{"id":58,"date":"2015-09-17T13:49:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T13:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parker51.com\/?page_id=58"},"modified":"2015-10-29T18:02:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T18:02:03","slug":"pencils","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/51s\/pencils\/","title":{"rendered":"Pencils"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a>Parker introduced the “51” Writefine Pencil in 1940 along with its Parker “51” pen.\u00a0 It was a quality writing instrument, matching every pen style made, as to color and cap combination.\u00a0 Very early production in 1940 did not have the gripping ridges at the end of the barrel.\u00a0 Examples of these are very hard to find as they were probably only test market specimens.\u00a0 By August 1940, the Parker literature of the time was already showing the ridges at the pencil end.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In addition, early pencils were made of celluloid, unlike the pens which were made out of Lucite.\u00a0 Lucite was starting to be a hard material to secure due to the pre-war preparations and Parker was probably making sure they had material for pen production.\u00a0 When originally sold, the colors of the pens and pencils were perfect matches, but over time, due to the instability of celluloid, the pencils discolored and darkened.\u00a0 The cedar blue pencil will become nearly black and the grays turn green, with some extremes were they turn nearly translucent.\u00a0 The other colors darken to the point were they appear a mismatched set, even with new old stock pieces.\u00a0 Sometime later in the production (after the war?), the pencil plastic was changed, thereby one can find much better color matches between the pencils and pens.\u00a0 Parker “51” vacumatic rotary pencils generally are not dated, although I have found a U.S.-made NOS 1948 vacumatic rotary pencil that is imprinted and dated with an ‘8’.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another distinguishing feature of the early pencils is the long mechanism seen when the cap is removed.\u00a0 This was used for the first one or two years and was eventually changed to the shorter mechanism found until the end of production.<\/span><\/p>\n

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One feature\u00a0on the higher end “51”s such as the “Heirloom” or the “Heritage” was a gold plated mechanism in addition to the 14k clips and 14k pencil cone.\u00a0 It was essentially the same mechanism with a cheap gold bath, that wore off quickly from frequent removal of the caps.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Interesting changes are often found in the pencil production due to war material constraints, such as the mechanism below, made of plastic instead of metal.\u00a0\u00a0Other pens are found were the pencil cap liner is made of plastic rather than the usual aluminum or metal.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A variation in the vacumatic series was recently discovered, mint in the box with matching\u00a0fountain pen,\u00a0as illustrated below.\u00a0 It is a cap-activated pencil. similar to the later aerometric pencils, but with the Blue Diamond matching cap and barrel with ridges.\u00a0 The dimensions of the pencil matches the early rotary versions and parts are not interchangeable with the later Aerometric “clickers”.\u00a0 A transition piece or prototype for the new design that followed?<\/span><\/p>\n

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An even more interesting recent find is the demi cap-activated\u00a0vacumatic pencil seen in the picture below, compared to the full-sized version.\u00a0\u00a0Note the shorter barrel and <\/em>shorter cap.\u00a0 The later aerometric cap-activated pencils had the same sized barrels for the demi and full sized versions and only the cap was shorter.\u00a0 Was there a matching pen made for this pencil?\u00a0 It should probably be a demi-vac “51”, but with a blue diamond clip instead of the plain arrow clip, along with its unique shorter cap, but with no “Parker” on the cap lip, noting that all production demi-vac shorter caps seem to always have the “Parker” on the lip.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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From the collection of Tim Laros<\/p>\n

In 1948 through 1957, Parker introduced\u00a0the Aerometric series with a new cap-activated or “clicker” pencil.\u00a0 These were available in both demi and full size, in a variety of colors and caps, including the all metal Flighter,\u00a0Signet and Presidential.\u00a0 The aerometric cap-activated pencils are dated initially with an ‘8’ or ‘9’ for 1948 or 1949.\u00a0 Starting in 1950 Parker switched to a two digit code ’50’ and continued using it until 1956.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In 1950, Parker introduced\u00a0the Parker “51 Special” Aerometric series with a new rotary\u00a0pencil.\u00a0 These were available in both demi and full size, in matching\u00a0colors, all with shiny chrome\u00a0caps and black jewels.\u00a0\u00a0The plastic on these tend to be very brittle and are often found with cracked barrels near the stress point of the cone.\u00a0 This pencils are dated with a two digit code starting with ’50’.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Around 1955 Parker introduced its Liquid Lead pencils.\u00a0 These were made to match all the available Parker”51″ models of the time.\u00a0 As illustrated below from the bottom, it\u00a0included the Special with its shinny cap and black jewel, the standard full size pencil, in both Lustraloy and Gold Filled caps, the Flighter, the Signet, the Demi sized Liquid Lead.\u00a0 The\u00a0Presidential model, not illustrated, also had a Liquid Lead pencil.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In\u00a01958 Parker discontinued the cap activated pencil and returned to a rotary pencil for its regular Parker “51”.\u00a0 By this time the Demi had been discontinued.\u00a0 The first version had a very thick stem as the bottom pen in the photo below illustrates.\u00a0 Around 1963, the mechanism was changed again to a thinner stem, shared with the Parker 45.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

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Very late in production, probably\u00a0around 1969, the “51” pencil was changed one last time.\u00a0 There were two versions available; a traditional rotary pencil and a cap activated pencil.\u00a0 The cap activated version was essentially a ballpoint with a “Cartridge Pencil Refill”.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Parker introduced the “51” Writefine Pencil in 1940 along with its Parker “51” pen.\u00a0 It was a quality writing instrument, matching every pen style made, as to color and cap combination.\u00a0 Very early production in 1940 did not have the gripping ridges at the end of the barrel.\u00a0 Examples of these are very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":200,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"full-width-content","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-58","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4377,"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58\/revisions\/4377"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parker51.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}