What Parkers Have Joined Your Collection Lately?

[VacNut]

  On 3/19/2025 at 12:33 PM, Beechwood said:

 

Parker 61 with a special cap and a working Liquid Lead pencil and matching cap to the pen

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Is that gold “banding” on a silver-colored cap vs silver banding on a gold cap? It looks like the cap base material is silver-colored.

[Beechwood]

  On 3/19/2025 at 5:55 PM, VacNut said:

Is that gold “banding” on a silver-colored cap vs silver banding on a gold cap? It looks like the cap base material is silver-colored.

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You are right, the base is silver, when I bought it around 10 years ago the pen had never been used, I bought it from the widow of a man who had been given the pen as a retirement gift, simply put away.

 

The arrow didn't survive its first use.

 

 

[VacNut]

Fascinating how Parker played with different versions of rolled gold. Thx

[Bo Bo Olson]

A IM gunmetal set from 1991. Pictures won't load in Imgur, can't get a good-sized picture from Word.... NOS never used, the cartridge that came with the set is 1/5th empty from evaporation. With papers. BP maked II U, FP III U. And the picture will not expand when clicked.

It's common enough, many will know it.

Sorry about that.

 

My wife now has it seems at least 10 Parker ball points, not counting my old Jotters.

She is a pure Ball Point Barbarian.

[PAKMAN]

This Parker Duofold Standard gray pearl '35

[Mercian]

  On 3/22/2025 at 2:32 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

A IM gunmetal set from 1991.

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The 'IM' wasn't launched until about 2004. From memory, Parker initially marketed it in the UK as the 'Vector II', or the 'Profile'.
(I remember buying one for my brother when he graduated from university.)
The very early ones were not made very well

Your set must be from 2011.

 

(Btw: there's no need for you to put the picture into MS Word.
If you email it to yourself from your (or your wife's) phone, and then save the image to your PC, you'll be able to upload it here at full size.)

[Penguincollector]

  I bought a Parker 65 Flighter, listed as a 45. It’s such an interesting pen!  I have just managed to clean the decades old ink out of the nib and section, it had a very old cartridge attached. I don’t know if the wax is intact or not. 
 

[ArchiMark]

  On 3/25/2025 at 4:41 PM, PAKMAN said:

This Parker Duofold Standard gray pearl '35

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Love those era chunky looking Vacs, PAkMAN!

 

Very special pens.....at one point I had a bunch of them in all the different colors.

 

Enjoy!

 

Mark

[Beechwood]

  On 3/26/2025 at 4:56 AM, Penguincollector said:

  I bought a Parker 65 Flighter, listed as a 45. It’s such an interesting pen!  I have just managed to clean the decades old ink out of the nib and section, it had a very old cartridge attached. I don’t know if the wax is intact or not. 
 

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The 65 is a funny old pen, a wish by Parker to have a more flexible nib from the 61.

 

I bought mine when new and made the mistake of taking the nib apart just to see if I could, it was a faff not to be repeated, my advice would be to leave well alone.

 

I cannot remember that cap on your pen on other 65s which I thought were more 61 than 45 in style,

[jchch1950]

Parker 65 is are good pen. Their moderate size and the open nib make them, for me, more attractive than the cartridge 61. Is the plastic of the section as brittle as the 61?

[Bo Bo Olson]

  On 3/26/2025 at 12:27 AM, Mercian said:

The 'IM' wasn't launched until about 2004. From memory, Parker initially marketed it in the UK as the 'Vector II', or the 'Profile'.

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OK.

But the II U and III U are date marks from '94...perhaps I didn't look far enough down the date list.

Being a nail, it is not on my use anytime soon list.

...............

Just looked at the memory stick with the latest pictures of some ink review pages. 2,505kb and 3,166kb, and the Com says it's some 1.2 or so megs, so won't load it.

Sometimes loading from Word means the picture is not upside down.

................

And I don't understand why sometimes it won't load in Imgur when sometimes it will...like now only 1/3 of the time with different pictures.

[Penguincollector]

  On 3/26/2025 at 7:26 AM, Beechwood said:

 

 

The 65 is a funny old pen, a wish by Parker to have a more flexible nib from the 61.

 

I bought mine when new and made the mistake of taking the nib apart just to see if I could, it was a faff not to be repeated, my advice would be to leave well alone.

 

I cannot remember that cap on your pen on other 65s which I thought were more 61 than 45 in style,

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    I don’t mess with inlaid nibs, I just try to clean them up with a Sunshine cloth and clean the feed out with water and then use Quink with Solv-x to get anything still in there. From what I understand, there were a few different iterations of the 65. I can’t tell which one mine is. It’s one of the later models, I think. I have the worst time with seeing date codes (when present), even with magnification. 

[Penguincollector]

  On 3/26/2025 at 8:14 AM, jchch1950 said:

Parker 65 is are good pen. Their moderate size and the open nib make them, for me, more attractive than the cartridge 61. Is the plastic of the section as brittle as the 61?

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 I don’t have a 61 to compare it to, but I will say that this plastic reminds me more of celluloid than the other ones used by Parker. 

[Beechwood]

  On 3/26/2025 at 4:29 PM, Penguincollector said:

 

    I don’t mess with inlaid nibs, I just try to clean them up with a Sunshine cloth and clean the feed out with water and then use Quink with Solv-x to get anything still in there. From what I understand, there were a few different iterations of the 65. I can’t tell which one mine is. It’s one of the later models, I think. I have the worst time with seeing date codes (when present), even with magnification. 

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I think that the 65 has a screw in nib and feed/collector. Ron Z posted a P 65 exploded photograph, 

 

 

What I didn't know was that the early 65s were capillary fillers and USA only, I haven't seen one.

