Parker 51 Jotter

[Number99]

Please forgive me for posting a spin off from the topic.

 

I have been researching the Eversharp Big E ballpoint pen.

 

First, we found it difficult to convert a pencil to a ballpoint pen due to differences in the shape of the parts and refills.

 

Next,I checked ebay listings and found the exact same pen.

Parker Eversharp Big E Captain Salesman sample black ballpoint pen - listed as circa 1961.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353770316160

The ebay seller's comment also states that it has the original dry Eversharp refill.

This refill is different from the various EverSharp ballpoint pen refills in that it is similar to Parker's G2 refill, only that it is much thinner and only 1-2 mm shorter, and the gear shape of the refill side of this "EverSharp Red Refill" is different.

It looks more like a ballpoint pen refill based on Parker's design than an EverSharp.

 

There is no indication in the ad or parts list for this ballpoint pen. Also, so far we have only found a salesman's sample, so it may not be an officially sold pen.

 

I'll post a photo including the refill as I'm sure the ebay page will eventually disappear.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Number99
*Corrected the description of the gears on the refills.

[Number99]

On 2/28/2023 at 6:53 PM, joss said:

By the way: the 1962 parts price list (page 2-t) only shows two different V.I.P. ballpoints: the Custom (gold filled cap and clip?) and the Special (polished Lustraloy cap and clip?).

 

The second to last article in the REFERENCE LIBRARY contains "Parker archive catalog, Sep 1994; 82 pp. 

On page 62, seven types of V.I.P. ballpoint pens are shown.

The cap specifications of the standard V.I.P. are shown as "stainless steel CT cap" and "chrome CT cap".

 

Perhaps "stainless steel CT cap" means brushed stainless steel ( matte Lustraloy cap) and "chrome CT cap" means polished Lustraloy cap.

(Please correct these as I have not seen the actual product and am not certain about this)

https://pencollectorsofamerica.org/reference-library/parker/

 

I stumbled upon this by accident in the process of researching Eversharp Big E.

I have also been researching the "Parker B5 ballpoint pen." and have found a listing for it in this archival catalog.

I need to clarify the interpretation of this. Therefore, it would be very helpful if you could tell me what "/Out miss/Need" and "Pos. No." mean in this archive catalog.

 

 

 

[joss]

57 minutes ago, Number99 said:

I need to clarify the interpretation of this. Therefore, it would be very helpful if you could tell me what "/Out miss/Need" and "Pos. No." mean in this archive catalog.

 

I was not aware about this document, it has interesting info. It seems to be the inventory of the archive of pens of the Parker Pen Company. This archive was transferred from the USA to England in the mid 1980s (https://parkerpens.net/archives-1.html).

 

"/Out miss/Need" could possibly mean: "out" = temporarily away eg for examination or exhibition; "miss" = missing/lost; "Need" = wanted/not present

"Pos. No." looks like a position number in the respective pouch in the respective drawer. There seems to be six positions in each pouch.

[Number99]

1 hour ago, joss said:

 

I was not aware about this document, it has interesting info. It seems to be the inventory of the archive of pens of the Parker Pen Company. This archive was transferred from the USA to England in the mid 1980s (https://parkerpens.net/archives-1.html).

 

"/Out miss/Need" could possibly mean: "out" = temporarily away eg for examination or exhibition; "miss" = missing/lost; "Need" = wanted/not present

"Pos. No." looks like a position number in the respective pouch in the respective drawer. There seems to be six positions in each pouch.

So the catalog was meant to be a list of pens in Newhaven's archival drawer. (i.e. it matches the information on parkerpens.net)

I was wondering how to think about some of the pens I know that are not on the list. For example, the Rage Red barrel tip model of the 45 flighter.

I am relieved to know that just because it is not here does not mean it does not exist.

As for the parts list, I will be careful when using this to research unknown pens in the Japanese market, as it is probably a document that has validity in English-speaking countries.

(but it helps me a lot to understand pens I've never seen)

 

Thank you very much！

 

[stoen]

Hello,

I hope this question could fit this thread, so I wouldn’t have to open a new one for a single pen.

 

Would someone please be so kind to help me identify and date this jotter (the jewel is standard mother of pearl color)?

 

Thanks in advance !

 

 

[joss]

I do not recognize this ballpoint. The feathered part of the clip looks English-ish but the arrow point on the clip is odd (too big and too pointy) and also the absence of a metal front nozzle on the barrel is odd. Are you sure that it is a genuine Parker?

