The Highlo Pen Museum
Classic Fountain Pens - The History of The Parker 51
by Arthur Twydle
In 1946, after five years overseas war service, I
was de-mobbed from the British Army. In the same year, and around the same time, an old
soldier from an earlier war died of leukaemia in Chicago. I knew nothing about pens, or
him, but later came to realise the legacy this famous designer left to the world. On
a visit to the Chicago Pen Show in April 1998 I thought how proud this man would have felt
to hear the words "Parker 51" flow so easily from every penman's lips. This is
the story of that man, a genius in the pen world, who created that famous pen and was
influential in shaping my destiny for the next fifty years.
His name was Lazlo Moholy Nagy, born in Hungary in
1895. He read law in Budapest University but was always interested in art. At nineteen,
his studies were broken when he was conscripted into the Hungarian Army and was severely
wounded on the Russian Front three years later. On discharge, after convalescence, he
resumed and completed his studies and moved to Berlin, where he joined the staff of
Bauhaus, the famous School of Art and Architecture. He became head of the metal workshop
and taught the basic foundation course and photography. In 1934 rampant fascism forced him
to leave Germany. He fled to Amsterdam but the following year he joined other refugees in
London and obtained work as a poster and layout designer working for such clients as
London Transport and Imperial Airways. In 1937 out of the blue came an invitation to head
a new Bauhaus in Chicago, but unfortunately after a year the funding dried up and the
venture collapsed, but Moholy succeeded in salvaging the concept from the wreckage and
founded his own School of Design in a disused bakery in a back street of Chicago. Many of
his former students rejoined, and the school was staffed by former colleagues, some of
whom worked for a time without pay. By the time of his death he had changed location in
Chicago three times and had 680 enrolled students.
From his school he formed a small handpicked team
to help him design this new pen concept. I have never read whether it was his idea which
he sold to Parkers or whether Parkers asked him to design a new pen for them. Whichever
way it was, it was Parkers who got it and named it the Parker 51, as its completion
coincided with the 51st anniversary of the company's inception.
The shape and style were described as 'from another
planet'. The internal parts and functions I will describe later, but the grip of the pen
as it nestled in that triangle formed by the thumb, forefinger and middle finger was
comfortable, smooth and round. Great attention had been paid to its centre of gravity when
held, and the balance with the cap positioned on the back in the writing position feels
perfect.
The shell came to a point, so the eye followed this
to the point where the nib touched the paper, and so the two points were exactly in line
to touch the paper together without having to position them.
It was really ballpen writing but with a fountain
pen, because no longer did one rely on the extra pressure required to flex the nib for
variation of stroke and to meter the ink from the piercehole to the paper. This was now
controlled by the new ink collector. The pen had only one thickness of stroke size whether
up or down, but determined by the spherical shape of the tip at the end of the nib.
Provided the writer followed a parallel line from the beginning of a line to the end,
great speed could be attained with little loss of legibility. It was the end of the
copperplate writing I had been taught at my early school in the '20s.
Let us analyse exactly what Nagy designed in this
famous Parker 51 which was a complete design innovation for a writing instrument. 'Ten
years ahead of its time' was the cry.
The shape and form of each part were the result of
functional tests. It even had a special formula ink made for it. The only parts
incorporated in the new concept from any earlier models were the speedline aluminium pump,
which in itself was a new invention, used only in the Vacumatic a few years earlier, and
the blue diamond clip. He was never happy with the old vac clip and commissioned a
designer from another field to come up with a new one. The 'arrow clip' was born and
became the registered trade mark of the company. In various forms it appears on all Parker
writing instruments to this day.
1. CAP
Most pre-war pens had screw fit caps with body and
cap of the same matching colour material; here was a complete contrast. An outer cap of
metal with a plastic inner liner that followed the contours of the outer and had a
threaded top on which fitted a brass bush to lock on the clip, and finished off with a
mother-of-pearl clip screw. A clutch fitted between the inner and outer caps which locked
onto a clutch ring standing proud on the barrel. There was a clever vent hole in the inner
cap sunk into a recessed groove to allow the air to escape from inside the cap when closed
to avoid any compression of trapped air or suction when opened. This made a perfect
airtight fit to keep the nib point wet at all times.
2. COLLECTOR
The collector or ink flow governor was the most
radical technical design part of the new pen. Almost at a stroke it cut out all the skill
required to assemble the nib, feed and section and all the adjustments necessary to fine
tune the feed to the nib under heat. Here was a plastic insert internally cut in steps so
that each part that fitted into it had its own stop; the feed and nib when fitted just
pushed in to a pre-determined ledge. It was the repairman's dream. A simple friction fit
into the barrel, it had fine cylindrical cut fins with deep grooves that controlled the
ink flow and suspended it in the capillary fins for use immediately the pen touched paper.
