was a 25 year anniversary set, but that would be year 2000. Hmm.

Ok, so it wouldn't be a Parker 25. It wouldn't even be a Parker pen Sir Kenneth Grange designed a few pens - one of them the iconic Parker 25 shown below: http://i68.tinypic.com/dhcqb7.jpg It has that very distinct tapering on the barrel about 3/4 down and a very flat base. A few years later, Grange also did some work for Platignum designing the Platpen - see below; http://i66.tinypic.com/2pt5x7s.jpg Can you see the same tapering on the barrel? This time way further up on the pen though. These pens are not completely easy to get hold of these days but there is a seller on eBay that is selling NOS/NIB ones (one fountain pen ad one felt tip on in multiple colors) for $7+ shipping. I received mine today and rather do like how "Grange" it looks http://i63.tinypic.com/xogt5g.jpg

So, around 3 months ago I bought a Parker 45 in a nostalgic fit of self indulgence on the grounds that it was the pen that saw me through my school days, or to be more accurate that THEY were the pens that saw me through as it turned out that my fellow class mates were pretty much convinced that property ownership was not an important issue leading to a fair number of pens disappearing never to be seen again. So, having bought myself one pen I found myself buying another, and another ... and pretty soon I seem to have found a new direction to my wanderings on the internet whilst I'm sat here pretending to work, with Ebay as well as several other vintage pen sites firmly bookmarked and inspected on a daily if not hourly basis. At the moment I seem to be leaning towards the metal Parker 45's, especially the Harlequins which I could never afford as a kid, and the Parker 25's which I actually prefer to use over the 45's as a daily working pen. At the moment the main part of my collections looks a bit like this: http://www.fotothing.com/photos/444/444f804f5880464f9bb9a5c18a44504e_f65.jpg As well as several duplicates and a few other models which I'm not sure I want to actually collect. The point of all this is ... At what point does a simple innocent hobby become an obsession? Is it normal to troll through the newly listed items at Ebay quite so often never mind trying to examine bad photos at 300% size in Photoshop looking for clues to identify badly labelled items? Should work really come first or is that Parker T1 that is ending soon the real priority? Any thoughts and ideas appreciated ...