The most sought after vintage fountain pen of the 20th century, the Parker model “51″. Made from 1941 until 1972 the Parker 51 is certaintly not the most elegant or beautiful pen in existence, far from it. The P51 is a “workhorse” many models from 1941 still work today with minor repairs, can you say the same thing about the computer you bought 6 years ago?

My search for the 51 started a couple of weeks ago when I headed over to the biggest writing instrument forum on the internet called fountainpennetwork.com. As anyone knows that has even the smallest interest in Fountain Pens knows that this website is not for the feeble-walleted. As I wandered through the virtual aisles of the FP Network I realized certain pens came up over and over again. One that I already own the Lamy Safari which is a great beginner pen, and the subject of this blog post the world “famous” P51.

The P51 is found in the wild with two different types of filling systems. The older style “Vacumatic” and the later style “Aerometric”. I quickly decided I wanted to buy the “Aerometric” filler type of 51 because they hold up better over long periods of time meaning the pen I buy has a btter chance of being usable and are easier to fill. So with my mind made up on the type of pen I would buy I went to the beast place to actually acquire pens; you guessed it the trusty old Ebay.

At first I was shocked by all the varied prices, colors and filler systems shown in each listing. Soon I became a pro at finding pens worth looking at and finally bidding on. I soon realized that all 51s are usually bought for between 30-40 dollars, and that I was totally unhderbidding and had no chance of winning. So I started bidding higher and higher usually around 35-38 dollars to try to thwart the last second pen “snipers”.

Which brings me to my current situation: Penless and broken. I have yet to win a bid. My maximum always fall a dollar or two below the selling price. But I am hoping that this bad losing streak will end soon with the current pristine turquoise pen I am bidding on.

Bshootz: still penless and heartbroken.

Popularity: 1% [?]