The whole front part - nib, feed, breather tube and collector were protected and secured
by a screw-on shell.
3. SHELL & BARREL
A new material named 'Lucite' had appeared. It was
light, stable in extreme temperatures and very strong. It was tested for pen parts and
passed all the functional tests. It was used extensively during the war to make bomber
aircraft turrets. Lots of the transparent demonstrator pens are made of Lucite. It does
not stain easily and can be coloured. The shell, barrel and blind cap were made in
this material in four colours: black, dove grey, cordovan brown and blue cedar. The barrel
became the ink reservoir with an ink capacity greater than most pens in use at that time,
and pumped in with the speedline aluminium pump previously fitted in the Vacumatic pen.
Government restrictions on aluminium due to the war very early curtailed its use for this
purpose and a new plastic pump was devised which remained in use for many years. To fill
correctly and to capacity required 12 pumps of the plunger with a one second pause after
each completed stroke. On the 12th stroke pull out of the ink in the depressed position
and on release all the surplus ink is sucked into the pen.
4. NIB
This was a complete innovation as to shape - no
curves, which reduced waste in the cutting room - just a triangular arrow shape 10mm x
12mm tall being the first cut from a sheet of gold. After nicking off the sharp corners a
more square base appears which, when rolled, takes on the form of a tubular nib. The
rolling of the nib into a tube adds firmness at the point, which is further strengthened
when the normal slit from point to piercehole is left uncut in the middle.
5. INK
A special 'Superchrome' with a new turquoise blue
colour was created exclusively for the Parker 51. Defined as drying three times faster
than ordinary ink, and a dye content 3-10 times greater with super performance and 11
times more resistant to fading than government standards. These were the advertising
claims of the day. What I do remember is that 51 Superchrome had a greater penetration
rather than a faster rate of surface evaporation, so it did dry quicker but was not so
good on airmail paper.
By 1951 (six years after the death of Nagy) the
Parker design team had perfected the new Parker 51 with the remarkable Aero-metric ink
system. This was introduced to the world in time for the Christmas trade 1953 and now had
its own family, which included a demi model (designed for ladies) and a Parker 21 a school
pen).
Aero-metric was an entirely new method of drawing
ink from the bottle, storing, safeguarding and releasing ink with just one moving part -
the pressure bar. Housed in a silver sleeve, the moveable pressure bar filled the pen as
easily as touching thumb to finger tips. Four or five presses on the bar filled it to
capacity instead of the twelve pump actions of the old vac model. The ink reservoir was
now a transparent pli-glass sac with a thirty year life expectancy with windows either
side of the pressure bar to check the ink level. The pen now had five layers of insulation
and a longer metal breather tube to equalise variations in air pressure. The early adverts
read "new writing mileage - holds more ink for up to 25% more writing". This was
inaccurate because measured out in simple terms the new aero-system held 25 drops against
50+ drops in the old vac, but I do not recall any of Parker's competitors making a fuss at
the time. Also, the transparent ink reservoir stained very quickly when filled with
permanent coloured ink and so was ineffective.
The price of the new model increased to $13.50 in
America, but in the UK it was still below £5. The colour range had now increased to black
and seven other colours, but in the UK Parkers settled for only four: black, teal blue,
maroon and grey, with popularity in that order. The demi and 21 models were never sold in
the UK and by now Parkers were the undisputed world leaders in fountain pens, and in my
own group of 'Pen Corner' pen shops, Parker sales accounted for between 40% and 50% of
shop takings. The competitors were Waterman, Swan, Conway Stewart, Onoto, Wyvern, Summit
and Mentmore with Platignum monopolising the school pen market with their steel nibbed
pens.
There was always this objection to the Parker 51 as
being 'too expensive' which was understandable - at just under £5 the cheapest model was
more than the average weekly wage.
After the introduction of the Parker 61, the 51 was
modernised yet again and 'streamlined'. Most of its component parts were modified to take
into account its new slimmer look, but its basic functioning remained the same.
Many guesses have been made as to how many Parker
51s were sold during its lifetime, but to my knowledge Parker never printed specific
numbers. However, during the 50s and 60s, they often confirmed that well in excess of one
million a year were being sold.
We still receive many 51s for restoration, often
with the original nib, which makes them 40 or 50 years old and still in regular use.
Truly
a most durable item of the 20th century.