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Pens and paper

Parker 51

6owners with an opinion
80%of verdicts positive
3/1positive/negative since 2024
10 yrslongest happy owner
1happy after 3+ years

Praised for reliability and durability; criticized for comfort and ergonomics.

What people wrote

Likes itOwned 10 yearsStill going
I've had an ancient Parker 51 for a good decade or so now which I use almost daily, that originally belonged to my great-grandmother. I'd expect there to be a reasonable amount of variation in how long these pens last due to differences in usage, machining tolerances, ink types and materials - though mine has done very well considering how many times I've chucked it into a bag, dropped it on hard floors, etc. (I've probably just been lucky so far).
Doesn’t like it
It's worth going deep more than broad, in my view, and taking an intentionally instrumental interest in the tool; fountain pens have never been a hobby for me, but rather a means in support of my practices as a notetaker and diarist, to the tune of 25 A5 volumes and about 4100 pages' worth since early 2018. These days it takes me four or five pages at once to notice any tiring or discomfort, and no pen that insists on itself even slightly could hold up to that kind of expectation. (Indeed I judge the Decimo more favorably than the 51 precisely because the latter pen tries my endurance much more, especially when I post its overweight and unbalancing cap.) Think of it like photography or high-end audio; here too we see the same sharply unfavorable knee in the middle of the price/performance curve, past which returns rapidly diminish and one mostly ceases to impress the savvy with anything beyond one's readiness to spend. (D850, not M10 Monochrom; HD6XX, not HD 800 S.) I mean, I wouldn't turn my nose up at a $1000 handmade Pilot Urushi but I surely also would not buy one, not at least unless I meant to try to make flirting with ambassadors more than a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It's a beautiful pen and I'm sure it functions superlatively! Just that it belongs in far finer and less hardly used hands than mine. Good grief, I sometimes feel I make even my Decimo look like a sewing needle, and that isn't really at all a small pen, being by mechanical necessity about as long as its…
Likes it
OK OK, let's get serious. My personal favorite : Lamy 2000 fine nib inked with Rohrer & Klinger Dokumentus. Most times to complement it there's at least one Parker 51 as a quick note taking pen / highlighter (puts out way more ink, so some cheaper papers don't really work with it) and one or two Montblancs (mostly inked with Rohrers Salix) just for the fun of it. I haven't quite settled down on paper though. Rhodia wire-bound dotted A5 has the best quality paper, but I sorely miss the flexibility of free leaf notes. Latest discovery - Muji's A5 binder. It's a Japanese 20-holes-per-A5 spacing, so fairly rare in the EU. Also, the Muji's default paper isn't great for some wetter fountain pens... but hopefully I'll figure some way to make it work.
Neutral
I think Pilot sells Metropolitan so cheaply on purpose, to get people into the hobby. It's still under $30 on Amazon and is a very high quality. I got one more pen (Chinese clone of Parker 51, The Original Parker) and pretty much stopped there. Some collectors have like dozens of them and dozens of different types of ink too, it's... not healthy. There's definitely some nostalgic value in writing with fountain pens but don't go overboard.
Recommends it
One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far. We've seen comments that "race to the bottom" (Lamy Safari, Pilot Preppy, ...), or that aim for "timeless classics" (basically any gold nib - Sailor 1911, Pilot Falcon, ~$150+ pens). There's a third way though. The "actual piece of history". In my opinion, no pen is better for this than a Parker 51. This for me is the embodiment (and a parent of) "the consumer fountain pen". Seen and used everywhere from 1940s to about 1960s. The best part - these can now be had for ~$100 and a good portion of them still works beautifully to this day. With minimal maintenance (cleaning, sometimes slight nib polishing to remove the flat spots that come from long time use by their previous owners) one can get a working Parker 51 for under $60. The best part - these pens can go neck to neck with a lot of modern $150+ pieces. All the while most of these pens are older than majority of HN users. Heck, having a small collection myself, most of my Parker 51s are older than my parents.
Likes it
I've fallen in love with fountain pens, and have acquired a few over the past two years. Last month I tried my hand at grinding my first (italic) nib, and it actually came out OK. My prized pens include a Parker 51 Mk2, a Sailor 1911 Large with music nib, an ASA Nauka in ebonite, and more. Also passionate about stargazing, but dark skies and good weather are hard to come by where I live. An 8" airline portable scope is in the works. Other vices include the usual - music of many kinds, books (of the paper kind), good food of all kinds, coffee, tea, beer, and well-made cocktails - especially martinis. Lastly, reading elegant code -- especially low-level code.
Likes itDoesn’t say they own it
I'd agree. This article was not at all what I assumed it would be about: it is primarily a listing of boutique manufacturer pens that are entirely modern and not at all classic in mentality. They fit the standard "limited edition, barrel-design-focused, standard section and cartridge+converter, generic nib" product design and business model that I think is intrinsically linked to the move of fountain pens to being marketed as mostly status items. There are great, actually classic pens, and being from a time when they were meant to be used, they can be far more interesting. Parker 51s are ubiquitous and reliable, and vacuum fillers in general seem significantly better than modern cartridge and converter pens. For mid century technically-interesting pens, I'm fond of Sheaffer snorkel fillers, where the pen can be quickly refilled without the nib ever touching ink and changing the line thickness or becoming messy. Even earlier, Waterman and other pens with fine, flexible nibs offer nib styles that range from very difficult to impossible to get in modern pens.