Parker 61

Black pen with silvery cap, and a small silver arrow-head decoration in the hood

The 61 was meant to be the replacement for the "51" in the new era of ball-point pens, which happened also to be the era of the cartridge loading pen. Apparently, the Aerometric filler of the older pen (which had replaced the Vacumatic filler in 1948) was still too cumbersome and potentially messy for the businessman of the late 1950s-- one still had to, after all, use something to wipe a tiny bit of residual ink off the end of the pen. The 61 got around this "problem" with a capillary filler-- just open the pen, drop the back end of the pen in the ink bottle, wait a few seconds, and then screw it back together. Wiping was abolished through the new miracle space-age science material Teflon, which coated the outside of the filler and to which ink could not cling. The inside of the filler contains a roll of textured plastic, providing a large surface area for ink to cling to as it slowly makes its way to the point.

The 61 is a very slick pen, but is not without problems. One is that the first uses of miracle space-age science materials frequently don't work so well. Teflon-bonding wasn't particularly reliable in 1957, and the coating tends to flake off the filler-- meaning it needs a wipe. The plastic of the outer body, unlike stodgy old Lucite in the "51", is not so stable either, and tends to shrink and embrittle. The former problem can be merely cosmetic (leading in many cases to loss of the "point is here, dummy" arrowhead decoration on the hood), while the latter can be the end of the pen when the hood falls to bits.

Even fully functional, the filler is problematic. When empty, it can take as much as five minutes to fill properly. Because it's open at both ends, the ink can dribble out-- there's a little spring-loaded gasket in the end of the barrel to seal it in use, but that can get debris (like bits of Teflon) on it to render it ineffective. It's also hard to clean-- one was not expected to change inks frequently, if at all.

Later models did away with the capillary filler, but are still a bit fragile. I like this pen, and some declare that they contain the best points Parker ever made, but with one of the early capillary models, I have to say that unless you want one for the novelty value, as I do, I can't recommend them. This is, by the way, a second generation model-- from 1962 to 1969, they had a wider trim ring at the joint, but still used the capillary filler.

Specifications: Bold point, in what I take on faith is 14K gold. Capillary filler. 13.0 cm long capped, 14.2 cm posted.

Condition: Generally nice and shiny. There's a little bit of non-factory marking on the cap to prove that it's been used, and the point is slightly out of alignment with the hood. Hood is shrunken, giving a sense of the stuff under it.

Repairs: Long combative struggle to clean out the filler with a modified ear-bulb. I'd like to get the hood off to see what's up with that point, but it IS shrunken and resists with more strength than I'm willing to apply to a notoriously brittle plastic. It works, so why break it?

Location: My collection.

For sale?: No.

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