[stoen]

7 hours ago, joss said:

Are you sure that it is a genuine Parker?

Thank you for your comment, @joss. How can I be sure that it is a genuine Parker, since I haven’t bought it in a Parker store and don’t have a Parker receipt? 

This shouldn’t unconditionally mean bad news for the pen, should it?

🙂 

I’m not much of a Parker Jotter expert, else I would not have asked for help here.

The information I can find on jotters is pretty scarce. What I’m sure of is that:

1. There is the PARKER logo imprint on the cap, consistent with what can be found in some 50s “51” jotters.

2. The ball-point pen came in an estate sale of a british Parker collection.

 

As for the barrel without metal “nozzle” and with female threading, I know there were some early series without it, but have no idea how this fits the general picture. It works perfectly and is of high quality material (lucite?, nylon?) and is very robust. Here’s what parkerpens.net has to say:

“By 1955 the Jotters were all made in plastic without the ridges. Late 1955 Parker began to add the metal tip to the barrels to prevent cracking.”

which could date the pen to early 1955 (if genuine, of course).

 

I’m also sure it’s not a modern “China type” fake. Signs of wear are consistent and material doesn’t feel cheap (chromium steel). I took the cap top apart, inspected the clip nut and jewel, the mechanism appears and works as should. 

 

Further on, it behaves like a jotter, feels genuine, and feels like having behaved so for some 50 years already…

 

[joss]

4 hours ago, stoen said:

I’m not much of a Parker Jotter expert, else I would not have asked for help here.

The information I can find on jotters is pretty scarce. What I’m sure of is that:

1. There is the PARKER logo imprint on the cap, consistent with what can be found in some 50s “51” jotters.

2. The ball-point pen came in an estate sale of a british Parker collection.

 

As for the barrel without metal “nozzle” and with female threading, I know there were some early series without it, but have no idea how this fits the general picture. It works perfectly and is of high quality material (lucite?, nylon?) and is very robust. Here’s what parkerpens.net has to say:

“By 1955 the Jotters were all made in plastic without the ridges. Late 1955 Parker began to add the metal tip to the barrels to prevent cracking.”

which could date the pen to early 1955 (if genuine, of course).

 

To be honest, I do not know what your pen is. The quote from Parkerpens relates to the T-ball Jotter ballpoint with push button mechanism, which was indeed briefly commercially available with smooth barrel without metal front tip. But such barrels are not known for the P51 Jotter unless on prototypes. The Parker Jotter book shows a Parker 51 Jotter prototype with a ridged nylon barrel and without front metal tip. And the earliest Parker 51 Jotter ballpoints also had a barrel with female threads that took a metal connector with threads on both sides, one for the barrel and one for the cap.

Might your pen be an English prototype? I do not know but the plastic threads with coarse threading is not what you expect on a 1950s Parker ballpoint.

 

Does the cap imprint also include the Parker halo logo? Is the cap activated ballpoint mechanism that sits inside the cap made in plastic or in metal?

[Number99]

I came across the ballpoint pen on this ebay product page. Don't you think they are similar?

However, I am not knowledgeable about the Parker 17 Deluxe.

 

P.S.

Hmmm... the cap band is different... maybe the jewels too... 

😅

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Number99
Additions and wording changes were made.

[stoen]

Thanks, @joss, thanks @Number99, for sharing knowledge and letting me learn something. I wasn’t even aware that something like “Parker 17” ever existed, which is most likely what this ball point pen may be. It may have been that a new jewel and clip were installed during a possible later repair. I don’t have the pen’s history.

🙂

I also realized that one should use the word “jotter” more carefully and sparingly, because of having learned from @joss it should primarily relate to a T-ball jotter, which should in turn only relate to a button-actuated PARKER ball point pen. I naively thought every post-1954 PARKER ball point pen was a jotter, and every jotter capable of accomodating a T-ball ink cartridge was a T-ball jotter. Thanks for showing me I was wrong.

 

I have yet another cap-actuated ball point pen with PARKER imprint on the rolled gold cap.To me it looks genuine. Would someone please be so kind to help identify it?

 

 

 

Thanks in advance!