 

I am concerned that you may have a 45 cap on your 65, I have done a search and cannot find that clip on a 65

[Penguincollector]

  On 3/26/2025 at 6:11 PM, Beechwood said:

 

I think that the 65 has a screw in nib and feed/collector. Ron Z posted a P 65 exploded photograph, I cannot find it at the moment to give you a link but if you can find it then I think you will find it to be useful.

 

What I didn't know was that the early 65s were capillary fillers and USA only, I haven't seen one.

 

I am concerned that you may have a 45 cap on your 65, I have done a search and cannot find that clip on a 65

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   Interestingly enough, the way I found it was looking at 45s on eBay- when I saw the different nib (that looks very like the inlaid nibs on the Platinum and Sailor pens from the mid 20th century that I love using) and was intrigued. I will take a look at Ron’s exploded photo to better understand what I have. I did notice that the other flighters on ParkerCollector were GT and not CT. The 45 caps fit, but not quite as snugly, so maybe someone changed out a clip. It’s definitely a user pen, and I don’t plan on selling it, but I will keep an eye out for either a 65 cap or clip. The nib is a nice italic.

[inkstainedruth]

@Beechwood -- I wasn't familiar with the 65 model.  So the early ones had capillary fillers, like on the 61s?  Interesting!

The stuff I learn on here just constantly amazes me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[FarmBoy]

  On 3/26/2025 at 9:02 PM, inkstainedruth said:

@Beechwood -- I wasn't familiar with the 65 model.  So the early ones had capillary fillers, like on the 61s?  Interesting!

The stuff I learn on here just constantly amazes me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

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I am unaware of any 65 capillary filled pens.  The first version of the 65 used the filler developed for the VP.  The 65 was developed at Newhaven and are scarcely seen across the pond.

[Beechwood]

  On 3/27/2025 at 9:06 AM, FarmBoy said:

I am unaware of any 65 capillary filled pens.  The first version of the 65 used the filler developed for the VP.  The 65 was developed at Newhaven and are scarcely seen across the pond.

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I had read on here in 2010 that Parker UK made the 65 with a capillary filler until 1969 for export to the US, must admit that I have never seen a this filler on a 65.

[Mercian]

  On 3/26/2025 at 10:43 AM, Bo Bo Olson said:

But the II U and III U are date marks from '94...

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¡Hola @Bo Bo Olson!

 

Whichever decade they're from, your pens are not from 1994.
Parker's codes for the year are the (single) letter codes. The letters are taken from the ten-letter phrase 'QUALITY PEN'.

'Q' codes correspond to years that end in 0;

'U' codes to years that end in 1;

'A' codes to years that end in 2;

'L' codes to years that end in 3;

'I' codes to years that end in 4;

'T' codes to years that end in 5;

'Y' codes to years that end in 6;

'P' codes to years that end in 7;

'E' codes to years that end in 8;

'N' codes to years that end in 9.

 

For pens produced since 1988, the quarter codes are as follows:

'III' - first quarter;

'II' - second quarter;

'I' - third quarter;

' ' (i.e. no line) - fourth quarter.

 

The decades can be harder to determine.

Parker alternates putting the quarter codes before the year letter, with putting the quarter code after the year.
In some decades they separate the year code from the quarter code with a '.', but in others they don't include the dot.

In theory they could include/omit the '.' on a cyclical basis, so that the codes wouldn't repeat for four decades.

E.g. for pens produced in the third quarter of years that end in '2', the codes could be:

1st decade: 'A.I';

2nd decade: 'I.A';

3rd decade: 'AI';

4th decade: 'IA';

5th decade (start over again): 'A.I'.

 

Some of my own Parker pens are stamped as follows:

Pen           Date Code      Year/Quarter produced

75                IE                   1988/Q3 (I got this pen brand new in a High Street store in 1989).

Vector        III.I                  1994/Q1 (I bought this pen brand new from a High Street store in 1994 Q2).

Jotter          I.I                   2004/Q3 (I bought this pen as part of a set, brand new, from a High Street store).

Frontier      T.II                  2005/Q2 (I bought this pen brand new from a High Street store).

Urban          U                   2011/Q4 (I bought this pen 'pre-owned' via eBay, some time in the late 2010s).

Urban         IIU                  2011/Q2 (I bought this pen 'pre-owned' via eBay in ~2017).

Urban         IIIA                 2012/Q1 (I bought this pen brand new online in Q3 of 2012).

Urban           L                  2013/Q4 (I bought this pen NOS via eBay in ~2023).

Urban         IT                   2015/Q3 (I bought this pen online in, I think, 2016).

 

For the ones that I bought brand new I am certain of the year of production.
With my Urbans there are also stylistic details that mark them out as all having been produced in the 2010s, rather than in the 2000s.

 

Because the date code on your IMs is in the same format as the date codes on my Urbans, I think that your pens must date from 2011.
But I may of course be wrong about the decade. E.g. I don't have any Parkers that were made in the 2020s.
To establish the decade of production of your IMs with certainty, you will need to check the stylistic details on the pens.
The IM model was first produced in 2004, and they were produced into the 2010s. The model (like the Urban) had a major redesign in 2016, and that version is still in production in the 2020s.

 

Slàinte,
M.

[Paul-in-SF]

For my March pen I bought a Lady Duofold Lucky Curve in Mandarin Yellow. The pen seems solid, no chips or cracks in the cap, and the color is even and consistent; it needs a new sac and possible a new pressure bar. It has some cosmetic issues, and I really think I would like to take it apart completely and clean up all the parts individually before putting it back together. I've never tried to do this before, so I am feeling my way carefully.