[joss]

5 hours ago, stoen said:

I also learned that I should use the word “jotter” carefully and sparingly, because of having learned from @joss it should only relate to a T-ball jotter, which should in turn only relate to a button-actuated PARKER ball point pen. I naively thought every post-54 PARKER ball point pen was a jotter, and every jotter capable of using a T-ball ink cartridge was a T-ball jotter.

 

No, please do not associate me with that conclusion because it is wrong and it is not what I have argued above. Jotter refers to any Parker ballpoint from at least the 1950s and 1960s. But this leads to confusion, as with the quote that "By 1955 the Jotters were all made in plastic without the ridges. Late 1955 Parker began to add the metal tip to the barrels to prevent cracking.” This statement relates to the first model of the Jotter, which clearly is the ballpoint under discussion in the Jotter entry at Parkerpens.net from which the quote originates. But if that quote is isolated from the original text then it is not true unless it is clarified which Jotter model is being discussed. By 1955 there were three different Jotter ballpoints and the statement is not valid for the 51 Jotter or 21 Jotter which both had a smooth barrel from the beginning.

 

In some 1955 to 1957 advertisements Parker addressed the Jotter name confusion by calling the button-activated ballpoint “Regular Jotter” or “Standard Jotter”, to distinguish it from the 51 Jotter and the 21 Jotter. In 1957 Parker introduced the improved "T-Ball" ballpoint refill and then the button-activated Jotter was called "Parker T-ball Jotter". This name was widely used in 1960s Parker advertisements on the button-activated Jotter and that is why I referred to it in my post above. But that name might be confusing too because in 1959 Parker started to use "T-Ball Jotter" again for a wider range of ballpoints that additionally included the Parker Minim, Tiara, Princess and the V.I.P..

 

The Jotter history is complicated and cannot be written in three sentences. I can highly recommend the Parker Jotter book (Jotter: History of an Icon) although the still available copies demand high prices.

 

 

[stoen]

So, I’m proven wrong again. I must have been lured into the previous conclusion by the particular web page at perkerpens.net clearly having discussed 1954 Jotters and “cap actuated ball point pen” aesthetically complementing the “51”, whatever one may call them. Then in the next sentences it pointed:

By 1955 the Jotters were all made in plastic without the ridges. Late 1955 Parker began to add the metal tip to the barrels to prevent cracking

 What can one conclude? All means all (both button and cap actuated jotters, as far as I can understand from the previous text paragraph). Having had no deeper knowledge, I must have taken the text for granted. Please accept my appologies, @joss.

🙂

I have just two Parker ball point pens for the moment, and have no “Jotter book” anywhere near me, unfortunately. One day hopefully.

 

Yet, if someone would be kind to help me identify the other ball point pen (I’m posting the photos again), I’d be very thankful. Please pardon my being repetitive:

 

 

 

Thanks a lot!

 

 

 

[joss]

23 minutes ago, stoen said:

I have just two Parker ball point pens for the moment, and have no “Jotter book” anywhere near me, unfortunately. One day hopefully.

Yet, if someone would be kind to help me identify the other ball point pen (I’m posting the photos again), I’d be very thankful. Please pardon my being repetitive:

 

 

 

The Parker 51 Jotter was introduced in November 1954. If the cap imprint does not include the Parker Halo logo (the oval with upwards pointed arrow) then the pen can be dated to late 1954 to 1957. From 1958 onwards, all cap imprints included the Parker halo logo.

The barrel threads were changed from metal to plastic somewhere in the 1960s but I do not know exactly when. The 1960 repair price list only shows the 51 Jotter barrel with metal threads so the change happened later. The Parker 61 Jotter, which was Parker's other luxury ballpoint and introduced in late 1961 and almost identical to the P51 Jotter, never had metal barrel threads so my guess is that around this time the P51 Jotter also had plastic barrel threads but that is a guess only.

From 1969 onwards the P51 Jotter disappeared or in fact merged into the Parker 61 Jotter, these pens have the P61 type long feather clip.

[stoen]

BTW, Some additional info about the second (blue) ball point pen may help identifying:

- barrel: teal blue, gold color nozzle, metal male threads

- cap: rolled gold 1/10, PARKER imprint, no halo

- clip: 51 type, rolled gold (?)

- jewel: mother of pearl style

- length: 5”

 

I have no relevant knowledge, but the pen appears genuine to me. If so, does the agorrmengioned indicate it be dated between late 1955 (nozzle) and early 1958 (halo)? Are there some other indicators to be checked?

 

Thanks!